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The International Undertaking
that Rescued 1.5 Million Jews

God, I Want To Know You

Parshat Ki Tisa: Exodus 30:11-34:35;
I Kings 18:1-18:39.

Dawn at Sinai

N

ow that we take our phones
Let me behold Your Presence!” And,
with us everywhere we go,
interestingly enough, God complies.
there’s an immediacy about
“There is a little place near Me, a cleft
our communications. Everything has
in the rock. Go station yourself there,
to be done right here, right now. No
and I will let My Presence pass before
waiting.
you.”
I feel like in the “olden
It is a beautiful and moving
days” of my youth, things were
passage, intimate and person-
slower. People left messages
al, and so completely opposite
and waited for you to get back
of the scene with the golden
to them. It might even take a
calf. The people are ready
day or two. But not today. And
to reject God, while Moses
frankly, not even back in bibli-
wants to know God. By ask-
cal times (and probably not
ing to see God’s Presence, he
Rabbi Marla
even when I was a child).
doesn’t need to validate God’s
Hornsten
It turns out that in our
existence, as did the people.
Torah portion, Ki Tisa, where
Instead he is saying, I want a
we read the story of the golden calf, the stronger relationship. I want to con-
Israelites also needed immediate grati- firm this covenant that we have made.
fication and response. Still insecure of
Essentially, he is saying: God, I
their new relationship with God, still
want to know you. We also respond
anxious and unsure and filled with
to this need, as an innermost desire
doubt, the Israelites stood at the base
of humankind. We want to know God
of the mountain of Sinai, waiting, wait- personally and intimately.
ing for Moses. Waiting. Waiting. Forty
Can we ask, as Moses did, “O God,
days is a long time to wait.
let me behold Your Presence?”
And after what seems like forever,
I believe we can if our intention is
they are tired of waiting. Under Aaron’s right. We need only start by talking to
authority, they take off their gold jew-
God.
elry and fashion it into a golden calf.
And once we have made that con-
When it is done, Aaron, calls out, “This nection, our relationship with every-
is your god, O Israel, who brought you
thing else becomes deeper, more
out of the land of Egypt … Tomorrow
meaningful and more powerful. It
will be a festival to Adonai!”
gives us a whole new way of looking at
He has deemed this calf god and
things.
called it by God’s name. It is heretical;
I know it’s hard to find the time to
it is idolatrous; it is sacrilegious, but
sit down for a heart-to-heart with God.
it’s not hard to understand why it hap-
But I recently heard of an interesting
pened. The people needed a physical
technique that really seems to work:
representation of God to prove God’s
Talk to God before … before, the world
existence, to pacify them, to console
wakes up, before the kids wake up,
them, to make them secure in their
before the onslaught of the real world
belief.
catches us.
But ironically, this idol is contrary to
You might have to wake up a few
everything that God is and contrary to minutes earlier but talk to God before
everything that Judaism holds dear.
… and when the day does start up,
This is the situation that Moses
everything will be a littler clearer, a
returns to when he comes down the
little more manageable, a little more
mountain. He has to pacify God.
secure, and perhaps we’ll realize that
Angry as he is toward his brother
it’s OK to wait a minute or a day, (but
and toward the people, he is forced to
probably not 40 days) for an
intervene on their behalf.
answer.
But then, he surprises me because
Marla Hornsten is a rabbi at Temple Israel in
Moses wants to see God, too. To God,
West Bloomfield.
he says, “Now if I have truly gained
your favor, let me know your ways …

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Jewish Family Service
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Tuesday, May 17, 2016
Congregation Shaarey Zedek
6:30 p.m.
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February 25 • 2016

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