Ki Tisa

Shabbat Shalom! This week's portion is a Hebrew School Classic: The Golden Calf story. So you guys know the deal, Moses goes up to Mt. Sinai and the people get lonely so they get Moses' brother Aaron to make a golden calf out of their earrings, God and Moses get mad yada yada. There are two major things you can take from this portion:

1. Taking responsibility can be hard
2. Believing without seeing is also hard

Starting with responsibility, HSTY went to Rutgers Hillel for Shabbat last night and their rabbi gave us this situation:

"Say you really want to go to Wawa in the middle of the night and you beg your friend to drive you. She agrees as long as you give her directions. You get near the Wawa and you tell her to make a sudden turn but she can't see it- and she hits another car. Who's responsible for the crash?" 

I personally thought it was my own fault for making my friend drive me in the first place but there's room for debate. This debate thing is where it gets tricky in regards to the creation of this golden calf. Is it Moses' fault for leaving the Israelites, Aaron's fault for suggesting the idea without thinking it would actually happen, the Israelites fault for not staying true to God or God's fault for making the Israelites in the first place? Aaron tried to escape blame by saying that when he put the gold in the fire a calf randomly came out *legit Torah right there*. No matter what angle you take, each group shares a little bit of the blame.

Next, believing without seeing. When Moses left for Mt. Sinai, the Israelites were without their leader and didn't know what to do with their lives. They built an idol, not to replace God but to fill the void that Moses left. God saw what was going on and was PISSED. God threatened to kill all the Israelites and start a new nation from Moses but Moses had hope that this was just a mistake. Also, what was the point of killing the Israelites if God made all that effort to get them out of Egypt? Anyways, Moses came down the mountain with the 10 Commandments but finally saw what his people had created and were worshipping. He was horrified as well! In his anger, Moses threw the 10 Commandments on the ground and they shattered into pieces. DUN DUN DUNNNN

So that's where the Torah leaves us this week, in quite a pickle. The only way to fix this mess is if everyone owns up to their mistakes and trusts each other so this week try to take responsibility for your actions and have a little faith!