Back In Israel, Talking about "Ki Tisa" Portion

“Ki Tisa” Torah Portion is one of my favorites. In fact, I think this Torah portion is heaven for sermon writers. Rabbis, poets, teachers, philosophers and thinkers have written piles of texts about the Golden Calf, which represented to them everything from consumerism to television, from Zionism to New Age, and many other modern interpretations. I, however, see a deeper truth in this story, which can be found not necessarily in the act of worship itself, but in that human trait that makes it difficult for people to just sit and wait.

In the Biblical story, the Israelites await Moses at the foot of Mount Sinai; Moses has been up there for many days and the people simply cannot wait any longer. They say to Aharon: “Come, make us a God who shall go before us, for that man Moses, who brought us from the land of Egypt – we do not know what has happened to him” (Exodus 32:1). The Israelites are left without their leader and they are confused and anxious. They look for that immediate feeling of security, they want to feel good – right away.

No one likes being in a state of uncertainty. Our primal instincts make us fear the worst at such moments, and we are ready to pay any price to avoid such a feeling of uncertainty. A state of certainty, on the other hand, brings to us a sense of security, belonging and understanding, that allows us to enjoy life. It was Sigmund Freud who spoke of the “Pleasure Principal”, attributing human behavior to the desire for maximum pleasure and minimum pain. And that is what the Israelites demanded. They wanted to enjoy the peace and quiet that came with the idea that “there is someone we can count on”. They wanted to eat and drink, offer sacrifice and enjoy a joyous, communal celebration that arouses all the senses. They did not want to postpone their satisfaction for even a single moment.

In the 1960’s, Walter Michelle from Stanford University conducted an experiment in which he gave four-year-olds a marshmallow, and promised each child a second marshmallow if they waited twenty minutes before eating the first one. Some children were able to wait, others were not. The researchers kept track of the children until they were teenagers, and showed that those children who were able to wait were more adaptive and more responsible. Additionally, the average result of their SAT’s was higher by 210 points.

So what do we learn from the marshmallow experiment? We learn, of course, that delayed gratification pays off in the long run. Despite that, people are often unable to think about the long term. This is true especially if you live in a place like Israel, where it’s tempting to live by the guiding principal of “Eat and drink, for tomorrow we die”. Israel is a country under constant threat that cannot, even for one brief moment, reach that desired feeling of security. And what happens when you are unsure about your future? You start living for today. Israelis don’t plan five years ahead, not even one year ahead. We live for the moment, for right now. Politicians do not think beyond their own term, people think about how to make their day the most enjoyable they can. Global warming? Who wants to worry about the future? Thinking about the environment means delaying the immediate gratifications that comes from using the available resources.

The environmental issue is not foreign to the Israeli Reform movement, which hopes to change attitudes within Israeli society. The Reform movement works to bring back that lost sense of community and mutual responsibility that is sometimes sacrificed on the altar of immediate needs. The idea of Tikkun Olam, repairing the world, demands a global look at the world as a place of justice and equality; not just a search for what is best for the individual. This means that we must look at the weaker parts of society, at the new immigrant who is abused by his employee because he does not speak good Hebrew; the gerim (foreigners) who live among us and are not welcomed into society; the refugee who made it to Israel after suffering persecution and personal trauma, who encounters governmental imperviousness. We must think about them, even if it means scarifying the things we enjoy.

Social activists like ourselves should also learn not to expect immediate gratification. We want to enjoy the fruits of our labor immediately, through a social change in our place, in our time. But the processes involved are long-term, they require resources, time and patience, and often we have no choice but to delay the immediate gratification that may come from quick but temporary achievements, in exchange for a longer-term, more profound result in the future.

In the discussed Torah portion, when Moses descends from the mountain, holding God’s Torah, he reaches the camp and sees the Golden Calf. The Israelites have fallen for a temporary pleasure, an illusion. When Moses says angrily, “Whoever is on the side of God, follow me”, only the Levites join him, following his promise for a better future. The consequence is, of course, disastrous to all the other tribes.

So postponing satisfaction is, we learn from the Torah, one of the most difficult things for a human being. It challenges our very nature. But if we stand up to this challenge we can make miracles happen. Let us try to build, in today’s Israeli society, a vision, a sense of belief in the future – a future that may sometimes seem like an elusive dream. Let us bring alive the idea that together we can make a difference, promote peace, justice and equality, and help shape the global Jewish community and make it more effective, more successful, more responsible. Ultimately, this will be the most satisfactory accomplishment we can hope for.