Ki Sisa Parsha Lesson- To act with feeling
For Year 2 of Parsha Lesson, I will be focusing on one practical middah, character trait, to think about in the week ahead and steps we can take to attain it.
Background
In this week’s Parsha we learn of the terrible sin of the golden calf. Immediately after receiving the Torah on Har Sinai (Mt. Sinai), Moshe stayed on top of the mountain in order to learn the entire Torah from Hashem.
Moshe told the Jewish people to expect him back after 40 days had elapsed. Sadly, the Jewish people miscalculated the days and were expecting Moshe to come back one day earlier than he in fact did. Because of this, there was a group of rabble-rousers that convinced part of the Jewish people that Moshe had died. This caused them to fall into despair and one thing led to another and they served the golden calf.
When Moshe was readying himself to come down the mountain and rejoin Klal Yisroel, Hashem told Moshe of the horrible aveiros that the Jewish people were engaged in. Moshe immediately davened to Hashem for the Jewish people’s forgiveness and then continued down the mountain with the luchos (tablets with the 10 commandments on them).
Once Moshe reached the bottom of the mountain and he saw what the Jewish people were doing, the passuk says ‘and Moshe saw, he got angry and he smashed the tablets.’
Question
It was correct for Moshe to destroy the luchos. In fact, the Gemara tells us that this was one of the instances where Moshe did something of consequence completely on his own and Hashem agreed with him. Since the Jewish people sinned as they had, they were no longer on the lofty level they had been on when they received the Torah from Hashem, and were therefore no longer deserving of these amazing luchos.
But why did Moshe only smash them when he came down to the bottom of the mountain? Hashem told Moshe what was going on while Moshe was still on top of the mountain! What happened when Moshe got to the bottom of the mountain that he only then realized that he should smash the luchos?
Answer
The Seforno explains that when Moshe reached the bottom of the mountain, that was when he saw the Jewish people doing grave aveiros, with music and dancing! When Hashem told Moshe that the Jewish people had sinned, Hashem did not include the part of the Jewish people joyously committing their sins with both music and dancing. When Moshe saw that, he realized that now the Jewish people were not deserving of the luchos because the Jewish people would not be able to properly atone for their sins and reattain the lofty level they had been on.
Lesson
The mood and feeling with which one does their actions are extremely important. If the Jewish people had done the same aveiros, but they had done them with some guilt, with a degree of reluctance, then they would have been able to get back to the greatness that they had reached at Har Sinai when they received the Torah from Hashem himself.
Why is it that now that they had served the golden calf with joy and happiness, that they would not be able to reattain that greatness? Because the tremendous emotion and joy makes the aveirah that they did very much a part of them. When one does things reluctantly, without much emotion, those actions do not connect with the person and do not become a part of them and do not affect very much who they are. When one does something with feeling, with powerful emotion, that action makes a very powerful impact on the person.
First Step
If one wants to change themselves, it is most important to change the feeling and emotion with which they do the behaviors they do. If a person can ‘psyche themselves up’ to do with emotion that which they want to inculcate into themselves, that will have a powerful impact on changing them. Similarly, if a person can lessen the enthusiasm, and perhaps even add a degree of reluctance, to how they do things which they are trying to refrain from doing, this can help a person over time stop doing the action altogether.
The way to change is to take steps in the right direction which will therefore change one’s thinking and mindset which will lead to greater and greater degrees of change. The trick is for the change to be meaningful and real. Changing one’s feeling with which they do the behaviors they are either trying to adopt or those which they are trying to stop doing, is an extremely potent, real and impactful step in the direction of perfecting one’s self.
Have a wonderful Shabbos!
Rabbi Eli Meir Kramer
