KI SISSA 2001-B

In the Torah portion, Ki Sissa, we learn how when Moshe Rabbeinu was up on Mount Sinai receiving the Ten Commandments and the Torah, the Jewish people began worshipping the golden calf.  The rabbis say that it was not that they were worshipping an idol, but that they felt they needed to have a vehicle to reach G-d.  They could not reach G-d unaided.  Up until this time, Moshe Rabbeinu had served as their vehicle to reach G-d.  As Rav Cook says, they craved spirituality.  They wanted to maintain the spiritual experience they had at Mount Sinai when G-d had given them the Ten Commandments.  G-d gave them at least part of the Ten Commandments directly.  They craved spirituality.

As Rav Cook said, spirituality can be a very dangerous thing if it is not conducted in the correct way.  They wanted to feel united to the Creator of All.  
We know how spirituality can lead to all sorts of perversions: human sacrifice, child imolation, terrible destructive sexual practices, etc.  We saw how the Aztecs worshipped.  That's why the Gemorah says that G-d says it is better that you treat each other ethically and morally correct and forget about Me, rather than concentrate on G-d and forget all about ethics and morality.  Moshe did not know anything at all what the people were doing.  He was having the highest spiritual experience.  G-d spoke to Moshe and said, "Lech Raidd, go, go down because your people have corrupted."  Rabbi Soloveitchik said that the purpose of a leader is to go down to the people.  That's why it says "go" twice.  Go, go down.  A leader has to understand the people.  He has to lift them up.  He cannot be so far above them that he does not understand their problems.

G-d told Moshe, "And now leave Me and let My anger flare up against them, and I will consume them, and I will make you into a great nation."  The rabbis all ask, what does it mean, "And now leave Me alone, My anger will flare up?"  Anybody who is married knows that when their spouse says, "I don't care.  Do what you want, ii you had better not do it if you want to stay married.  The rabbis ask, what was Moshe doing?  Holding onto G-d' s jacket that G-d should say leave Me alone?"

G-d was just giving Moshe an opportunity to beg G-d to forgive the Jewish people.  That's what G-d wanted Moshe to do.  The verse then continues by saying, "And Moshe pleaded before G-d."  The Gemorah in Brochas says that his prayer burned down to his bones.  It came out of his bones, themselves.  The Meshach Kochma, Rabbi Meir Simcha HaCohen of Dvinsk, explains that Moshe was, in effect, telling G-d it would not do any good to wipe out the

people and start a new people from me.  You would still be keeping Your promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to have a great nation come out of them, because I am a descendant of them.  However, even though I am at a high spiritual level, I know in my bones, themselves, that I, too, could have worshipped the golden calf as a means to reach You, and I know that my children and grandchildren are capable of doing the same thing.  The rabbis explain there are three partners in the creation of a human being: G-d, a man, and a woman, and the man contributes the bones.  In other words, Moshe was saying, my own descendants could worship idols, and his grandson, Yonatan, did worship the Pessel Micah, the idol Micah.
It is our job to reach people, not to shun people.  We do not know what our grandchildren or our great-grandchildren will do.  Some of the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the greatest Jewish scholars of the past 100 years are far from being observant Jews.  Many of the descendants of the Chofetz Chaim and of Israel Salanter, founder of the Muser movement, and eve of some of the Lubavitcher rebbes are no longer close to our traditions.  I have met some of them.  Hopefully, their children and grandchildren will come much closer.  

After all, the great-grandson of Trotsky is running a yeshiva in Jerusalem.  It is our job to elevate everyone, to go down to meet them, not to water down our standards, but to be open to them, to bring them into our homes and our community, and not to treat them as someone apart from us.  They are part of our bones.

Today is also Parshas Porah.  We took out two Torahs.  In the second Torah, we read about the red heifer, how the ashes of the red heifer, combined with hyssop and water, were sprinkled on people who became ritually unclean to make them ritually clean.  All those who had a hand in preparing these ashes, themselves became ritually unclean.  In other words, there was a great paradox here:  that which made unclean, made the clean unclean.  Why is this?

The answer is we know that many times people who deal with others who are hurting sometimes adopt a supercilious attitude.  They somehow think they are better than those they are dealing with and above the problems they are dealing with.  That's why many times, these people think they are immune from the problems they are dealing with and get into trouble.  We know, of course, about therapists and psychiatrists and even rabbis who cross the line and get sexually involved with the people they counsel.  We know about lawyers and accountants who sometimes embezzle.  We know about doctors who sometimes take drugs.  Just because we understand about different interpersonal and physical reactions does not mean we are immune from them.  Therefore, we should not feel superior to other people.  We should not feel that we have to shun them, but, instead, we should reach out to them, and we should realize that we can help each other uplift our lives, and not feel that only certain kinds of people do certain things, but we never would do them.  In our own personal life, many of us are indebted to individuals who have helped raise us, and we should always open our minds and hearts to help raise others, and not look down on anybody.  If Moshe Rabbeinu realized that he and his family could also sink to the level of idol worship, then we should realize that we, too, could unless we constantly strive to uplift ourselves, and constantly strive to help others uplift themselves by constantly reaching out to them and not be pushing them away.

I am reminded of the story about Vice President Cheney having breakfast with his staffers.  The waitress came to take the orders.  Vice President Cheney ordered corn flakes.  One of the staffers ordered eggs.  One ordered a quicky.  The waitress got very angry and said, "I thought we had a moral White House this time."  She stomped away, and Cheney said to the staffer, "The word is quiche."  We all in our bones know that we, too, could worship idols, and do other things that are inappropriate.  Therefore, we should look down on no one, but should constantly look to raise ourselves and help raise others so the Mashiach will come quickly in our day.  Amen.