The subject matter of parashat Ki Tisa is problematic from several perspectives. The parashah begins with a miscellany of details regarding the priestly service in the Tabernacle:

  1. the half-shekel tax used to finance the communal sacrifices,
  2. the laver, last of the Tabernacle’s vessels,
  3. the special oil used to anoint the vessels and the priests,
  4. the ingredients of the incense,
  5. the appointment of the chief artisans who would fashion the Tabernacle and its accoutrements, and
  6. the commandment not to violate the Sabbath in the course of constructing the Tabernacle.

After this, the Torah leaves the subject of the Tabernacle and resumes the narrative of the Giving of the Torah it left off at the end of parashat Mishpatim. There is a brief description of the first Tablets, and then we are abruptly plunged into the horrifying, grotesque episode of the Golden Calf and its tragic aftermath. This is followed by the reconciliation between God and the people negotiated by Moses, which includes some of the most mystical moments in the Torah and culminates in the revelation of God’s thirteen attributes of mercy, the renewal of the covenant, and Moses’ final descent from Mount Sinai with the second Tablets.

In addition to these sudden, jolting switches between extreme depravity and sublime transcendence, the whole parashah seems out of place. The first part—the final details of the Tabernacle—would seem to be better placed in Terumah and/or Tetzaveh. The second part—the Golden Calf and its aftermath—seemingly belongs after Yitro and Mishpatim. Moreover, a look ahead reveals that the next two parashiot (Vayakheil and Pekudei), which conclude the Book of Exodus, return once again to the subject of the Tabernacle, describing how it was actually constructed. The story of the Golden Calf is thus plucked out of its rightful place as the segue to the giving of the Torah and instead sandwiched in between the instructions for constructing the Tabernacle and their implementation. Why is this?

A clue to all this may be found in the name of this parashah, Ki Tisa. Literally, these words mean “when you raise up”; the entire phrase is: “when you raise up the heads of the Israelites.” Although the idiomatic meaning of these words is “when you take the census of the Israelites,” the literal meaning implies that the entire contents of the parashah are a process through which the Jewish people become elevated to heights they would not have achieved otherwise. To put it more bluntly: even after the purpose of creation was seemingly consummated by the giving of the Torah (Yitro and Mishpatim) and the institution of the Tabernacle (Terumah and Tetzaveh), there are still higher levels of this goal that remain to be reached.

Perhaps the most difficult question in this parashah is: how could the Jewish people, after having witnessed the power of God demonstrated in the ten plagues and the Splitting of the Sea and after having received the Torah at Mount Sinai a mere forty days before, commit the sin of the Golden Calf? Although there were many mitigating factors that make their apparent sin much less heinous than a cursory reading of the text of the Torah would imply, the fact still remains that, in the Talmud’s words: “Israel was not capable of committing such an act!” The Talmud’s answer is that “the whole affair was God’s decree, in order to set a precedent for the penitent.”1 In other words, God maneuvered the Jewish people into this sin in order that they repent for it and come to know the sweetness of reconciliation.

The paradox of sin is that repentance makes it possible to forge a greater connection with God than was possible prior to the sin. Before sinning, an individual’s relationship with God need only be strong enough to keep him on track; as long as he reminds himself that there is a God in the world who requires him to do x, y, and z, he will have no problem doing what is required of him. He is happy, stimulated, and inspired and is growing and developing spiritually in his relationship with God. Once he sins, however, he is confronted with the stark realization that, as perfect as this relationship may have seemed, it was neither strong enough nor deep enough to keep him from sinning (the proof being, of course, that he just sinned). By his choice, he demonstrated—at least on the level of consciousness on which he was functioning—that the enticement of this sin meant more to him than his commitment to God.

He must therefore delve into himself in order to find a place in his soul where God means more to him than the pleasure or fulfillment this indulgence seemed to offer him. This exercise in deepening his consciousness and awareness of God and re-establishing his relationship with Him at this new, deeper level is called teshuvah (“returning” to God) and is the essence of repentance. If the teshuvah is real, the individual will have reached a place within himself where his relationship and commitment to God are now so strong that he will no longer be able to commit the sin he is repenting for. Obviously, the more serious the sin, the greater the teshuvah required, and the deeper the resulting bond between the individual and God.

Also obviously, this process works only if the individual sins “accidentally,” as though in a state of “temporary insanity.” One cannot intentionally set out to sin in order to achieve a deeper and higher relationship to God, for doing this would prove nothing about the inadequacy of his present connection to God and the necessity to deepen it. It only works if Divine providence, so to speak, propels him into the situation.

By way of example, we may take the analogy of a loving married couple (an apt analogy, since God and the Jewish people are allegorically considered husband and wife). When one partner betrays or disappoints the other in some way, in order for them to become reconciled they must see if they can reach a place within themselves where their relationship means more to them than any infringement of it. “We are so much a part of each other that you mean more to me than whatever it was you did.” If they truly reach this point, further violation of their relationship is unthinkable.

This is why God had to orchestrate the incident of the Golden Calf, in which the Jewish people fell into the three cardinal sins of idolatry, adultery, and murder. By descending to the lowest depths possible, the people could then be raised to the highest levels of reconciliation with God, and reach a deeper connection to him than would have otherwise been possible. This is evidenced by the revelation of God’s thirteen attributes of mercy, in which God articulates the fact that His covenant with the Jewish people transcends the contractual relationship based on their obedient fulfillment of the commandments, and thus paves the way for teshuvah.

The pathos of teshuvah is thus the elevation of the Jewish people that needs to occur even after they have received the Torah and the Tabernacle.

Seen in this light, parashat Ki Tisa encapsulates the entire overview of creation: it begins with the original perfection (the Tabernacle and the first Tablets), continues on to the drama of history (the incident of the Golden Calf, which in a sense is a replay of the primordial sin of the Tree of Knowledge), and ends with the foretaste of the Messianic resolution (the renewal of the covenant and the second Tablets) which will elevate the world to a higher level of perfection than it knew in the beginning. In the Messianic future, we will be able to achieve the ultimate depths of relationship with God without having to make recourse to the dichotomous dynamic of sin and teshuvah, fall and ascent, estrangement and reconciliation.

This explains why this parashah begins with the half-shekel tax. The half-shekel tax was a process of teshuvah: the money was collected to finance the communal sacrifices, which atone for the sins of the people—“each man shall give God a ransom for his soul when they are counted.” The other details of the Tabernacle described at the beginning of the parashah are there to indicate that the purpose of the Tabernacle—the indwelling of God’s presence in the world at large and in man in particular—is most fully accomplished in the context of teshuvah, the theme of Ki Tisa. This is also why the entire parashah is sandwiched between the instructions of the Tabernacle (Terumah and Tetzaveh) and their implementation, its actual construction (Vayakheil and Pekudei): its content is, in effect, part of the instructions to build the Tabernacle—in fact, the inner dimension of these instructions. It is therefore only fitting that it follow the externalities of the instructions and precede the actual construction.

This dynamic of pristine perfection, fall, and reconciliation is reflected in many ways in the Torah and throughout life, including in the daily life of every Jew as prescribed by the Torah:

Our day begins with our complete surrender to God’s will, beginning with the Modeh Ani prayer we recite immediately upon awakening: “I offer thanks to You, living and eternal King, for You have mercifully restored my soul to me [after sleeping]; your faith [in me] is great.” We remain absorbed within Divinity throughout our morning prayers and Torah study. After this, we go about our daily affairs, in which we experience tests and fluctuations in our Divine consciousness. At the end of the day, we evaluate the strength of our connection with God (as tested by the day’s events) in order to see where it needs to be reinforced. This done, we can submit ourselves to God on a higher level than before, as in the close of the bedtime prayer: “Into Your hand I place my spirit; redeem me, O God of truth.”

The lesson of parashat Ki Tisa, then, is lived out every day of our lives, focusing us constantly on our ultimate goal, the final, Messianic redemption.2