Parashat Ki Tisa: The Answer to the Golden Calf

I imagine the Israelites down on the bottom of the mountain waiting for Moshe to come down. He is late and they feel abandoned and insecure. They are not yet sure of their relationship with God and their physical representative is gone. They are confused and scared, anxious and impatient. They build the Golden Calf out of this free floating anxiety, this uncertainty, just as we would open the refrigerator or buy something – anything to make us feel more grounded.

The answer to the Golden Calf is the Tabernacle because the answer to all such anxiety and insecurity is divine Presence. And the Tabernacle is Presence writ large, presence that physically accompanies them wherever they go, presence that resides among them, presence that reminds them that God will never abandon them.

What they didn’t know down at the bottom of the mountain, what they didn’t yet realize and needed to learn, was that God was always already with them, always available to them. In that moment of confusion and uncertainty, when they were filled with doubts and fears, when they thought this was the end – in that very moment they could have accessed God. There was no need for Moshe, no need for a Calf, no need for some chocolate. It was simply a matter of tapping in to the divine presence that already surrounded them.

Sometimes when I am feeling lonely or sad or worried or stressed, I say to myself: Shiviti Hashem lenegdi tamid. “I place God before me always,” and it makes me smile. I suddenly feel embraced and accompanied. The world is indeed an unpredictable, confusing and worrying place. People come late. Things don’t happen the way we expect them to. But the answer is not a Golden Calf, but the Tabernacle, the knowledge that God always resides among us.