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Shalom!!
What does it take to fix a mistake? Sometimes, it can be as simple as saying “I’m sorry,” but other times, it takes so much more.
In this week’s Torah portion Ki Tisa, we come across a famous scene. While Moses is on Mount Sinai, receiving instruction from God, the Israelites start to panic. They have not seen Moses for 40 days, and don’t know what to do without a leader. In order to quell their fear/anger/anxiety, Aaron creates the Golden Calf, which they then start to worship.
Moses, carrying the tablets written in God’s own hand down the mountain, witnesses this sight and in his anger, he smashes the tablets upon the ground. Moses’s anger continues to rage as he questions his brother about how this happened. Ultimately, Moses punishes all those who had participated in worshiping the Golden Calf. But that isn’t enough.
Moses had destroyed a precious gift from God, the Tablets of the Covenant. In Exodus 34:28, we are told that Moses spent another 40 days on Mount Sinai, with no food or water, solely focused carving the words of the Covenant into two new tablets. Eventually, this new set of tablets would be housed in the Ark along with the remains of the original set.
From Moses we learn about the necessity to take responsibility for the destruction of our anger. While we cannot always repair the damage that is done, we should embrace the opportunities to create something new out of the rubble.
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