Rabbi Jon’s Reflection on This Week’s Torah Portion
3.1.2024
Ki Tisa 2024: The Two Sets of Commandments
A short reflection on Ki Tisa (Exodus 30:11- 34:35)
According to this week’s Torah portion Ki Tisa, two sets of the Ten Commandments were created. The first set of tablets was the work of God. Moses went up to the top of Mount Sinai, God wrote down the rules while Moses hung out.
Once God was done, you’d expect God to say something like, “Here you go, Moses. As promised -- some laws to share with my people.” Instead, God announced, “I’m going to destroy the Israelites because they’re dancing around a golden calf and calling it Adonai.”
While God was none too happy with the Israelites, Moses convinces God not to destroy them, to give them another chance, and to fulfill the covenant made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. While Moses managed to calm God’s anger, he wasn’t able to temper his own. When Moses finally came down the mountain he saw the people worshiping the Golden Calf. In a burst of anger, Moses destroyed the Ten Commandments by smashing them upon the ground. Guess it was time for a second set.
God wrote the first set, but who wrote the second? There are differing opinions on the answer to this question. In Exodus 34:1 God tells Moses, “Carve two tablets of stone like the first, and I will inscribe upon the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you shattered.” According to this verse, God will write upon the second set of tablets just as God had written upon the first. So, it’s God, right? Not so fast.... this issue becomes muddied a few verses later when we read Exodus 34:28 – And he was there with Adonai forty days and forty nights; he ate no bread and drank no water, and he wrote upon the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments.
Most translations of this verse imply that the scribe of the second set was Moses. Not surprisingly, most rabbinic commentators disagree with the translations. For example, Ibn Ezra taught, “The translations are wrong; it should say ‘He,’ God, wrote.”
In contrast to the majority opinion, Ovadia ben Yaacov Sforno disagreed by creating midrash and attributing the following words to Adonai, “I will not give you now the commandment which I wrote, but you will have to write it yourself.” Unlike the other commentators, Sforno understood the complex relationship between human beings and God. My belief is that the second set was a partnership between God and Moses, a partnership between a human and the divine.
Holiness and wholeness can only be reached when godly actions are taken by human beings. Each of us must find a way to chisel words of holiness that affect our world in positive ways even if our act of holiness was necessitated by our own destructive actions.
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KI TISA SUMMARY FROM THE URJ
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Moses takes a census of the Israelites and collects a half-shekel from each person (30:11-16)
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God tells Moses to construct a water basin and to prepare anointing oil and incense for the ordination of the priests. Bezalel and Oholiab, skilled artisans, are assigned to make objects for the priests and the Tabernacle. (30:17-31:11)
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The Israelites are instructed to keep Shabbat as a sign of their covenant with God. God gives Moses the two tablets of the Pact. (31:12-18)
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The Israelites ask Aaron to build them a Golden Calf. Moses implores God not to destroy the people and then breaks the two tablets of the Pact on which the Ten Commandments are written when he sees the idol. God punishes the Israelites by means of a plague. (32:1-35)
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Moses goes up the mountain with a blank set of tablets for another 40 days so that God will again inscribe the Ten Commandments. Other laws, including the edict to observe the Pilgrimage Festivals, are also revealed. (34:1-28)
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Moses comes down from the mountain with a radiant face. (34:29-35)
For more on this week’s Torah Portion from the URJ go to: https://reformjudaism.org/torah/portion/ki-tisa
