Masquerades & Ki Tissa

This past week, I had one of the most beautiful Shabboses I’ve had in a long time.

First on Friday night out at Romemu Brooklyn, and then in the morning at Romemu Manhattan.

For those who know me, you know that, during the pandemic, there was a rift at Romemu, the synagogue that was my initial inspiration for becoming a rabbi—not between the two Romemus, but within the community itself (nor is it a secret).

But on Saturday, many people that hadn’t been together in years gathered for a beautiful baby naming. A couple who had met and fallen in love there, got married and had a baby.

There was a hint of the old community we had had, and many of us cried as this beautiful baby was placed on the open Torah scroll to receive her blessings. And she slept through the whole thing, totally at peace. It was the first time as far as we could remember that this had happened—or maybe we wanted to remember it that way, like we had all achieved a kind of peace since the rift began years ago.

It felt like the sanctuary, the mishkan, the Israelites were commanded to build in the desert, a place for God to dwell amongst us, a place to find peace amid the turmoil of the world.

As the Torah story develops, this week, in Ki Tissa, we are told to pay attention to the details of the instruments to be used by the priests in the mishkan: the laver, holy anointing oil, the incense. God appoints an artist, a craftsperson whose spirit is "infused with the Divine,” to be in charge of the design and carving of stones and metal work.

The chosen artist’s name is Betzalel, which can be translated in two possible ways: either, “In the Shadow of the Divine,” or “Divine Egg” (speaking of the shortage of eggs we’re experiencing in the U.S. right now…).

God gives this job to one who, like an egg, contains unimaginable potential: not a prophet like Moses, nor a priest like Aaron, as Rabbi Shefa Gold points out in her Torah Journeys—nor a king!

Meanwhile, each in the community is commanded to contribute a half shekel toward the building of the mishkan—the same, whether rich or poor. This money, called a “ransom of the soul,” is used for casting the sockets for the sanctuary, which literally hold the structure together, as Rabbi Gold stresses.

Why a “ransom”? Because the soul is in danger if we don’t consciously contribute and commit ourselves to being a part of the creation of the community, and acknowledging the equal value of all; the half shekel redeems us each from the illusion of separation.

Then, amidst this building of community, the Golden Calf rears its ugly head.

The people are anxious. Moses has disappeared to the top of Mt. Sinai, gone for forty days as he convenes with God. When is he coming back? How can they live with the anxiety of the unknown? What will become of them without their great leader?

“Make for us a God!” they yell at Aaron, threatening him. And Aaron, in his own fear and anxiety, takes all their gold jewelry, casts it into a fire, and out comes a calf made of gold—just like that.

The people are thrilled. They dance and eat and celebrate. They have their god, solid, “real,” right there in front of them.

The Golden Calf exists with no interior space, only for itself, solid, “full of itself,” glorifying only itself, taking on a life of its own, out of control, as Rabbi Gold writes. The mishkan, on the other hand, exists for the empty space within it, built to send us to a holy inner space.

The people, believing that their leader, Moses, is there to take away their impatience and fear and fill them up with a sense of power, have transferred all their hopes and dreams—and sense of power—to a material, glittery, god.

What is left, however, is an “unbearable void” (Shefa Gold again).

After my beautiful Shabbat, I was feeling so full, so connected to community. I thought, “now I have achieved my inner peace. Maybe I can hold onto it and stay grounded in it, despite the turmoil in the world around me.

It lasted through Sunday.

And the week started, and just like that, three little things presented themselves in my life, and I was thrown completely off.

They weren’t in the category of life-altering events. My family is safe and healthy, I’m not being displaced by war, deprived of food or medical care, losing my income because a bunch of people in power decided my job is not worthy or because I was on strike. I’m not facing possible eviction from my home like so many people in this country. The Department of Homeland Security is not coming to abduct me in the night for being an activist or mediator between campus protesters and university provosts, sending me down to Louisiana, depriving me of due process, threatening to deport me, despite my good legal status in the Land of the Free with the “greatest legal system in the world.”

No, the things that happened to me are more in the category of a broken heirloom dish or someone questioning my integrity. Minor, really, but enough to throw me out of my inner sanctuary. Some people would say “God was testing me.”

If I was being tested, it worked. I became distracted by little, insignificant things, interactions with people, things they said, forgetting for a day that I know who I am, I know my value, I have integrity and I live by it.

My inner sanctuary, my mishkan of empty space that makes room for the Divine was temporarily filled with doubt and powerlessness, which became my Golden Calf masquerading as the Divine, grabbing my attention away from my strength, like the glitter of my phone constantly vying for my attention.

To regain my inner sanctum, I went out into the beautiful, fake, global-warming spring (64 degrees in NYC in mid-March, though I have boycotted unseasonable weather in the past the way we should all be boycotting Amazon, Whole Foods, and Target, because we should not be “normalizing” it, surrendering to global climate catastrophe any more than we should surrender to the wealthiest people in the world controlling our future.)

After what felt like a wasted, unproductive day, I had a good night’s sleep and woke up feeling balanced again, ready to write my weekly blog. So here I am, back in the (Divine?) flow, with this blog flowing out of me.

Was it a wasted, unproductive day? I don’t think so now. I did some very deep, spiritual work that needed doing. I found myself again in the Shadow of God, or the Divine Egg, where the Divine incubates to grow and develop.

But the question remains for us all: as we enter the holiday of Purim, when we masquerade as someone else, will we allow the Golden Calf of despair, hopelessness, and anxiety to fool us in its masquerade, threatening to pull us away from the power of community, telling us we cannot, will not, will never…?

For way too long, we have been placing all our hopes and dreams into individual leaders, as we did with Obama, ignoring problems like mass deportation. We didn’t want to hear it, we weren’t allowed to say it, because he was our One Savior. That wasn’t okay, and the proof is in the pudding, and the pudding is where we find ourselves now (though the eggs in the pudding still carry the potential to create something else!).

The God of the Bible designated an artist, a more regular kind of person, imbued with creativity, not a prophet, not a priest, and demanded that we recognize the equal worth of all. When we put people on thrones, we are not valuing ourselves as equally responsible and equally powerful, or recognizing that together, we can come up with all kinds of creative ways to have an impact, making us the most powerful of all.

I hear people say, “We just have to get through the next four years,” but we’ve been here before, and the problems will not be solved by just waiting it out.

Together as a community, we are the Divine Egg. We hold the potential to grow a just and fair society as long as every single one of us participates in the building. The Golden Calf of Despair will keep rearing its ugly head if we don’t put in our half shekel and use the power we have, like in the “small” actions of boycotting that can have huge impacts, especially when the Golden Calf driving the world is money. It takes community, all of us, to build a just country and world. If we each put in our half shekel, it is not too late to redeem our souls from those who would like to own them.

I end with a quote (thanks to my friend Debra) from the Jewish prophet Micah that answers the question: “What does our God require of us?” “Only to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk modestly with your God.”

So let us stop allowing our fears and anxieties to control us, stop focusing on our individual comfort and ease and grumbling about the tiny things, start making a few simple sacrifices (like changing our shopping habits once and for all, for instance!), find our inner space of peace, fill it up with our strength and courage and creativity, put in our half shekel for the sake of all, and redeem the soul of our society.

And say Amen.