Adar I 22, 5784  ·  2nd March 2024

Parashat Ki Tisa

A Devar Torah by Ben Eaton

A common theme in this week's parsha is the sanctity of life. It begins with the commandment to give half a shekel for every Israelite so that "there will be no plague among them when they are counted".

It also shows that everyone from the age of 20 upwards, regardless of status, gives the same amount. Thus, establishing that all lives are valued equally. The parsha then moves onto the commandments to the priests that they must always wash themselves before entering the Mishkan – (ironically, the last time I remember hearing a d'var Torah for this parshah was in March 2020, when such advice on hygiene was particularly pertinent). Later, Moses pleads for our lives after the sin of the golden calf and saves us from G-d's wrath. The parshah then states the Thirteen Attributes of Mercy with which G-d governs the world.

There is a Halachic principle of pikuach nefesh, literally "saving a life", which holds that the preservation of human life takes precedence over nearly all of the mitzvot. Hence why soldiers may fight on Shabbat and doctors may perform emergency surgery. The principle is derived from parsha Acharei Mot in Vayikra (Leviticus 18:5) which states that "You shall observe My statutes and ordinances, which a man shall do and live by them." Live by them, not die by them.

You may have noticed that I said the preservation of human life takes precedence over nearly all the mitzvot. The corollary of this is that there are commandments which cannot be violated to save a life. These are not to murder, not to engage in sexual misconduct, and (the main theme of this d'var Torah) not to practice idolatry. We know that murder is bad and, if we're left in any doubt, the 6th commandment tells us so. The social and personal consequences of sexual misconduct (which in the Torah covers all manner of depravity) should not need elaboration here. But the sin of idolatry is considered more serious than all of these – as the second commandment it appears before the commandments to honour your parents, to keep Shabbat, and not to murder or steal.

Why is Idolatry Such a Big Deal?

So why is idolatry such a big deal? Is it really worse to bow down to idols than to engage in forbidden sexual relations or to murder someone? The Torah seems to say so. Later in the parsha (34:13), it tells us that when we defeat the Canaanite tribes "you must shatter their altars, demolish their pillars, and cut down their deified trees". The sin of the golden calf in this parsha ends with the Levites going through the camp slaughtering "some 3000 men from among the people". So, we know idolatry is serious but that doesn't get us to heart of why it is so.

Things become clearer if we look at the consequences of refusing to bow to idols. The Mishnah, in Bereshit Rabbah 38, tells us of Abraham's defiance of idolatry. He smashes up all but the largest idol in his father Terach's shop and then, when asked what happened, claims that the idols got into an argument and the large one smashed them all. His father points out that couldn't have happened as they're only statues, so Abraham asks why his father (and his fellow citizens) worship the idols. It ends up with Terach taking Abraham to Nimrod who, angered at Abraham's refusal to worship any of the idols he proposes, throws Abraham into the fire where he is saved by G-d. We see a similar pattern in the Book of Daniel where Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego are thrown into the fire for refusing to bow to a golden statue of the king – where, as with Abraham, G-d saves them.

We can understand things better by asking why do idolaters punish those who refuse to bow to their idols? It should be obvious from the tale of Abraham in the idol shop. He points out a central pillar of the society in which he lives is based on something that is demonstrably false. If this truth is allowed to flourish, then those who benefit from this falsehood stand to lose the power it affords them. We saw this with the rise of communism and fascism in the 20th century, and we see it now with cancel culture – ideology can be an idol. Non-believers must be persecuted for "wrongthink" so that nobody entertains alternative ideas. The "Great Leap Forward" in China during the mid-20th century resulted in the death of over 50 million people by famine. The idol of communism was meant to lead to a bright new future, but those who pointed out the problems of mandatory agricultural collectivisation were persecuted and those responsible for implementing it carried on despite the rising death toll (because the idol mattered more than the consequences). The Khmer Rouge had similar results, leading to the deaths of 25% of the Cambodian population – around 2 million people. They even attempted to rewrite history to support this idol, by murdering intellectuals who could point out the falsehoods (although one suspects that these days, they could just update the search results on Google). More recently, we see people robbed of their livelihoods and harassed for refusing to subscribe to the current vogue for identity politics. Ideas which would have been mocked or even debated a decade ago are now held up as quasi-religious beliefs that must not be contradicted despite their obvious flaws. The nonbelievers who blaspheme must be made an example of as a warning to others. Even though, as GK Chesterton put it: "fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions".

Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak Kook, the first Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of British Mandate Palestine, touched on this idea of ideology as an idol when asked what the ideology of Judaism is. He said "There is no ideology of Judaism. Rather, Torah contains all the truths that are out there — including those that are at odds with one another." But he went on further that "Every such definition in Judaism is heresy and is analogous to establishing an idol or a molten image to explain the character of G‑d."

From this, I posit that idols are a perversion of reality. They are a poor man-made copy of something that actually exists, whether it be a calf or the solution to the perfect society. The copy is then given primacy over the real (Divinely created) thing and now human beings are creating their own realities.

A Meta-Narrative

At this moment, I'm going to do a similar thing to Moses in the parsha and insert a meta-narrative. The original draft of this d'var Torah mentioned the French philosopher Jean Baudrillard and his concepts of simulacra and hyperreality. However, I checked my references with a very knowledgeable Welsh philosophy scholar and he was able to convince me that this was not an area I should touch without several years of intense study. Nonetheless he gave me a quote from the Science Fiction author Philip K Dick, which articulates the point I'm trying to make rather better. So back to the narrative.

"...the bombardment of pseudo-realities begins to produce inauthentic humans very quickly, spurious humans — as fake as the data pressing at them from all sides...Fake realities will create fake humans. Or, fake humans will generate fake realities and then sell them to other humans, turning them, eventually, into forgeries of themselves. So we wind up with fake humans inventing fake realities and then peddling them to other fake humans. It is just a very large version of Disneyland."

— Philip K Dick

Given enough postmodern bamboozling, intellectuals will go along with this. The problem comes when people who are, as Professor Kathleen Stock puts it, "not educated to that level of stupidity" point out that the emperor has no clothes. Then the high priests and worshippers have to punish the nonbelievers and engage in increasingly debased acts to keep reality at bay.

We, as Jews, are not immune to this. Our solution for the perfect society is the Torah – it's why we have survived empires and are still here today. But we do get suckered by shiny alternatives, let's call them "isms", and we become convinced that they're definitely better than Juda"ism". Rabbi YY Rubinstein refers to this as the "solitary remaining Jewish advocate" and it ties in with the words of Elijah in the Haftarah: "Until when are you hopping between two ideas?". To quote Rabbi Rubinstein:

"In every generation there is an alternative system of belief, available and tantalising to Jews. The 'Ism' comes along, offers itself and carries off thousands and sometimes millions of adherents. The contract we have with G-d is simply the availability to embrace the new 'Ism'...but it has to be a full embrace, with all that it implies, if this alternative fails us, then we have to bear the consequences; we chose it...After an 'Ism' has proven itself bankrupt and failed, you will find solitary remaining Jewish advocates, arguing that their particular fossil is still vibrant, alive and necessary."

— Rabbi YY Rubinstein

How Do We Avoid Idolatry?

So how do we avoid idolatry in all its forms? Simple - we follow The Torah. As progressive Jews we do lots of things differently from the Orthodox, such as not separating men and women in services and only observing 1 day for some festivals instead of 2. Many of these differences are because of older Rabbinic rulings that have been negated by changes in technology, but our observance should still fall within halacha. The problem is that sometimes we throw the baby out with the bathwater. Engaging with modernity does not mean sacrificing our observance of Judaism to suit current sensibilities. To quote the definition of Ivri in the book 'People of the Word' (by Mendel Kalmenson and Zalman Abraham): "Jews were originally called Hebrews, or in Hebrew, Ivriyim, because they were willing to take on, and take down, the idols of the day. To be a Hebrew thus literally means to possess the courage to stand apart, to dare to be different, and Abraham was the first to proudly bear this title of distinction."

We should actively look for ways to observe the commandments. For example, there are seven festival days on which we are commanded not to work (first and last days of Pesach, Shavuot, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, and Simchat Torah) – book them off work this year. Say Shema every morning and evening. When we're making a decision or forming an opinion, we should look for what The Torah says (which would be easier if we had a full-time rabbi, but you can read my thoughts on that in the next Bulletin).

There is a three-letter acronym popular in technology and marketing: FUD. It stands for Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt. It's defined as "a strategy to influence perception by disseminating negative and dubious or false information". It usually happens when there is a knowledge vacuum and can be seen as one of the driving factors in the sin of the golden calf, as well as in many modern ideological movements.

"You can't outsource conscience. You can't delegate moral responsibility away. When you do, you raise expectations that cannot be met. And when, inevitably, they are not met, society becomes freighted with disappointment, anger, fear, resentment and blame. People start to take refuge in magical thinking, which today takes one of four forms: the far right, the far left, religious extremism and aggressive secularism. The far right seeks a return to a golden past that never was. The far left seeks a utopian future that will never be. Religious extremists believe you can bring salvation by terror. Aggressive secularists believe that if you get rid of religion there will be peace. These are all fantasies and pursuing them will endanger the very foundations of freedom."

— Rabbi Jonathan Sacks

A final thought. The parsha is somewhat of a paradox. With the golden calf we commit the gravest of sins, one that cannot be done even to save a life. Yet Moses successfully pleads on our behalf and saves our lives so that we can be here today celebrating Shabbat and practising the mitzvot.

Shabbat Shalom