Welcome to The Morning Scroll! I'm Rabbi Deena Cowans from Mishkan Chicago and you're listening to what will be a quick dive into this week's parsha. If you’ve been meaning to brush up on your Jewish literacy, or you’re looking for some inspiration, you’ve come to the right place. This week, we read Parashat Ki Tisa, “When you count” or literally, “when you lift up”. We’ll start with a brief recap:
God commands Moshe to take a census of all adult males by collecting a silver half-shekel from each person, which gets made into components for the Mishkan. God then gives Moshe a recipe for a special anointing oil and incense. God singles out Betzalel and gives him special wisdom to oversee construction, and reminds the people to keep Shabbat as a special sign. Moses goes back up the mountain, where he stays for 40 days and gets the rest of the Torah. The Israelites panic that he’s never coming back, and ask Aaron to make them a new God, so Aaron collects gold and melts it down into a calf. The people throw a wild party with the calf, which God hears, gets mad, and sends Moshe down the mountain to stop. Moshe sees them, and throws the tablets with the Torah written on them in his anger, breaking the tablets. He asks the Levites to help him kill anyone who worshiped the calf, then heads back up Mount Sinai, where God says “I am no longer going to physically lead you, an angel will.” Moses is like “no, please, be with us and only us” and God agrees. Moshe then asks to see God’s face, to which God says “you can see my back but not my face”. Moshe carves new tablets, and God passes in front of him, while Moshe cries out God’s attributes. God seals a covenant to have a unique relationship with the Israelites, and tells the Israelites to destroy any idolatry they find. God gives a few laws about holidays and kashrut, then Moshe comes back down the mountain with the new tablets. Unbeknownst to him, he has beams of light projecting off of him, which scares the people, so from now on he wears a veil when talking with the Israelites, but takes it off when talking to God or repeating God’s words.
Something fundamentally changes for Moshe at the end of this parsha, which is visualized by the beams of light shining from his face. The Torah attributes this to the fact that Moshe had spoken directly to God… but this was hardly the first time Moshe spoke directly with God! If that was the case, he should have been shining since the incident of the burning bush. Rather, Rashi quotes the Midrash as saying it wasn’t about speaking with God, but that God had covered Moshe’s face as God passed by, and this direct contact with God is what caused Moshe to begin shining. This direct contact then impacts every relationship Moshe has going forward, because he has to start moderating his appearance between talking to the people and talking to God.
We all have relationships like this, that change who we are and how we relate to the entire world. This is something that the Talmud particularly emphasizes: sages will almost always quote the chain of transmission on an opinion, not necessarily because it makes the right, but because the people we learn from change not only what we learn, but how we think. It reminds me of the line in Wicked, in which Glinda and Elphaba agree, “Who can say if I’ve been changed for the better, but because I knew you, I have been changed for good.”
I want to bless Moshe as he adjusts to a new way of being in the world, one which will continue to impact how he exists for the rest of his life. And I want to offer a blessing to everyone who has had that kind of impact on me, and encourage you to think of who is with you, like a handprint on your heart or a ray of light shining from you.