Ki Tisa
Exodus 30:11–34:35 

By Jen Smith 

Parashat Ki Tisa is a spiritual rollercoaster full of drama, intensity, and some seriously high-stakes moments; from the infamous Golden Calf idolatry debacle, Moses shattering the stone tablets in frustration, his audacious request to see God’s full essence, and the dramatic renewal of the covenant between God and His chosen people.  It’s a portion that captures the eternal struggle in Jewish life: the eternal tensions between human weakness and divine connection, failure and redemption, and between feeling lost and finding our path home. 

At the heart of Ki Tisa is the moment when the Israelites, feeling desperate and abandoned, build the Golden Calf to worship in Moses’ absence (Exodus 32). It is easy to judge the Israelites in the desert – how could they turn away from God after witnessing the miracles of Exodus with their own eyes?  But the people panicked, they felt alone, and they were afraid. Moses, their leader, had been gone for 40 days, and they longed for something tangible, something instant, something visceral, comfort. In their panic, they replaced divine mystery with the Golden Calf idol over which they could exercise control. 

How often do we do the same? When life feels uncertain, we are quick to grab onto immediate solutions. We turn to material comforts, distractions, and sometimes even unhealthy patterns, all in failing attempts to avoid confrontation with the deeper truth: that faith requires trust, patience, and sometimes, resignation to the unknown.   

Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism) teaches that sometimes in moments of failure, divine sparks are temporarily hidden. The Baal Shem Tov, the founder of the Chasidic movement, taught that despair itself can be a doorway back to God – if we use our anxiety and despair to seek real connections and wrestle with the unknown. 

Moses descends Mt. Sinai, and upon seeing the people worshipping the idol, immediately smashes the first set of tables (Exodus 32:19).  As a parent, this passage can be a little confusing. I can’t count how many times (especially during the pandemic) I’ve emerged from my office at home to find my daughter combing slime and glue off the basement carpet. The first time it “happened” I was surprised and immediately consumed by cleaning up the mess before my husband got home from work. The second time it “happened” my daughter was almost 9 (a fully sentient being!) and I was infuriated! Especially since I had declared just hours earlier: “NO SLIME ON THE CARPET.” In my fury, I dropped by purse by the door and took my dog for a walk, repeating “it is just slime, it is not fire, it is just slime, it could be worse” like a mantra. And this is where my confusion lives: a mere mortal, and still I have never succumbed to the urge to smash my laptop in a fit of rage. Surely Moses knew the value of the Torah written by God’s own hand? 

There is a Midrash (Shemot Rabbah 46:1) that explains that Moses broke the Tablets for the sake of the people, recognizing that they weren’t yet spiritually ready. The mystical tradition goes even further: sometimes things must break for something greater to emerge. The Kabbalists describe the concept of Shevirat HaKeilim (the Shattering of the Vessels) – the idea that divine light was too intense for the original vessels of creation, thus causing them to break. Our world exists in this broken state, filled with divine sparks that need to be uplifted through mitzvot, prayer, and acts of kindness. 

Moses’ breaking of the Tablets wasn’t a failure. It was an act of love. It created the space for the second set of Tablets, which were not given by God alone, but rather, forged through human effort – Moses had to carve this set himself (Exodus 34:1). The second set of Tablets represent a Torah that is refined through struggle, repentance, and human partnership with the Divine. 

Ki Tisa is an uplifting notice to us all: when we fail and life shatters, it doesn’t mean we are lost. Instead, it is a reminder than we have an opportunity to rebuild – not just as we were, but as something even better, wiser, stronger, and more deeply connected. 

Shabbat Shalom!