Shabbat - Parshat Ki Tissa

February 28, 2024
19 Adar-1 5784

Rabbi on the Portion

Ki Tissa and Celebrating Our Abstract

My video this week is a little longer than usual.

The theme will be familiar to most of you as we read about THE GOLDEN CALF.

My take is that the desert Israelites were not guilty of unfaithfulness.

What can we expect of a slave generation, newly liberated from the traumas of oppression?

The new faith imposed on them was not like a light switch one can turn on or off at will. B'nai Yisrael required time and patience to absorb a tradition - and GOD - which is still troublesome to most Jews today.

The GOLDEN CALF reflects the doubts and the insecurities which burden a majority of Jews in our own time: Especially in terms of embracing an 'intangible' God acting within a world plagued by the 'tangibles' of suffering, poverty, and racism.

Tune in for my take on the story and the challenges for modern Jews to embrace God and faith.

Shabbat Shalom,
Am Yisrael Chai,

Rabbi Klayman