Stretching & Late to the Game (Ki Tissa)

This morning, I think, was the first time I cried while hearing the story of a family from Kibbutz Be’eri.

Maybe I’m late to the game.

But what made me cry was a little different.

It was deeper than the personal story of pain and trauma of a specific family.

While heart breaking, it offered a ray of hope.

It was more than their personal story.

It was also indirectly about the loss of an intentional way of living.

A communal way.

An ideal.

Where all income goes into a common pool, and all benefit.

Where everyone has their needs met, whether it’s for health, food, education, friendship…

After months of living in a hotel with their fellow kibbutz members who survived, there were decisions to make.

As a group—as one big family—they talked.

What to do going forward?

For the good of everyone.

Some argued not to return to rebuild until they knew it was safe.

That included knowing that Palestinians would be treated fairly!!

They didn’t sound bitter, despite their unimaginable loss and grief.

And they were doing everything to stay together as a community—a community that had grown up together, like a family.

When I heard this, it brought tears to my eyes.

I was amazed at the humanity of people whose whole way of life and worldview had been threatened and upturned.

To know that, in spite of everything, they were able to maintain their care and concern for another people—

—a people they could easily turn their wrath on for having betrayed their trust.

They were not bitter.

They did not abandon their ideals.

This week in Torah, we have a story of loss of hope and faith—and a feeling of betrayal.

The Israelites have been waiting for Moses to descend Mt. Sinai for a long time.

And they’re done waiting.

With their history of grief and trauma, having escaped from slavery and walked through a wall of water through a divided sea, they are afraid.

They have experienced and seen death and destruction beyond the imagination.

In their anxiety, they descend as a mob on Moses’ brother, Aaron, and threaten him;

This guy Moses has betrayed us, they say in essence. He said he was coming back, and we see no proof of it!

“Make for us a god!”

From this comes a calf made out of gold: a false god, one they can bow down to, one they can see.

It’s a terrible moment when Moses learns of this disaster and hears God’s wrath.

Moses confronts his own wrath as well, smashing the tablets engraved by God’s own finger that he has brought down from the mountain.

Yet he pleads for the people: “Do not destroy them.”

From all this, ultimately, once all is calm, comes a beautiful moment of deep connection.

Moses has a heart-to-heart talk with God, a rational conversation, wishing to know God more deeply.

And God, in return, gives Moses a sweet assurance of revelation and protection, showing him only so much as he can observe safely—

—for to see God’s face would be too much, and Moses would die.

Since Oct. 7th, many people have abandoned hope of any kind of reconciliation, or the idea of Israeli Jews and Palestinians ever living peacefully together.

We want to see proof in a moment when there appears to be none.

Many have likewise abandoned hope of a world where people can live together and support each other in community.

We are caught, both literally and figuratively, in the crossfire between political players.

Yet we do have choices.

We do not have to make false gods of these political powers—as if they are there to protect and keep us safe.

We do not have to give in to forces that personally gain by keeping us afraid and full of hatred, ready to explode.

And just like those members of Kibbutz Be’eri, we do not have to give in to bitterness and hatred.

We do not have to react from our gut, despite feeling vulnerable.

We can choose, instead, to have rational, calm conversations.

We can choose to make sweet connections—and see what might be revealed.

It may take stretching ourselves to maintain hope and commitment to an ideal.

But we are capable of stretching.

Join me if you will.

The ripple effects are immeasurable.

And say Amen.

Note: To hear the story I describe above, listen to the latest episode of This American Life, called Family Meeting.

To hear more on communal living in today’s world, listen to the Ezra Klein show when he interviewed the author of an upcoming book about reimagining life “with friendship at the center.”