Make a Golden Calf or Build a Sanctuary: Responding to Anxiety in the Age of COVID-19 (Ki Tisa)
Moses has gone up to the mountain to commune with God for 40 days and 40 nights. Filled with dread and anxiety at his continued absence, the people turn to Moses’ brother Aaron and demand that he make them a golden calf to be their God.
The Hebrew text gives us a clue into the feeling of that fateful moment. The text says “va-yi-kahel ha-am AL Aaron” “the people gathered AGAINST Aaron” which seems to indicate that the entire people was physically confronting Aaron — likely in herd-like fashion. Then a bunch of command verbs: “Aseh Lanu” — “make for us” and then Aaron to the people “Parku Nizmei Zahav” -”Take off your golden rings.” The people declare a “hag,” our sacred word for festival, perverting the sacred.
When I read this passage each year, I most often want to yell out to the page in the book and across the centuries: “How could you! You just witnessed the thunder and lightning of Sinai and not so long before the miracle of the splitting of the Sea. How can you lack faith?!”
This year, I found myself having a much more tender and compassionate response to these sinning Israelites. Because these were people, like me and everyone around me, were reacting and responding in a time of disconcerting and unnerving uncertainty.
“Vayar Ha-am ki voshesh Moshe laredet min ha-har” — “The people saw that Moses was delayed in coming down the mountain.” These are the beginning words of the story.
Here are people who feel neglected and abandoned. Their leader, the one who led them out of the narrow straits to the desert, is gone. Perhaps they do not know when he is supposed to come back, so they are just waiting up for him, like children whose parents have left him for the evening with a babysitter but with every passing hour worry that the parent might not come home at all. Without Moses, they are lost. The fear and the panic expands exponentially with each passing day and hour.
Rashi, the great medieval french commentator, adds another dimension to this picture of anxiety and confusion. He explains “voshesh” — the delay in coming down — as a misunderstanding of Moses’ promised time of return. Moses says that he will return on the 6th hour of the 40th day. But the people count from when he left and he counted from when he got to the mountain.
In other words, according to Rashi, the people were expecting Moses to come at a certain time — and he didn’t show up when he said he would. The people likely all stood ready to welcome him back to them — but when he did not arrive, they fell into panic because they believed he was never coming back. While Rashi doesn’t say this explicitly, I imagine the people feared he abandoned them or that he was dead.
With this in mind, we can better recognize the dread and anxiety that motivated their misdeed. Moses has left them all alone and they either do not know when he will return, if ever, or they do and he doesn’t show up which leads to other confusions. If Moses wasn’t coming back, what would become of them? What would they do? Could they survive? On edge, panicked, they resorted to building the golden calf.
Most of us now are well acquainted with the feelings (if not the actions) in the hearts of the Israelites: Uncertainty, anxiety, fear.. These have become the “new normal” for many of us as we have read or watched the news, seen our city dramatically changing, get new and sometimes contradictory instructions almost by the moment; as we realize that at least temporarily, our lives are going to look a lot different that they have.
Perhaps the Golden Calf has its own manifestations today. The following appeared on my Facebook feed yesterday, a friend reporting from her friend: “I just went to Costco this morning when they opened and the line wrapped around the store twice, there were 5 fights, and the police shut it down with hundreds of people outside in line for blocks.” The other day, an unhinged and upset woman punched an Asian-American woman, sending her to the hospital, because the Asian-American woman was not wearing a face mask. In moments like these, when anxiety is up and emotions are high, there is also a human tendency, like our biblical ancestors to panic and to act towards others with the distress we are feeling in our hearts.
But even as it is natural, we also know from the Golden Calf, this acting on our emotions does not ultimately serve us and it certainly doesn’t serve the Divine. It is destructive. It demeans us and is antithetical to what we want for ourselves and our society. And we can be and should be better than that.
And that is why it is important to remember: The same people who built the Golden Calf are the same people who in next week’s parsha, gather together (VAYAKHEL) to build the Tabernacle, the dwelling place for God. They are the same people who are asked to give the gifts for their heart, and who do not just answer the call, but go above and beyond so much that Moses has to say “Enough!” Stop bringing your gifts.
A moment ago, I shared the chaotic NYC Costco story. Let me share another story that came across my Facebook Feed. A friend posted: “I have lived in this apartment building for 12 years. I never really knew my neighbors before. Now, everyone is knocking on doors (without touch!) and checking to make sure everyone has groceries and all they need. Everyone is looking out for each other and it feels like we are now truly neighbors.” This week, I have experienced the generous sharing of resources and support among colleagues across the country; we are lifting each other through a trying time. There are many more stories like this — and God willing, more yet to come.
In this moment of uncertainty, we can choose whether make a calf or build a tabernacle. We can be prepared and serious and not panic. We can be anxious — we are going to be no matter how we fight it- but we can channel that anxiety into acts of kindness. We can love one another, care for one another.
And, we can contemplate the kind of sanctuary we are going to build on the other side of this crisis. While most of us are aware and involved in some way, this pandemic invites us to see with crystal clear vision the social inequities in our society and the fragility of our social and economic safety net. Let us use this moment to listen, to learn, to reflect so that when we return to “normal” or a “new normal,” we have the fuel and commitment and love to fight for each other in the public realm so that no person should ever have to choose between their health and their work; that no parent has to choose between keeping their child safe or between eating two meals a day.
Just like the Israelites, we may not know what our future holds. But we can choose how we gather and what kinds of structures we build. May we do so with discernment and love.
