Parashat Ki Tisa: The Sandwich Parsha

This week’s parsha, Ki Tisa, relates the sin of the Golden Calf and its aftermath. The parsha is sandwiched on either side by parshiyyot dealing with the erection of the mishkan, the Tabernacle -- parshiyyot Terumah and Tetzaveh on one side and Vayakhel and Pekudei on the other.

Nehama Leibowitz outlines a basic disagreement among classical commentators as to the actual order of events. According to many rabbinic midrashim, as well as Rashi, Maimonides and others, the Golden Calf took place first, and God only ordered the erection of the mishkan as a reaction to the sin of the Golden Calf. By creating an idol out of gold, the people showed that they had need of a more concrete form of worship, and the mishkan was an accommodation to this need.

According to Nachmanides, however, the order of events is as it stands in the Torah. God ordered the construction of the mishkan, the people sinned, and then, after the people repented and God forgave them, Moshe was allowed to continue with the instructions for the mishkan as a sign of this forgiveness and God’s continued desire to reside among His people.

Building on these classical notions, I want to ask the question a little differently: Whether or not the events took place in this order, why does the Torah tell the story in this way? What message is conveyed by this enveloping structure of – mishkan, sin and forgiveness, mishkan?

The orders for the construction of the Tabernacle and its furniture and utensils are quite detailed and precise. Everything in God’s house must be just-so; these are holy things and a holy place where God will dwell.

What happens in the middle of all this divine order, holiness and perfection, is the messy truth about human beings. The mishkan symbolizes God’s desire to reside on earth, among His people. But His people are human beings, fraught with imperfection. The Golden Calf episode points out these imperfect qualities. The people are impatient for Moshe to come down; they are doubting and impulsive, having very quickly forgotten their experiences of God in Egypt, at the Sea and at Sinai. And they are base and unholy, eating, drinking, laughing and making loud merry sounds when they should have been serious.

Such is the nature of humanity. We are insecure and doubting, base, impulsive and impatient. Can God reside amongst such? It is almost as if the people are testing Him, acting out their worst qualities as if to say: Can you really live with this?

The answer, on God’s part, after some coaxing from Moshe, is definitely yes. There is anger and punishment after the Golden Calf, but there is also forgiveness and the forgiveness is long and exceedingly intimate. In fact, it is during this process of forgiveness that the most intimate moment between God and a human occurs, when God physically “passes over” Moshe and tells him all of His special attributes.

The mishkan’s construction is not the only thing that happens twice in this series of parshiyyot. There are also two sets of luhot, tablets. The first are thrown down and broken by Moshe in anger at the Golden Calf. That could have been the end of the God-Israel relationship. But no. Humans are humans and will be imperfect, and this is a relationship that will always have room for second chances. A second set of luhot; a second chance to build a mishkan.

The implication of the structure of these parshiyyot is that what stands at the heart of the building of this perfect divine dwelling place is imperfection, sin and forgiveness. At the same time, what contains, supports and buttresses this messy relationship in the middle is the building itself, the walls of the mishkan which, like the parshiyyot, stand on either side of the mess. The divine-human relationship needs structure and holiness on the one hand, and on the other hand, it also needs to allow room for mistakes and anger and the growth in intimacy which result from such encounters.