Do you ever
get the sense that your life is a roller coaster? I sometimes do, but truly I’m not complaining
about it. Why complain about something
that is so incontrovertibly a part of life?
We experience ‘highs.’ Moments of
great joy. Moments of transcendent joy. Moments of profound happiness. Moments of pleasure. And those moments are, by necessity, balanced
by the ‘lows.’ Moments of tension. Moments of questioning, when things puzzle or
confuse us and we don’t know what to do.
Or when we simply must accept an outcome that is not what we wanted. Like it or not, these moments are as
essential to our lives as are the ‘highs.’
Essential because, if there were not ‘lows,’ the highs would
simply pass unnoticed.
Unappreciated. Uncelebrated. So that ‘roller coaster effect’ – alternating
highs and lows – is an essential rhythm.
And we should embrace it. Because
the alternative would be a flat existence. No particular frustrations and
disappointments. No ‘lows.’ But also no moments of joy. No ‘highs.’
Only mediocrity. I’m guessing that
is not the kind of life that most of us want.
So too, in the collective sense, for
the people Israel. Last week’s Torah
reading was the narrative of the Golden Calf.
It was a low point for the people Israel. Having just been saved at the shores of the
sea by God’s miraculous intervention, they react to an unreasonable fear of
Moses’ absence by building, and worshipping, an idol. So soon after their deliverance from the
Pharaoh’s violence, they seem to forget everything.
And this week? Having been instructed by Moses to bring
forth all sorts of materials for the building of the Tabernacle, the Israelites
respond. Oh, how they respond! They bring forth so many gifts that Moses has
to cut off the donations. Enough! We have enough!
As my colleague Rabbi Kim Ettlinger humorously
stated in her drash this week, “I believe this is every shule treasurer’s dream…I
think the Moshiach might come sooner.” No
doubt such generosity would make Herb happy.
And if it happened, we would be forgiven for thinking it a harbinger of
the Messianic Age. But I think there’s a
deeper lesson to be found in this text.
Last Saturday morning I spoke about
idolatry in our age. I posed the
question of what we should take away from the Golden Calf narrative, since we’re
very unlikely to even consider worshipping a material object in a cultic-like
practice. And I responded that we should
look past cultic practices and understand that the equivalent of idolatry in
our age is materialism. I made it clear
then, and will now as well, that I’m not talking about wanting, and affording ourselves
things that we desire – and can afford.
That’s just self-indulgence, and we should all be able to do a little of
it. Materialism, as I mean it, is the
attaching of salvific powers to material objects. That is, thinking that things will ‘save’
you. Will solve your problems. Will make you happy. That’s what I mean by the ‘materialism’ that
is the equivalent of idolatry in our age.
You don’t have to melt down your gold or other metals into a calf to
commit idolatry. You only need to
elevate some object to the status of god.
Now let me juxtapose the two week’s readings, and perhaps in doing so
make it clear why I think this practice of idolatry is something that trips us
up so easily. In last week’s reading,
the people willingly brought forth their material wealth to create the calf. In this week’s reading, they willingly
brought forth their material wealth to create the Tabernacle. Of course, you see the common thread. Willingly bringing forth your material
wealth. The lesson is that this
willingness is not, in and of itself, a virtue.
If it’s done for bad reasons, it’s bad.
If it’s done for good reasons, it’s good. A willingness to sacrifice is not automatically
meritorious. So, when you are asked to
make such a sacrifice – to give to a cause – you must do so with open
eyes. Is the cause a good one? And am I giving for a good reason? The second question is probably the more
difficult to answer. Because after all, most
of us simply aren’t given to frequent, and deep, self-searching. In saying this, I am not criticizing. But, to really do the right thing, we must learn
to search ourselves. To clarify our
motives. And if this self-searching
reveals that our motivations are not worthy, then we should reconsider them. Sacrificing one’s wealth to build a Golden Calf,
and sacrificing one’s wealth to build a tabernacle seem similar. They both involve…sacrifice. But one brings a bad result, and one brings a
good result. And herein lies the reason
for these two events being chronicled next to each other in the Torah.
But allow me to expand the message just one more way. Giving materially to a cause is often referred
to as a ‘sacrifice.’ Because when you
give you, make a choice between that cause, and the countless other things you
might have done with your resources. And
that’s a sacrifice. But it isn’t the biggest
sacrifice. No, the biggest sacrifice
you can make is that of your time.
You’ve heard me say this before. Money spent can always be replaced. You can always earn more. But time can never be recovered. We have had several deaths among our members
recently. Being close to death sometimes
makes us reconsider how we spend our time. As it should. And reminded that our time is finite, we can
then consider the things we’ve been doing and ask ourselves: Are they worthwhile? Of course, the less time we have
remaining, the more likely we are to ask this question. My prayer is that each one of us will have
the presence of mind to ask it whilst we still have time to change the course
of our lives. I’m younger than many of
you. Please, don’t think I’m
bragging! But I do find myself
asking myself, more and more, if the course I’m on is the one that will lead to
a sense of having done worthwhile things when I’m near the end. It’s an important question to ask. And if you are blessed to have an answer, it
is important to act upon it. Are we
sacrificing our time for idolatrous pursuits?
Or just something unworthy of the sacrifice? Or are we truly spending our time on that,
which matters?
As you remember, I started this drash with a premise. That our lives are almost by necessity like a
roller coaster of good and bad moments. And
we should embrace the ride. That is, we
should acknowledge the wild ride that we experience in varying degrees and
accept it as preferable to a ‘flat’ ride of mediocrity. But in saying so, I am not telling you that
the Golden Calf was not regrettable. Of
course it was. As is any ‘bad’ decision
that we make. And decision that brings a
bad result. We must accept that the
alternative to making occasional bad decisions is…to never make a
decision. But that does not mean that we
shouldn’t endeavour to make good ones. And
if we see a bad result coming from our decisions, that means we have not made
the best decision.
We should therefore not be tripped up by idolatry. As our ancient forebears were. Let us, rather, learn from their experience. When our decisions result in regrettable
result, then that means we need to learn to decide better. Let’s make that – the quest to make the best
decisions – our life’s endeavour. We owe
ourselves nothing less. Shabbat shalom.
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