Tablets, Calf, and Covenant: Mediating the Relationship with God
PARASHAT KI TISA (“when you take”) is the fulcrum of a larger portion of Exodus that is concerned with figuring out how God and Israel will co-exist. The parashah begins with instructions regarding census taking and the Tabernacle furnishings, moves on to the narrative of the Golden Calf, and concludes with a series of covenantal stipulations. While these units do not present a seamless narrative, they do contain a series of thematically related scenes that all negotiate the central issue catalyzed by the Sinai event: How can God and Israel maintain a relationship that takes into account the enormous disparities between the two parties—God, who is utterly holy, and Israel, a “stiffnecked” and back-sliding nation that can achieve holiness but not maintain it?
By the end of the parashah, the text has affirmed three strategies for sustaining the relationship between God and Israel:
1.Tabernacle: The story of the Golden Calf is situated between the instructions for the Tabernacle (25:1–30:10) and the description of its construction (35:1–40:38). This arrangement affirms that the Tabernacle, unlike the calf, is an appropriate response to the people’s needs for a physical location where they can gain access to God.
2.Covenant: The parashah concludes with a reiteration of the covenant, thus providing Israel with laws to help keep its conduct acceptable to God.
3.Moses: While the other two strategies are more permanent, Moses emerges as the most crucial mediating strategy between God and Israel, the go-between who repeatedly pleads to God on behalf of Israel. Although Moses is resoundingly human, the voices of this parashah conspire to identify Moses more and more closely with God until even his physical being is supernaturally transformed (34:29–35).
The parashah refers to women directly in only a few places. In the account of the construction of the calf, Aaron directs the men to remove the jewelry from their wives, sons, and daughters (32:2). The legal section at the end of the parashah prohibits marriages between Israelite men and indigenous Canaanite women (34:16) and includes a polemic against asherim (34:13)—ritual objects probably related to the worship of the goddess Asherah.
Nevertheless, the parashah engages two issues that are central to feminist theology and theory. In wrestling with the question of how close God can be to humanity, the text raises the issue of divine immanence and transcendence, a central concern of contemporary feminist theology (see Vayak’heil, Another View). The parashah also highlights the importance of narrative perspective and point of view. The crucial events of the Exodus and construction of the calf are described differently by different characters. These tellings not only highlight the disparate experiences of the speakers but also serve to articulate multiple perspectives on the text’s central concerns.
—Elsie R. Stern
Outline—
I. INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE TABERNACLE (30:11–31:18)
A. Census (30:11–16)
B. Laver (30:17–21)
C. Anointing oil (30:22–33)
D. Incense (30:34–38)
E. Artisans (31:1–11)
F. Shabbat observance (31:12–17)
G. Conclusion (31:18)
II. CRISIS: THE GOLDEN CALF EPISODE (32:1–35)
A. Construction of the calf (vv. 1–6)
B. God’s anger and Moses’ intercession (vv. 7–14)
C. Moses’ anger at the people and Aaron (vv. 15–29)
D. Moses’ intercession and God’s response (vv. 30–35)
III. AFTERMATH (33:1–23)
A. God’s refusal to accompany the Israelites (vv. 1–6)
B. God’s concessions and forms of revelation (vv. 7–23)
1. Tent of Meeting (vv. 7–11)
2. Moses’ request for revelation and God’s response (vv. 12–23)
IV. RESTORATION OF THE COVENANT (34:1–35)
A. Revelation of God’s name (vv. 1–9)
B. Terms of the Covenant (vv. 10–28)
C. A visible change in Moses (vv. 29–35)