Don’t Give Up On Your Relationship
Have you given up on a relationship? Are you stuck in a stale mate situation? Do you feel that G-d has given up on you? Have you given up on G-d?
We all have many relationships; spouses, children, parents, siblings, fellow tribe members, G-d, etc. How many of them are we ready to give up on?
This weeks Torah portion sheds a lot of light on this subject. Our Torah is unique in that the story is not about saints, rather about people who make a lot of mistakes. Let’s start with the story: The Jewish people hear G-d speak the 10 commandments; I am the Lord you G-d, You shall have no other G-d’s beside me, and so on. Moses goes up the mountain for 40 days and nights to get the rest of the Torah and the Oral Torah, the people miscalculate the 40 days and begin to get restless. They gather around Ahron and demand a new leader, a new intermediary. They collect gold, throw it into the fire, out comes a golden calf, and they begin worshiping it saying, “This is your G-d, Israel, that took you out of Egypt”. Moses comes down and sees what’s going on and breaks the Tablets. G-d tells Moses that he wants to destroy the people and start over again. Moses goes back up the mountain for 40 days and nights and begs G-d to forgive them and threatens G-d that if He doesn’t forgive the people then He should erase Moses from the Torah. G-d forgives the people and tells Moses to bring up a new set of tablets. Moses does just that and goes up for another 40 days and nights and finally comes down with the second set of tablets.
That is the story in a nut shell.
Now why would G-d want this story recorded in the Torah? If G-d’s intention is for us to not worship idols then it would probably be better to hide the story. If you tell your children that they should not take drugs, is it a good idea to tell them that you yourself did not listen to your parents and you disregarded their warning and took drugs? Also is it nice to make it so public? Why not put it in the midrash, in the oral torah. Everyone can read this! Imagine every time you were in public you were reminded of your past infidelities, how would that make you feel?
Obviously the purpose of putting in the Torah is not to embarrass us quite the contrary it is to inspire us. Exactly how is this story inspirational???
The answer is that many times we feel that our relationship with G-d is over, we have strayed so far, we are so disconnected, that it is all but dead. The message from this story is how faithful G-d is to us, that although we did what we did G-d did not abandon us. G-d stayed faithful to us. That is the inspiration we should get from reading this story that no matter what, we are G-d’s people.
If they who saw the miracles in Egypt, experienced the splitting of the sea, saw G-d communicate to them, heard directly from G-d not to have any other G-d’s and they went ahead and did the unthinkable, all within 40 days of the instructions and yet G-d stuck with them. There is nothing we could do that could rival that. Therefore we are assured that G-d is and will always be our G-d and we will always be his people. If that is not inspirational I don’t know what is.
And this explains how Moses could break the tablets, after all they were G-d’s gift to the Jews, He should have returned it not break them. What Moses was saying was that the Tablets can be broken but not the connection between G-d and His people. And that also explains Moses’ chutzpah to give G-d an ultimatum, either forgive them or erase me from your Torah, is that the way you speak to the creator of Heaven and earth? Is this the conduct of the most humble man on earth? Moses knew that the way to show G-d respect is to honor his connection that He has with His people. Moses knew that this is what G-d wanted to hear from him. Otherwise why was G-d notifying him of his decision to destroy the people. Does G-d need Moses’ permission? If G-d was telling this to him it must be because he wanted to see Moses’ response. On both accounts, breaking the tablets and the ultimatum, G-d was very pleased and thanked Moses for his correct response.
G-d is showing us what kind of commitment He has made to us in the hope that we will reciprocate that commitment to Him, as well as a model for our interpersonal relationships. In our own personal relationships it is more complicated, we are dealing with another person who has free choice, but if both make a commitment to reconnecting, there is nothing that can stand in the way of that relationship rejuvenating and becoming vibrant and alive, filled with love and commitment.
If we all truly commit to our G-dly relationship it will surely help us in our interpersonal relationships. And our perfected interpersonal relationships will help us improve our G-dly relationship.
Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi Zalman Marcus