Seeking Perfection

Hol Hamoed Passover   On the Shabbat which takes place during Passover, we omit the regular Torah reading and instead chant a section from the Book of Exodus (33:12-34:26).

            

Ex. 34:6-7 “… ‘Adonai! Adonai! a God compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in kindness and faithfulness, extending kindness to the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin—yet not remitting all punishment, but visiting the iniquity of parents upon children and children’s children, upon the third and fourth generations.”  

            

This special reading includes the story of the Golden Calf. Those of us raised on Cecil B. DeMille’s Ten Commandments have the story down fairly well, although much of the nuance has been lost. It’s the nuances I wanted to take a closer look at this week. 

            

Moses winds up taking three trips up the mountain. On the first, he gets the first set of Tablets, created by God and given to him. He descends, sees the Golden Calf, and destroys the tables. He goes back up where God threatens to destroy the People and in effect substitute him for Abraham. Moses pleads and succeeds, thereby saving the people, and goes back down the mountain. There, he carves a new set of tablets, and climbs a third time to have them inscribed by God. While there, he experiences a close personal encounter with God, where he is informed of the Thirteen attributes of God which are articulated in this verse.

             

Moses comes down the mountain with the second set of tablets, knowing that God is a forgiving God. While the first set of Tablets were by definition perfect, coming directly from the Hand of God, this second set was a joint project, necessarily including a metaphorical reference to humanity’s weakness as well as to God’s power of forgiveness.

            

Later, the second set of tablets is placed in the Ark along with the crumbled remains of the first. Another metaphor: we dream of perfection while we live with the knowledge of our imperfection.  We can find peace in the contest between our dream and our reality by accepting God’s compassion. I hope your holiday concludes with great joy.