Parashat Ki Tisa 5786

by Rabbi Margie Cella

This week’s parashah is probably known best for the story of the golden calf. Tradition tells us that two groups of people did not participate in this great sin: the Levites, and the women. For their faithfulness, the Levites were given the privilege of assisting the Kohanim in the tabernacle (and later the Temple) worship. We women were rewarded with Rosh Chodesh, a monthly opportunity to socialize, study, and pray.

Later in the parashah, Moses asks to see God’s face. While God tells him that no human may do this and live, God promises to shield Moses in a cleft of the rock with God’s hand as God passes by, and Moses will be able to see God’s back. Rashi says that what Moses actually saw was the head knot of God’s tefilin.

After this, Moses is told by God to carve a new set of tablets (to replace the ones that he had broken) and carry them up Mt. Sinai for God to engrave them. Once there, Moses (or God) declared the Thirteen Attributes of God, through which God is able to grant forgiveness: among other things, God is compassionate, merciful, gracious, slow to anger; has abundant kindness, truthfulness, and loving kindness, forgives sins, and acquits from sin. [Exodus 34:6-7] The Talmud explains that at this moment God wrapped Godself in a tallit to demonstrate to Moses how one should structure and order prayers for forgiveness, beginning by donning a tallit. [BT, Rosh Hashanah 17b:5-6]

God wears tallit and tefilin. When I do the same each morning to begin my Shacharit prayers, I am emulating God. Together we begin the new day.

Oseh Shalom, Maker of Peace, may we soon see the day when our right to pray at the Egalitarian Kotel (Ezrat Yisrael) will be guaranteed, instead of threatened.