Parashat Ki Tisa

Ki-Tisa (“When You Elevate”) opens as God tells Moses to collect a half-shekel donation from all Israelite adult males and to anoint the Mishkan (Tabernacle), its vessels, and the priests. The Israelites worship the golden calf, and Moses breaks the tablets. Moses beseeches God to forgive, returning with a second set of tablets.

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Upon finishing speaking with him on Mount Sinai, [God] gave Moses the two tablets of the Pact, stone tablets inscribed with the finger of God. When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, the people gathered against Aaron and said to him, “Come, make us a god who shall go before us, for that fellow Moses—the man who brought us from the land of Egypt—we do not know what has happened to him.”

Exodus 31:18-32:1

יהוה further said to Moses, “I see that this is a stiffnecked people. Now, let Me be, that My anger may blaze forth against them and that I may destroy them, and make of you a great nation.” But Moses implored his God יהוה, saying, “Let not Your anger, יהוה, blaze forth against Your people, whom You delivered from the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand. Let not the Egyptians say, ‘It was with evil intent that he delivered them, only to kill them off in the mountains and annihilate them from the face of the earth…

יהוה came down in a cloud—and stood with him there, proclaiming the name יהוה. יהוה passed before him and proclaimed: “!יהוה! יהוה a God compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in kindness and faithfulness, extending kindness to the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin—yet not remitting all punishment, but visiting the iniquity of parents upon children and children’s children, upon the third and fourth generations.”

Aaron argued with himself, saying: If I say to Israel, Give ye to me gold and silver, they will bring it immediately; but behold I will say to them, Give ye to me the earrings of your wives, and of your sons, and forthwith the matter will fail, as it is said, "And Aaron said to them, Break off the golden rings" (Ex. 32:2). The women heard (this), but they were unwilling to give their earrings to their husbands; but they said to them: Ye desire to make a graven image and a molten image without any power in it to deliver…

Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer 45:4

PUT YE EVERY MAN HIS SWORD UPON HIS THIGH. Since there were many worshippers of the calf, and they could not have all been brought to the court, therefore Moses commanded all the sons of Levi to put on their swords, in a similar way to that which our Rabbis have said, that if you cannot administer to the guilty the specific kind of death mentioned for his case, you may execute him by any means that you can. Now this procedure was a decision only for an emergency, in order to sanctify G-d’s Name, since those who worshipped [the calf] had not been forewarned [of the death penalty]…

Ramban on Exodus 32:27:2

ויהי כאשר קרב אל המחנה, It was, when he came close to the camp, etc. Our sages have already told us in Megillah 10 that whenever the word ויהי introduces a paragraph this is an allusion to a painful experience. In this instance Shemot Rabbah 46,1 describes that Moses noted the letters on the Tablets "flying away." This caused us all the subsequent grief our forefathers and we ourselves have experienced ever since, including the experience of death itself…

Or HaChaim on Exodus 32:19:1

“It was, upon Moses’ descent from Mount Sinai, and the two tablets of the Testimony were in the hand of Moses upon his descent from the mountain and Moses did not know that the skin of his face was radiant upon His speaking with him” (Exodus 34:29).
“He wrote upon the tablets” – it teaches that the first and the second were identical, Ten Commandments. How were they configured? There were five on this tablet and five on that tablet, in accordance with the statement of Rabbi Yehuda. Rabbi Neḥemya says: Ten on this tablet and ten on that tablet, as it is stated: “It was…

Shemot Rabbah 47:6

It is a positive commandment from the Torah that every adult Jewish male give a half-shekel each and every year. Even a poor man who derives his livelihood from charity is obligated [to make this donation]. He should borrow from others or sell the clothes he is wearing so that he can give a half-shekel of silver, as [Exodus 30:15] states: "The rich shall not give more, nor should the poor give less."
[The half-shekel] should not be given in several partial payments - today a portion, tomorrow a portion. Instead, it is to be given all at once.

Mishneh Torah, Sheqel Dues 1:1

“And the Children of Israel shall preserve the Sabbath, to maintain the Sabbath for their generations as an everlasting covenant. Between Me and between the Children of Israel, it is a sign for all time that in six days Adonoy made the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day He abstained from work, and rested.”

Shabbat Siddur Sefard Linear, Kiddush for Shabbos day 31-41

That the last tablets were given on it- On the 17th of Tammuz Moshe descended from the mountain for the first time and broke the tablets. Then, on the 18th, he grounded up the Golden Calf, judged the sinners, and ascended back to the heavens. He stayed there for 80 days: 40 days he stood in prayer as it says: "and I prayed before Hashem 40 days and 40 nights" (Deuteronomy 9:9), and he stood another 40 days like the first time. A calculation from the 17th of Tammuz until Yom Kippur comes out to 80 days: 12 days left from Tammuz (as it's a short month), 30 days in Av…

Rashi on Taanit 30b:8:1

Early next day, the people offered up burnt offerings and brought sacrifices of well-being; they sat down to eat and drink, and then rose to dance. יהוה spoke to Moses, “Hurry down, for your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt, have acted basely.

יהוה spoke to Moses, saying: When you take a census of the Israelite men according to their army enrollment, each shall pay יהוה a ransom for himself on being enrolled, that no plague may come upon them through their being enrolled. This is what everyone who is entered in the records shall pay: a half-shekel by the sanctuary weight—twenty gerahs to the shekel—a half-shekel as an offering to יהוה. Everyone who is entered in the records, from the age of twenty years up, shall give יהוה’s offering:…

Exodus 30:11-16

Rabbi Berekhya in the name of Rabbi Abba bar Kahana interpreted the verse regarding Aaron. When Israel performed that act, initially they approached Ḥur. They said to him: ‘Rise, craft for us a god.’ When he did not heed them, they stood against him and killed him. That is what is written: “Moreover, on the edge of your garments the blood…is found” (Jeremiah 2:34); this is the blood of Ḥur. “You did not find it while excavating; rather on all these [eleh]” (Jeremiah 2:34), because they committed [the sin of declaring]: “This is [eleh] your god, Israel” (Exodus 32:4)…

Vayikra Rabbah 10:3

[God] said: I hereby make a covenant. Before all your people I will work such wonders as have not been wrought on all the earth or in any nation; and all the people who are with you shall see how awesome are יהוה’s deeds which I will perform for you. Mark well what I command you this day. I will drive out before you the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. Beware of making a covenant with the inhabitants of the land against which you are advancing, lest they be a snare in your midst…

Exodus 34:10-13

So Moses came down from Mount Sinai. And as Moses came down from the mountain bearing the two tablets of the Pact, Moses was not aware that the skin of his face was radiant, since he had spoken with God. Aaron and all the Israelites saw that the skin of Moses’ face was radiant; and they shrank from coming near him.

Exodus 34:29-30

Thereupon I gripped the two tablets and flung them away with both my hands, smashing them before your eyes.

Deuteronomy 9:17

And יהוה said to Moses: Write down these commandments, for in accordance with these commandments I make a covenant with you and with Israel. And he was there with יהוה forty days and forty nights; he ate no bread and drank no water; and he wrote down on the tablets the terms of the covenant, the Ten Commandments.

Exodus 34:27-28

Moses took || the tables (of the law), and he descended, and the tables carried their own weight and Moses with them; but when they beheld the calf and the dances, the writing fled from off the tables, and they became heavy in his hands, and Moses was not able to carry himself and the tables, and he cast them from his hand, and they were broken beneath the mount, as it is said, "And Moses' anger waxed hot, and he cast the tables out of his hands, and brake them beneath the mount" (Ex. 32:19).

Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer 45:8

באזני נשיכם [BREAK OFF THE GOLDEN PENDANTS], WHICH ARE IN THE EARS OF YOUR WIVES — Aaron said to himself: women and children have a love for their ornaments; perhaps the matter will be delayed because they will hesitate to give their ornaments, and in the meantime Moses may arrive. They (the men), however, did not wait until the women and children made up their minds but they took the ornaments off themselves (cf. v. 3: they took off the pendants which were in their ears; there is no reference to the pendants belonging to the women) (Midrash Tanchuma, Ki Tisa 21).

Rashi on Exodus 32:2:1

ויבן מזבח HE BUILDED AN ALTAR to put them off. ויקרא חג לה׳ מחר AND CALLED OUT … TO-MORROW IS A FESTIVAL TO THE LORD — to-morrow, not to-day, for he hoped that Moses might return before they would worship it (the calf). This is the plain meaning of the verse. The Midrashic explanation of it in Leviticus Rabbah 10:3 (— it supplies an object to the verb וירא —) is: Aaron saw many things; he saw Hur, his sister’s son, who had reprimanded them, and whom they had killed. This is the meaning of ויבן מזבח, viz…

Rashi on Exodus 32:5:2-4

Mount Sinai with Moses, Passover Haggadah illustrated by Jacob ben Judah Leib of Berlin, Hamburg and Altona, 1740

Mount Sinai with Moses, Passover Haggadah illustrated by Jacob ben Judah Leib of Berlin, Hamburg and Altona, 1740

Readings

March 7, 202618th of Adar, 5786

Torah

Exodus 30:11-34:35

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 M

Haftarah

Ezekiel 36:16-38

Relatedראו גם

Aaron and the Golden Calf

Machatzit Hashekel

Sheetsדפי מקורות

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