Bat Kol International, Weekly Torah Nuggets
Parashat Ki Tisa. Exodus 30:11-34:35
He seized the calf they had made and burned it, grinding it into powder which he scattered on the water, and made the Israelites drink (Ex. 32:20).
Rabbi Stephanie Bernstein asks us how the Israelites actions in regard to the Golden Calf might be considered a ‘type of theological adultery’. She points to a similar punishment for adulterous women In Numbers 5:11 – 31.
While Moses was up the mountain receiving the tablets of the law, Aaron made a golden calf from the people’s gold jewellery. Moses was making a covenant, a very close and special relationship between God and the Israelites, similar in some respects to a marriage contract, but returned to see that the people were worshipping a different deity, a mere idol. He showed that this idol could be destroyed and made the people literally eat their sin. They could get a fresh start.
Reflection:
How is my personal relationship with God? What are the idols in my life? Am I tempted by these worthless idols instead of following the Truth? What can I do to destroy the idols and their power over me?
Prepared by Mary-Anne Johnson
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“Since the spiritual patrimony common to Christians and Jews is thus so great, this sacred synod wants to foster and recommend that mutual understanding and respect which is the fruit, above all, of biblical and theological studies.”
Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions: Nostra Aetate, No. 4