Parashat Ki Tisa: On Containment and Creativity

Akh et Shabtotai Tishmoru . But you should still keep my Sabbaths, says God in this week’s parsha. What is this Akh, this “But?” The classical interpretation explains that the Akh refers back to the work of building the Mishkan, the Tabernacle. Yes, this work is important – so important that we have just spent two parshiyyot defining it and will spend two more performing it – but do not do this work on Shabbat.

The various types of work – 39 types in all—involved in building the Miskhan actually define the type of work prohibited on the Sabbath, called melakhah. What is melakhah? Melakhah is creative human manipulation of the raw materials created by God. You take gold and you mold it into a menorah. You take wool and you weave it into priestly garments.

But dangers lurk in this human creativity. The extreme form of such dangers is spelled out in the story of the Israelites’ first idolatry, the Sin of the Golden Calf, also in this week’s parsha. To worship an idol means to worship the product of one’s own hands, to worship one’s own creative powers. My youngest son Asher said to me the other day: God made us people, and then we made cows and sheep and everything, right? No. That is the mistake the Israelites made. No matter how fancy the craftsmanship, that calf can never breathe. There are limits to our creative abilities. Shabbat, with its big Akh, its big “but,” is there to point out those limitations.

Shabbat’s position in these parshiyyot communicates this Akh message as well. The Shabbat commandment appears here, between the Mishkan and the Calf, and then again in next week’s parsha, after the Calf and before the resumption of the Mishkan narrative. The order is: Mishkan, Shabbat, Calf, Shabbat, Mishkan. It is as if Shabbat stands guard on either side of the Calf, marking the border beyond which human creativity turns into idolatry.

But the Torah’s attitude toward human creativity should not be summed up by the word Akh. On the other side of that Akh is the divinely sanctioned human production of the Mishkan. The need for such human participation in God’s created universe is the other important message of the Calf story. This sin was a communication of the basic human need to participate creatively in this world, an expression of our great energy and talent. We could not sit idly awaiting the reception of God’s Torah, but needed to actively create something, to express ourselves religiously. Yes, this creative energy needs harnessing, but it also needs expression. The Calf story sits at the heart of all these parshiyyot because it represents the unbridled heart of humanity, its essential need to participate actively and creatively in God’s world.

Like a wild energetic child, what the Israelites needed was both containment – the Sabbath -- as well as an appropriate forum for expression -- the construction of the Mishkan – a way of chanelling their energies and talents into the service of God.