KI SISSA 1989

In the Torah portion Ki Sissa we learn about the sin of the golden calf.  It is interesting to note that we also learn many other things in the Torah portion Ki Sissa.  We learn about the giving of a half shekel to the Tabernacle to be used for the sacrifices of the people.  We learn about the utensils of the Tabernacle, the laver that was constructed.  We learn about the spices.  We learn about how Betzalel, the son of Uri, the son of Chur from the Tribe of Judah, constructed all the furniture and appertances of the Temple.  We also learn about the Sabbath, and then after we have learned about the sin of the golden calf we once again learn about the Temple and its importance, and we also learn once again about the holidays.  It seems strange that we would learn about these things in a Torah portion which is devoted to the sin of the golden calf.  Why didn't the Torah just devote an entire Torah portion to the sin of the golden calf?  Why do we have to include these other things about the Tabernacle and Shabbos and the holidays?  They do not seem to fit here.  After all, there is no chronological order in the Torah.  The Torah could have arranged things in a different way.  Why were all these other topics in this way?

Secondly, why was it that the people turned to make a golden calf?  After all, Moshe Rabbeinu, it might be true, delayed, but they had Aaron.  According to some rabbis, the delay was only 6 hours.  Of course, according to other rabbis it was much more; it was a day and a half, but the people had Aaron.  Why did they have to turn to foreign gods?  Aaron was their leader in Egypt before Moshe appeared on the scene.  When Moshe failed to appear, why didn't they just appoint Aaron as their leader?  There was a wag who commented that the reason is is because an assistant rabbi never makes it to be the rabbi of the congregation.  The congregation always goes and gets somebody from the outside, but the question remains, why didn't they turn to Aaron?

If we look at the sin of the golden calf we can see the reason they did not turn to Aaron.  It says, "And they rose up early on the morrow and offered burnt offerings and brought offerings and the people sat down to eat and to drink and rose up to make merry, to sexually sport".  The people did not want to turn to Aaron because Aaron bore Moshe's message.  Moshe's message was that in life the pursuit of mitzvahs is what is important.  They, on the other hand, felt that life was for the pursuit of happiness, that what gave life meaning was the pursuit of happiness.  We know in the U.S.’s Declaration of Independence it says that every man is entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  Judaism can agree with the first two statements.  Every man is entitled to life and liberty, but the pursuit of happiness will just make you tired.  We disagree.  We would say that you have to pursue mitzvahs.  What is it that actually makes your life holy?  What is it that gives meaning to your life?  It is not self-indulgence.  It is not running after your own fantasies, but this is what the people wanted to do.  They did not want to have to relate to G-d and to other human beings in a deep way.  What they wanted to do in life was just to fulfill their fantasies, to pursue them, to worship the work of their own hands.  They did not want to have to make a serious effort in order to arrive at kedusha, at holiness.  That is, of course, what we Jewish people are all about, and that is the pursuit of holiness.  How do we achieve holiness?  We achieve it through doing mitzvahs.

The rabbis tell us there are three types of holiness in the world.  There is a holiness of space, a holiness of time, and a holiness of a person, which is expressed by kedushas hamokim or kedushas oretz, and kedushas hasman, the holiness of time, and kedushas haguf, the holiness of the person.  IN order for us to feel life's true meaning, in order for us to truly be happy, we have to be holy and we have to find meaning in life.  We can only do that through pursuing mitzvahs, because a mitzvah is something which brings us together either with G-d or our fellow human being.  In fact, the word "mitzvah", itself, comes from the word "tzafteh" or "betzevet", you are "in the company of".  The purpose of Shabbos is to make us feel that we are more than ourselves, is to make us establish a relationship with G-d and with man.

That is the reason why we bracket the sin of the golden calf here with instructions about the Tabernacle and instructions about Shabbos and the holidays because it is only in this way that we can really fulfill our potential on this earth, that we can really find meaning on this earth.  G-d sanctified the Sabbath, but that is not enough.  We also have to sanctify it and then we must meet G-d in the Sabbath.  The same thing goes for all the mitzvahs that we do.  In order to maintain our integrity, our feeling of self-worth, our dignity, we must relate in a positive way to our fellow human beings, and that is what the mitzvahs allow us to do.  Unfortunately, there are too many people who are only interested in pursuing their fantasies.  They forsake the things that are really important in life, and they degrade themselves and do things that make them ashamed of themselves.  Unfortunately, in America today all we feel is that the pursuit of happiness is all that is important, and you find people who degrade themselves, by saying all sorts of foolish things and acting all sorts of foolish ways in order to succeed because they think that the success will bring them happiness, but happiness is not something you can pursue directly.  Happiness is  a by-product of achievement.

As I have mentioned many times before, according to the rabbis, there are three ways that a person can achieve happiness.  You can achieve happiness by achieving a self-set goal, unfortunately, that is the only way in America we believe we can achieve happiness.  That means that we get the degree, the promotion we wanted, we climb the mountain, etc.  The second way to achieve happiness is knowing that we are loved for ourselves, that just because we exist we are worthy of love.  The third way we achieve happiness is by bringing happiness to others, relating to others, bringing out the best in other people, making them happy.  We have to do all these three things simultaneously.  You cannot have one without the other.  We have to always realize that G-d loves us and cares for us.  That is why He created us and that we have dignity and self-worth.  We should not do things that demean ourselves and make ourselves disgusted with ourselves.  We have to try to achieve certain goals to develop our talents but never at the cost of destroying our own integrity and dignity.  We also, too, must always realize that it is through the doing of mitzvahs that we come close to G-d, and that it is by doing things for others and being with them that we feel life’s full meaning.  That is why there are so many good people working today who are working for Israel and the Jewish people.  They really do not conceive of the fact that they are doing a holy act.  They really work hard and give lots of money and have no tangible result from all this, because for most of us in America, and hopefully David Dukes is not the harbinger of the future, the KKK Wizard who was elected to the legislature in Louisiana, but most Jews in America really have no intention of going to Israel, yet it elevates us to participate in these activities, to give the money, to help our fellow Jew no matter where he is because we know this gives meaning and purpose to our life.  The same goes for all the Jewish ritual observance.  They allow us to meet G-d, to have a relationship with Him, to have a relationship with others.  That is what life is about.  It is not pursuing your fantasies.  Pursuing your fantasies is self-destruction.  It shuts people out.  It destroys families and homes, and at the end you end up tired and broken.  People who destroy their own dignity and integrity, businessmen who sell themselves out basically for a mess of pottage, lose their dignity.  They lose their self-respect, and that is something that we all must cling to.
In Judaism we say that you find yourself by attaching yourself to others.  It is not like what people say today that before they can attach themselves to others and help they have to first find themselves, because the more you get into yourself, the more you concentrate only on yourself, the more you lose yourself and the more alienated you become.”  But the more you reach out and attach yourself to others and to a people and a group and a community, the more you find yourself.  That, of course, has been the lesson of Judaism.  It is not life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  It is life, liberty, and the pursuit of mitzvahs, because mitzvahs bring you into contact with the Divine and with other people and elevate you and make you holy and make you find life's full meaning.  Unfortunately, the Jewish people, after the received the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai, did not understand the full import of this message.  When they saw that Moshe did not come back they were not interested in this message anymore.  They wanted to go back to their Egyptian experience.  They wanted to pursue their fantasies.  This indeed was a tragedy.  It was a tragedy then and it is a tragedy now when we see so many people making the same error.

I am reminded of the story they tell about an individual who applied to be a prison guard.  He went before the warden for an interview.  The warden said, "Listen, we have a lot of tough hombres, tough people here in jail.  How would you deal with them when they threaten to get out of hand?" The prospective guard looked at the warden and said, "No trouble at all.  I would just tell them to shape up or out they would go.”  Unfortunately, that is the way many people feel today.  They are not interested in establishing a relationship with G-d and with man.  All they are interested in is pursuing their fantasies.  Unfortunately, this will only lead to disaster.  Let us always remember that it is by attaching ourselves to others and to G-d that we find ourselves.  It is not by trying to get into ourselves and pursuing our fantasies.  This only leads to alienation and tragedy.  May we all attach ourselves to our people and to others and to G-d.  Amen.