Ki Tisa: Listening for the Missing Voices

Next week we are concluding the Second Book of the Torah, Exodus. And for me personally, I am approaching the mid-way point in my third year of writing a weekly Torah commentary. I've really enjoyed engaging directly with the Torah reading each week, especially since I find new perspectives, and new insights, each time I read the text. In part I think it's because there's so much going on in the text, that if you just squint (metaphorically speaking) and look at it from a slightly different angle, you see something new every time. And at the same time I also think that I see new things in the Torah reading because I am in a different place myself. My life has changed, my surroundings have changed, and the world has changed; and so I am sensitive to different aspects of the text every time I read it.

This week we're reading about the notorious Golden Calf, and how the people completely lost all faith in God and in Moses. Instead, they turned to an idolatrous statue to worship as their god. It's mind-boggling to think that this people, who had seen plagues in Egypt and splitting seas in the desert, could doubt God's power. And could there have been any question that Moses was God's prophet? Towards the end of this week's parasha, we read that "The Lord would speak to Moses face to face, as one man speaks to another" (Ex. 33:11). So what WERE they thinking when they committed this heinous act of disobedience?

But in addition to this question, I would also like to ask something else, something new. My new realization this year is that once Moses comes down from the mountain and begins to punish the people, they never speak! No one tries to make excuses, no one begs for forgiveness, and no one yells back at Moses, "Well where have YOU been for 40 days?? We've been waiting down here forever!" Nothing! No one says a word. Once they've made their idol, we don't see them doing anything until they remove their "finery" to repent for their heretical sin.

So my new insight this year is that Moses and God fail to learn an important lesson from this whole incident. They don't see how frightened the people are. They had been uprooted from their homes, dragged through the desert for months, witnessed thunder and lightning at Mount Sinai, and were then given a looong list of Commandments to live by. They are thoroughly overwhelmed! And instead of trying to understand what they are going through, God and Moses rebuke them, assault them, and call them a "stiffnecked people." Starting now, and for the rest of their 40 years of wandering, the complaining and groaning never stops. Perhaps it's because no one takes the time to sympathize with everything they've been through. Their opinions, their feelings, and their struggles are never addressed or validated.

Sometimes we make these same mistakes. Children are not given input into their religious school education, congregants aren't asked about how to structure worship services, and outlier populations in the community aren't approached and questioned about how we can best serve their needs. And subsequently we wind up with the same results as Moses: old methods that don't work, and a community that doesn't buy in to the goals of the leadership.

How do we move together in the same direction? In my opinion, the crucial word is communication. Whether we create successful programs or programs that fail miserably (though hopefully never as badly as idol worship...), we need to communicate with one another. Only when we understand one another's goals, plans, ideas, as well as concerns, fears, and hang-ups, can we truly move forward together. I'm not sure the leaders of the Exodus from Egypt ever learned this lesson. Let's not make the same mistake.