Imagine this pandemic occurred in 1999. All we had is 100 minutes and 30 text messages… Oy… How lucky we are for the endless data.
Welcome to the new reality. This past year we’ve all moved into virtual reality: We’re communicating, studying, working, socializing, attending classes on Zoom, Facebook live, Facetime, GoToMeeting, Google Meet.
The new business dress code is a shirt and a tie from the waist up. All else is none of your business… Wife: “Steven!” Yes, honey.
She says: “You got a Zoom meeting now. Put on your pants. Don’t sit in your boxers.”
“Okay, honey! But they can hear you.”
Someone sent this message: “I was just on a zoom call that ended automatically after 40 minutes because my boss was on a free tier. This is the single greatest advance to meeting productivity that I have ever seen. I would pay extra for this feature.”
It is also interesting that people who were always late to meetings, always blaming the traffic and the weather and the lack of parking spaces, are still late even on zoo.
Necessity is the mother of invention. Kudos to people in their 70s and 80s and 90s who went out of their comfort zone and figured out how to use the zoom. In just a few days, everyone shifted their lives to Zoom. Even comedians, rabbis, and therapists. The only ones who could not figure out how to work via zoom are the mohels.
In this week's Torah portion Ki Tisa we find out of our lowest points in history. It was the nadir of the Jewish people.
Forty days ago they stood at the foot of Mt. Sinai and experienced the greatest moment in all of history: The only time when G-d revealed Himself to an entire nation, giving them a blueprint to heal and sanctify the world. Now, five weeks later, the very same people are enthralled by a golden calf.
G-d is “furious,” as it were. “Now leave Me alone, and My anger will be kindled against them so that I will annihilate them, and I will make you into a great nation."
So Moses does not leave G-d alone. He pleads, prays, and begs for forgiveness. The people repent. G-d forgives the people. We are still here.
Yet in the conversation, G-d says something shocking.
G-d, it seems, is telling Moses He will never forget this sin. And whenever He is going to make an accounting of their sins, this sin will be included in the “package.”
This is deeply enigmatic. It is one of the foundations of Judaism that repentance atones for all sins and wipes them away completely. Every Yom Kippur, we conclude the central Amidah blessing, “G-d removes our sins every year again.” No matter how many times we commit a sin, if we repent, we are forgiven. This theme is repeated numerous times on Yom Kippur: Teshuvah removes all guilt. No grudges hold. It’s over.
This goes on for 90 years or more. Three times a day I apologize, even though my last apology was just a few hours or a few minutes earlier. If this would be your wife, at some point she would say: get out of here you nudnik! Stop sinning so much against me so you will not have to apologize. But G-d patiently offers forgiveness, three times a day, for 90 years!
And yet here, suddenly, we discover a very different G-d. “On the day I make an accounting, I will bring their sin of the Golden Calf to account against them.”
Yet, G-d says clearly to Moses that He will always remember the story of the Golden Calf?!
The most marvelous answer was presented by the Chassidic master and the greatest lover of Israel, Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchov.
Some people seem to be naturally good, while others are forever struggling with negative character traits and ominous perversions. One individual is raised in a warm and loving home and, from earliest infancy, is impressed by educators and role-models exemplifying integrity, compassion, and idealism, while his fellow has only dysfunction and corruption to emulate.
In the famed “Eight Chapters” of introduction to his commentary on the Talmud's Ethics of the Fathers, Maimonides describes two types of personalities: the ‘perfectly pious’ and the ‘one who conquers his inclinations.’ The ‘perfectly pious’ individual despises evil and desires only good; since evil does not entice him, his life's work consists only of increasing and enhancing the good in himself and the world. On the other hand, the ‘conqueror’ struggles with the negative in himself and his environment.
One cannot compare the two journeys. While the first person’s noble behavior is always praiseworthy, it is not unique and special. After all, he is emulating his parents and grandparents. The credit he deserves, for every person, has free choice, but nonetheless, this person remains in his comfort zone. He never started a new business. He took over a very successful business from his father and continued to maintain it. He was given a gift and never had to struggle to earn his dollar. He was born into success.
But the second fellow, he owns everything he achieves. Every spiritual state he achieves is his alone. He must fight for his character. Nothing was given to him. He must step out of his comfort zone, and recreate himself, as he chooses to connect to the Divine.
Which category do the Jews fit into? Says Reb Levi Yitzchak, due to the holy ancestors of the Jewish people and their great leaders, it seemed like the accepting of the Torah by Jews was as natural as water to a fish. It was the hand in perfect glove. A match made in heaven. The Jewish soul is a “Fragment of G-d,” and the Jewish DNA is molded in the image of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah. Torah for them is as organic as the piano to Mozart.
But then came the Golden Calf. Suddenly, a new story emerged. The Torah was far from natural and organic. Merely 40 days after Sinai, they exploded.
What was not revealed was the brokenness of the Jewish people—the depth of their struggles and ghosts. They had a long journey ahead of them. They were not the perfect romantic spouse, where love, at first sight, translates into a lifelong romance. No!
Seeing how low they fell only demonstrates the tremendous courage, confidence, spirit, integrity, sacrifice, and faith the Jewish people had previously as they said “we will do” and “we will hear” and embraced their destiny as the ambassadors of G-d in this world.
Adrian Solano looked every bit a skier when he lined up for a cross-country race at the Nordic World Ski Championships in Finland a few weeks ago, in February 2017.
But then he started moving.
Dressed head to toe in orange, the 22-year-old Venezuelan nearly fell as he tried to exit the starting gate. He wobbled again after he finally got going, only to actually topple over when he rounded one of the course’s first curves. This would happen repeatedly for the next 38 minutes or so until Solano’s time was up. Too far behind the leader, Croatia’s Kresimir Crnkovic, who finished the entire 10-kilometer ski course in 26:21.5, Solano’s race ended at the 3.5-kilometer mark.
I watched the video of this poor guy skiing. I have to tell you, it reminded me of myself. And that’s bad news! The guy kept on falling. And if you ever tried falling down on the slopes again and again and again you know what a pain it is to simply lift yourself up and continue.
And yet this guy continued the race, only to fall again.
And yet I saw something amazing: Judging from the width of the smile that stretched across Solano’s face as he slid to his finish, though, you’d have thought he won.
And in a way, maybe he did.
Since his lousy performance, Solano has shot to Internet fame. While at first, he made the rounds on Twitter for being what many labeled “the world’s worst skier,” Solano has since become an inspirational tale. His videos and posts became an international tale of encouragement.
“Maybe I have fallen many times but what really counts is that I will always continue to rise,” Solano wrote on Instagram, defending his performance, which by the way, was his first on snow.
While he won’t be taking home any awards, he’s made plenty of new friends.
And, yes, he plans to continue on in the sport. “This motivates my desire to continue fulfilling my dreams and making my goals real,” he said in response to one of his followers cheering him on. “Let constancy and sacrifice move mountains.”
Why does his story inspire me? Because you can't always relate to a superhero, to a superman, but you can identify with a real man who in times of crisis draws forth some extraordinary quality from within himself and triumphs but only after a struggle.
G-d is saying that I will not forget the Golden Calf. When people repent, I “forget” the sin. It gets completely erased. No grudges held, no future debts held. Yet when I remember Sinai, then I will go back and remember the Golden Calf too! It is the Golden Calf that will remind me for all of the eternity how much I need to appreciate the daily commitment of every Jew to do what G-d wants him or her to do in this world.
I will always remember how deeply they fell at that fateful moment and it will remind me how much to appreciate all of their sacrifices, commitments, and their entire existence as My people.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Yoseph Geisinsky
Jason Bennett wrote...