Ki Tisa

Our Purim party was such a delight – and now we prepare for Pesach and our Seder. I hope you will register to join us – Seder is just a few weeks away!

This week we read Ki Tisa, and read about the infamous incident of the Golden Calf. Our Torah is never afraid to look straight at our failures – be they collective or individual failings. And yet.

Years ago I advised a young couple at a dinner prior to their chuppah, their wedding, that love means you are always saying you are sorry, (with apologies to Jonathan Livingston Seagull). Torah also teaches us the very many ways we can repent, say we are sorry, do teshuvah.

We are imperfect beings; we are afraid, we get angry, we feel slighted. We may not feel we have Moses arguing for forgiveness on our behalf – but we can feel that we are living within a tradition allows us to learn how to forgive others and forgive ourselves, a point made by one of our members last Shabbat.

We all have helped to build a Golden Calf, and we all have all helped build a Mishkan. We have all left Mitzrayim and we have all ascended Sinai. May we approach this year’s Pesach with an open heart, just as the waters parted millennia ago to allow us to step into our freedom.

Love,Rabbi Lynn