Parshas Ki Sisa
Faith Based Initiative
By Rabbi Pinchas Avruch
"The people saw that Moshe had delayed in descending the mountain, and the
people gathered around Aaron and said to him, 'Rise up, make for us oracles
that will go before us, for this man Moshe who brought us up from the land
of Egypt, we do not know what became of him!'" (Shemos/Exodus 32:1) The
Jewish Nation miscalculated when Moshe's forty-day sojourn on Sinai was
scheduled to be complete; they anticipated his return a day earlier than he
was actually due. Concerned that he had perished, they begged that Aaron
intervene to find a new leader for the nation. How did this evolve into the
great act of betrayal that was the heathenish service of the golden calf?
"The wicked one watches for the righteous and seeks to kill him; but G-d
will not forsake him to his hand, nor let him be condemned when he is
judged." (Tehillim/Psalms 37:32-33) Rabbi Yisrael Salanter (1) explains
that the Yetzer Hara (2) is "the wicked one" who possesses great strength
to rule over all people if not for G-d's intervention to restrict him. But
consistent with the teaching in Pirkei Avos (Ethics of the Fathers) that
one sin leads to further sin (3), when a person takes the initiative to
sin, G-d removes the Yetzer Hara's restrictions, allowing him to lead the
sinner further astray.
Rabbi Eliyahu Dessler (4) expounds that when the Children of Israel started
to worry about Moshe's delay, despite their knowledge that G-d had told
Moshe that his stay on the mountain would be forty days and that he was in
G-d's care throughout, they failed spiritually. They should have realized
that Moshe's delay was due to a miscalculation on their part and, scared
and perplexed as they were, should have reacted with an inward focus to
realize that mere humans do not possess all the answers. Since they did
not second guess their own presumptions, rather they allowed worry to
enter their hearts, the Yetzer Hara gained license to challenge them
further. Thus, he created darkness and a sense of gloom and confusion, to
which the people responded that Moshe must certainly have died. That
conclusion allowed the Yetzer to go a step further: he created an image in
the heavens of a deceased Moshe being carried away. The Talmud (Shabbos
89a) explains that it was because of this vision of Moshe in the firmament
that the people did not simply say "We do not know what happened to
Moshe," rather they said "THIS man Moshe..." pointing to the image in
heaven. Panicked by the thought of being leaderless, and firmly in the
grip of the Yetzer, they were at the cusp of their horrific transgression
when they approached Aaron and demanded new leadership.
Although the Yetzer Hara is now a few millennia older, his strength has not
waned an iota and he has not lost an ounce of his passion. He pursues the
subversion of our G-d consciousness and connectedness with great fervor.
Judaism does not believe in leaps of faith. The Hebrew for "faith" is
"emunah", which comes from the root "emun" meaning training; a solid belief
in G-d and his Torah comes from diligently toiling to understand, not from
a moment of inspiration. Our forebears at Sinai proclaimed "We will do and
we will listen." (24:7) Listening means expending the effort to study and
inquire and understand how the Torah fills our lives with holiness; doing
means that even before we achieve an understanding, we have the emunah to
know that G-d loves us, gave us His holy Torah for our benefit and gave us
Sages who do understand to counsel us. Throughout our life's journey of
acquiring this understanding, the Yetzer Hara unceasingly bombards us with
darkness and gloom and confusion. He capitalizes on every opportunity to
create false images that will fill us with panic and despair about our
future, about G-d, about the Torah. We must resolve to learn, to train, to
understand, to listen and to do.
Have a Good Shabbos!
(1) 1810-1883; founder and spiritual father of the Mussar movement, a moral
movement based on the study of traditional ethical literature and
development of techniques for spiritual and character growth
(2) the evil inclination: Satan's personal tampering with one's thoughts
creating temptation to sin and do wrong
(3) the spiritual chain reaction taught by Ben Azai in 4:2.
(4) 1891-1954; in Michtav Me'Eliyahu, his collected writings and
discourses; from England and, later, B'nai Brak, he was one of the
outstanding personalities and thinkers of the Mussar movement
Text Copyright © 2005 by Rabbi Pinchas Avruch
and Torah.org.
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