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Ki Thissa

Moses had to ascend Mount Sinai twice to receive the Ten Commandments. When he descended for the first time with the Commandments in his hands and saw the people worshiping the golden calf, he smashed the Commandments out of disgust.

In truth the idea of Ten Commandments could never have taken root to the people then. In the midst of theophany they had chosen to worship another god. And the god that they chose to worship was one that they made with their own hands. That god came with no laws except those that they invented for him. That god came with no ritual except the ritual they performed for him. That god came with no expectations except the expectations they placed on him. That god came with no reality except the reality that they expected from him.

Moses had just been to the mountaintop. The people had rejected the possibility of confronting that God. They were afraid. They were not in control. They could not create a system of laws, of ritual, of expectation from that God. God had certain demands that the people had to accept, but the people had no interest in accepting a God over Whom they had no power.

In their foolishness they believed that they could create a new god who would do their bidding. So when Moses came down from Sinai they were in the midst of creating and accepting that god. The golden calf had replaced the God Who they could not see.

The people paid a price, suffered for their disobedience, and Moses had to ascend the mountain again to bring those Commandments again to a people who at last recognized that God had to be that Power to Whom they could not control.

Man has not changed much in the ensuing three thousand two hundred years. We still try to create gods that we can control. We still believe that man is capable of controlling his destiny. We still believe that the imagination of man allows for the creation of gods. And Moses and people like him have gone to the mountain top time and time again to bring back a revelation that somehow is constantly in the process of destruction by people who believe they have the power to create gods.

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