Ki Tisa at Torah Study, a special guest post by Keith Weinstein

After Rabbi Sara Leya’s Drasha  on Shabbat Eve, the Torah study group met on Saturday morning and delved further into the significance of Moses desire to see God face to face.  We found ourselves talking about a far range of topics like inviting wealth and Neuro-Linguistic Programming.  It’s a lively group and we encourage you to join us if you have the inclination. 

There are actually two other topics in this weeks parsha that warn us of the hazards of seeing: the census and the golden calf.  In the first, the Israelites are told not to take a head count but rather to have everyone give a shekel.  Even with this precaution, many thousands die of plague because the count has occurred.  Is this a warning about the danger of seeing people as objects to be counted?  Certainly there is the risk in modern times of deceiving ourselves into reducing life to a numerical value.  Still, it is pragmatic that when you are trying to get organized you need to know how many people are in the tribe.  Econ 101 certainly says so. 

In the second topic, the Israelites, terrified in the desert and unable to bear waiting any longer for Moses to come down from the mountain, persuade Aaron to make for them a golden calf which they can see and worship.  For this sin, the original tablets are destroyed and many more thousands are killed.  Our tradition warns us strongly against making a visual representation of Divinity.  What is without limit (Eyn Soph) cannot be reduced to physical form.  Yet, visual images and idols have been a central and vibrant part of human spirituality from time immemorial.  The Ancient Egyptians were not alone in this.  Maria Gimbatus and Rianna Eisler certainly say yea. 

Finally, Moses asks to see G!d and is told that this is beyond what is possible to experience and yet live.  Instead, G!d arranges to shelter Moses in the cleft of a rock and cover him as S/he passes by and then allow him to see His/Her back.  Even Moses, it seems, who has been sitting and talking with G!d for weeks, has this burning desire not merely to hear but to see G!d with his own eyes. 

In seeing, we think we know a thing, don’t we?  “A picture’s worth a thousand words.”  Yet this kind of knowing accentuates the surface of things and the desire to possess it.  “You can’t tell a book by its cover,” and "still waters run deep," are the antithesi here.  Well then what is below the surface? 

Vision is a latter development in evolution and much of the brain is devoted to de-coding and processing visual input.  Speculatively, we can say that vision is further removed than the other senses from the experience of oneness and connectedness out of which conscious emerges in both infancy and evolution.  Sight emphasizes separation and boundaries, hearing and touch reinforce connection.  And that sixth sense, kinesthetic feeling, gives us direct access to intuition (the gut) and the embodied experience of Shekhina (the shiver in our spine and the melting of our hearts).

We humans want many things and long for a few.  When most of us get down to the bone, our hearts want to love and to let love in (though a few of us hold out for power it’s true).  Counting keeps us focused on the many, mostly money and the things it can buy.  Wealth is when we have what we need to thrive and grow and it is important to actualize this desire.  But wealth is not spending our energy, chasing what we don’t need, because we’re caught in the hype.  What leads us towards hype?  Visual images primarily.  We see a thing and want to possess it, as the advertising industry knows so well.  Whatever we have, it is important to practice “Dayenu,” (it’s enough) so we can be present to where we actually are. 

Idols like the golden calf orient us towards a fixed image of what we desire.  The pageant of the Academy Awards and the crop of new films it displays dazzles us with a brilliance and beauty that might just rival what Aaron was able to produce from gold and jewels in the desert.  At best, film can expand our imaginations, giving us courage and inspiration.  At worst, films can serve as a substitute for our lives, helping us numb out to the challenges and opportunities that greet us each day.  Undoubtedly, film is a visual feast. But, “it’s not the same as reading the book.”

Finally, not many of us get invited to sit with God and write the rules, let alone ask for a personal cameo appearance.  Still in our Kaballat Shabbat service this past Friday night when we sang Chochmat’s version of the Priestly Blessing for the newborn Elon Yehuda, I had the distinct feeling that the Presence was with us.  I suppose a baby on the Torah surrounded by a community of love is a scene that the Shekinah wouldn’t miss.  But don’t count on it.  Just believe. 

Keith Weinstein
3/7/10