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18 March 2017 20 Adar 5777 Shabbat ends London 6.57pm Jerusalem 6.35pm Volume 29 No. 25 Ki Tisa Parashat Parah Artscroll p.484 Maftir p.838 Haftarah p.1216 Hertz p.352 Maftir p.652 Haftarah p.999 Soncino p.540 Maftir p.898 Haftarah p.1194 In memory of Etta bat Yisrael Ki Tisa by Yoram Raanan. Printed with permission of the artist. www.yoramraanan.com “The entire people removed the gold rings that were in their ears, and brought them to Aharon. He took it from their hands and bound it up in cloth, and fashioned it into a molten calf. They said, 1 ‘This is your god, Israel, which brought you up from the land of Egypt’” (Shemot 32:3-4). Sidrah Summary: Ki Tisa 1st Aliya (Kohen) – Shemot 30:11-31:17 and requests that Israel retain a special status, God instructs Moshe to take a census. Instead of distinct from other nations. God agrees to both counting people, each man over 20 will give a half requests (Rashi). shekel coin towards the construction of the Mishkan 4th Aliya (Revi’i) – 33:17-23 (Tabernacle); the figure will be calculated based on Moshe asks God to show him a vision of His divine the money collected. majesty. God responds that no mortal can see a ‘full God instructs Moshe to make a copper washing view’, but He will show Moshe as much as possible. laver (kiyor) for the Kohanim. Moshe is to make the 5th Aliya (Chamishi) – 34:1-9 anointing oil, containing select spices, to anoint God instructs Moshe to carve a new set of Tablets, Aharon, his sons, and the vessels of the Mishkan. containing the same words as the first set. Moshe God tells Moshe to make incense, from specific ascends Mount Sinai with the new Tablets, as spices, to be offered twice a day. God designates commanded. God now appears to Moshe and Betzalel to supervise the construction of the Mishkan teaches him the 13 Attributes of Mercy. Moshe and tells Moshe to reinstruct the people about appeals to God to endow Israel with His full keeping Shabbat. guidance and protection. Point to Consider – what is the link between the 6th Aliya (Shishi) – 34:10-26 construction of the Mishkan and keeping Shabbat? God declares to Moshe that he is making a covenant (31:13 – see Rashi’s commentary) with the people. After entering the Land of Israel, Question – who was appointed to assist Betzalel? they must not follow the idolatrous ways of the (31:6) Answer on bottom of page 6. Ca’ananite nations. The mitzvah of coming to the 2nd Aliya (Levi) – 31:18-33:11 Temple with an offering for the three festivals According to Rashi, the narrative goes back in time, (Pesach, Shavuot and Succot) is restated, as well as to the aftermath of the giving of the Torah. Moshe the mitzvah to redeem a first-born male child (pidyon has been on Mount Sinai for 40 days. The people ha’ben) and not to mix meat and milk together. calculate that Moshe is late returning. Fearing that 7th Aliya (Shevi’i) – 34:27-35 Moshe is dead, they decide to make a new ‘god’. Moshe descends with the new tablets, his face They fashion and worship a golden calf (see Rashi). radiating with light. He has to cover his face with a God informs Moshe of events and threatens to wipe mask when speaking to the people. out the nation. Moshe pleads with God to relent, Maftir recalling His promises to the forefathers. God The special reading for parashat Parah is taken from accepts his pleas. Moshe descends the mountain. the beginning of parashat Chukat (Bemidbar 19:1- When he sees the calf, he throws down and breaks 22), in which God instructed Moshe and Aharon how the two stone tablets of testimony (luchot ha’edut). to purify someone who had come into contact with Moshe burns the calf and instructs the tribe of Levi a human corpse. This involved slaughtering an to kill the sinners. He re-ascends the mountain to ask unblemished red heifer (parah adumah) and mixing God to forgive the nation. God responds that He will its ashes with water. no longer lead the people through the desert directly, Haftarah but will send an angel instead. The prophet Yechezkel (Ezekiel) admonishes the 3rd Aliya (Shlishi) – 33:12-16 nation for worshipping idols and desecrating His Unprepared to accept God’s response, Moshe Name. However, God will purify us, giving us a ‘new appeals to God to directly ‘accompany’ the nation heart’ and returning us to the Land. United Synagogue Daf Hashavua Produced by US Living & Learning together with the Rabbinical Council of the United Synagogue Editor: Rabbi Chaim Gross Editor-in-Chief: Rabbi Baruch Davis Editorial Team: Ilana Epstein, Michael Laitner, Sharon Radley Available also via email US website www.theus.org.uk ©United Synagogue To sponsor Daf Hashavua please contact Loraine Young on 020 8343 5653, or [email protected] If you have any comments or questions regarding Daf Hashavua please email [email protected] 2 Solutions in the Sidrah: The Lesson of Waterloo by Rabbi Yoni Birnbaum, Hadley Wood Jewish Community The victory of the Duke of describe what occurred: “When the people saw Wellington over the armies that Moshe was delayed in coming down from of Napoleon Bonaparte on the mountain, the people gathered against Sunday 18 June 1815 is Aharon, and they said to him: ‘Come! Make us celebrated as one of the gods that will go before us, because this man greatest moments in British Moshe, who brought us up from the land of military history. Though Egypt, we do not know what has become of perhaps apocryphal, some him’” (Shemot 32:1). contemporary accounts describe the decisive moment as occurring in the final stages of the The Midrash, quoted by Rashi (d. 1105), battle, thanks to a brilliant tactical move by describes how the people made a miscalculation Wellington. As Napoleon’s Guards rode over the of the timing given to them by Moshe. He had told top of a ridge, they were astonished to see only them that he would return from Mount Sinai at the a small group of Wellington’s forces in the field end of 40 days. They counted from the evening below them, including the Duke himself. Yet as of his departure, when in fact they should have Napoleon’s troops advanced triumphantly, counted from the time of his actual ascent i.e. the Wellington shouted, “Up, Guards and at them!” following morning. At that moment of confusion, At that moment, as if by magic, a mass of the Satan (angel of death) showed, “a semblance soldiers rose in perfect formation from the long of darkness and confusion”, leading the people grass in which they had been hiding. Charging to conclude that Moshe had died. This led to their Napoleon’s soldiers, their ferocious attack took subsequent, panicked request for a golden calf their opponents completely by surprise, turning to act as their new ‘leader’. the tide of the battle in Wellington’s favour. Like Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo, the The lesson of the French defeat at Waterloo is people suffered a surprise ‘attack’ by the Satan that the most vulnerable point in a battle can be at the eleventh hour. They had left Egypt in at the very moment when victory appears certain. triumph, crossed the sea, experienced the When defences are lowered, the opportunity is Revelation at Sinai, and were about to physically there for others to take advantage. receive the Torah itself from Moshe. Yet at that moment they were also at their most vulnerable This idea may provide a deeper understanding of to a crisis of faith. The disastrous events a Midrash which discusses the events that led to surrounding the golden calf therefore serve to the catastrophe of the golden calf. The Torah highlight the caution that is needed at the precise uses only one, somewhat cryptic, verse to moment in life that success appears certain. ‘Scotland for Ever!’ by Elizabeth Thompson In memory of Meir ben Avraham 3 From Sin to Sanctuary by Rabbi Daniel Fine, Community Rabbi, Stanmore & Canons Park United Synagogue Picture the unfortunate The Ramban (Nachmanides d. 1270) disagrees scene. A devoted Jew has and says that the command to build the Mishkan gone travelling, and after a came before the sin of the golden calf. The few days loses his bearings Mishkan's purpose was to make the Mount Sinai and finds himself in a desert. experience permanent, to ground the Divine Unable to contact his friends revelation and express it daily. Therefore, and relatives, he is now according to the Ramban, the sidrot are in faced with the challenge of chronological order. returning to civilisation. One of the quandaries he faces is that he has lost track of which day The Shem Mi’shmuel writes that both of these Shabbat is. When should he make kiddush and views find expression on Shabbat. In the same refrain from doing forbidden acts of labour? way that the Mishkan provided sanctity in the realm of physical space, Shabbat provides Whilst this scenario may seem unlikely, the sanctity in the realm of time. Shabbat is both the Talmud’s addressing of this issue is rich in final day of the previous week and the first day practical halacha, and carries interesting spiritual of the coming week. It is therefore able to wipe underpinnings (Shabbat 69b). The Talmud in fact the slate clean, facilitating a new week, reflecting lists two views about what to do in this dilemma: Rashi’s corrective view of the Mishkan.
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  • This Week's Torah Reading: Vayakhel\Pekudei Rabbi Dan Liben

    This Week's Torah Reading: Vayakhel\Pekudei Rabbi Dan Liben

    This week’s Torah reading: Vayakhel\Pekudei Rabbi Dan Liben This week, the book of Shemot comes to a close. We have not only finished a book of the Torah, but, after many weeks of wading through the details, we have also completed the construction of the Mishkan (theTabernacle), God’s dwelling place in the midst of the Israelite camp. To celebrate both of these completions, we will stand up in synagogue on Shabbat morning as the Torah reader completes the final verse, and declare, ”Hazak! Hazak! V’Nithazek! Strength, Strength, and be Strengthened.” Parshat Pekudei forms a fitting bookend to the first two books of the Torah, neatly mirroring the opening chapters of Bereishit. There, God builds a world in which human beings can reside. In Exodus, we return the favor; we build a Mishkan, a dwelling place for God within that world. God builds through sweeping pronouncements; we build through thoughtful planning and often painstaking detail. The language of Vayakel and Pekudei also mirrors the language of creation. Listen during the Torah reading Shabbat morning for verbal echoes of the opening chapters of Bereishit. And, just as God concludes creation with a blessing, so Moses, upon seeing the completion of the work, blesses the people who were engaged in it. Although we have no Mishkan, no physical container to hold God’s presence in our midst, I have always been moved by the metaphor of the Mishkan. After all, the entire second half of the book of Exodus, and all of Leviticus, is devoted to this enterprise. It asks us to consider the question: how do we build a world in which God would choose to live? How do we construct a society, and a life, in which God’ nearness can be felt? In part, the medium is the message.