If you only know the book of Exodus from the movies – ​The Ten Commandments, ​The Prince of Egypt, etc. – you might be surprised by its second half. After God's appearance on Mount Sinai, most of the rest of Exodus is devoted to the construction and dedication of a tent and its fixtures.

The Mishkan (or Tabernacle) is the portable sanctuary made of tent poles and hanging textiles that the Israelites built in the wilderness. It is the the focal point of the last five Torah portions in the book of Exodus.

​The Mishkan may not make a great movie, but it represents the culmination of the book's story. After God brought the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt, after God gave them the law at Mount Sinai, the Israelites needed a way to maintain their relationship with God. The Mishkan was the place where the relationship continued. It was the model for the Temple in Jerusalem that eventually would be the center of the Israelite's civilization – the place where they met with God.

The Mishkan is described in the latter part of Exodus with exhausting detail – right down to the tent pegs and the bells on the hem of the High Priest's robes. Yet, there is an oddity in the chapters that tell us about the Mishkan. Of the last five Torah portions in Exodus, two describe the design of the Mishkan and two describe its actual construction. In between these, this week's Torah portion (Ki Tisa) tells the story of the Golden Calf, the idol that the Israelites built while Moses was on the top of Mount Sinai receiving the tablets of the Ten Commandments.

Why, we might wonder, does the Torah put the Golden Calf – the most infamous example of forbidden idolatry in the Torah – right in the middle of the building of the Mishkan? Why is the description of the most holy place in Jewish tradition interrupted by our most devastating story of desecration?

The traditional understanding about the placement of the Golden Calf story in the book of Exodus is given by the great medieval commentator, Rashi. Quoting the Talmud, Rashi says that "There is no earlier and there is no later in the Torah" (B. Pesachim 6b), that is, the events in the Torah are not given in chronological order. According to Rashi, the building of the Golden Calf actually preceded the instruction to build the Mishkan by a few weeks. It did not literally occur in the moment between conception and realization. The story is told out of order.

While Rashi's assertion about chronology makes the narrative flow of Exodus more sensible, it does not explain why the the order of events was altered in the Torah. What does the position of the Golden Calf story teach us?

Perhaps the figurative presence of the Golden Calf in the Mishkah is meant to remind us that even the most heartfelt and holy worship contains an aspect of idolatry. There is no way for human beings to turn our hearts toward God in gratitude and reverence without, at the same time, engaging in the worship of something that is not God.

What do I mean by that? Consider what must happen within our hearts and minds when we intend to worship God.

If we engage in dialogue with God when we pray, we must first think of ourselves as being separate from God. We are here below and God is up above. God is the Creator and we are the created. However, the moment that we consider ourselves to be separate from God, we also conceive of ourselves as being self-aware and self-conscious entities. We become concerned with our own egos as much as we are concerned with God. We ask ourselves, "Am I doing this the right way? How does my praying to God make me feel about myself? Do I think it makes me a good person? How will others perceive me as I offer my worship to God?"

Those self-conscious thoughts that we bring with us into prayer may also lead to other thoughts. We begin to wonder: Is the palace I have built for worshipping God grand enough? Will God be pleased with my work? Will it be impressive enough to others? Will it bring me and my community a reputation for our piety and prestige? Will others envy us?

The moment we begin to worship God we begin to worship ourselves – in ways that are subtle and not so subtle. The moment we conceive of ourselves as separate from God, we engage in idolatry.

How can we avoid the paradox of worshipping ourselves when we want to worship God? We can try to remember that we have no real existence that is separate from God's existence. We can try to quiet our egos and allow God's presence to fill our minds.

In all humility, though, we must know that we are bound to fail. God has created us with very powerful psyches. We cannot hold onto the idea that we are a part of God for very long before our minds assert themselves and insist upon our separate reality. We cannot lose our egos entirely because – well – that's just the way that God has made us.

So, the paradoxical antidote to our hopeless egotism and inevitable idolatry is simply to be aware of it. That is why there is a Golden Calf sitting right in the center of the Mishkan. It is there to remind us that we are bound to worship our prideful selves and to lose sight of God even in the moment when we believe that we are being our most pious. We will build our idols exactly in the moment that we build our Temples. 

That is why we read about the Golden Calf this week. It is the only way that we can protect ourselves from ourselves. We remember the idol the Israelites built so that we will also notice the idol within us.


Other Posts on This Topic:
Vayikra: Should I Bow to a Block of Wood?
​Angels in the Architecture

You probably have heard at some point the idea that "Jews don't seek proselytes." It is true that Judaism is not a missionary religion – we don't believe that it is our duty to persuade anyone to become Jewish and we do not force our religion on anyone. However, Judaism always has welcomed those who express a strong desire to make themselves a part of the Jewish people.

The history of Judaism and proselytism is more complicated than most people know. In fact, the very word "proselyte" comes from a Greek word that means "a convert to Judaism." Converting to Judaism was so popular in the eastern half of the Roman Empire that, in the first century CE, nearly 20% of the population was Jewish, mostly by way of conversion.

Why was Judaism so popular in the Roman Empire? Certainly, many people were attracted to Judaism as a religion that taught that God was moral and demanded morality. In that respect, Judaism differed greatly from the amorality of Roman culture and the Roman gods who were believed to act out of whim and petty jealousies. Also, many people who had been oppressed by the Roman Empire because of the circumstances of their birth were attracted to Judaism – a religion that teaches that converts should be treated with the same respect and privileges as those born into the religion.

Judaism's period of explosive growth by conversion ended in the year 66 CE after the Jewish Revolt against the Romans. The Empire outlawed conversion to Judaism and imposed the death penalty both on new converts and on the rabbis who converted them. In response, the rabbis put severe limits on conversion – they did not want to be responsible for the deaths of future converts. Jewish tradition developed a strong bias against conversion and instructed rabbis to warn prospective converts that they were joining a "despised and persecuted people." That bias lasted for centuries.

In the 1970s, the Reform Movement initiated an outreach program that began to change Jewish attitudes toward conversion. Under the leadership of UAHC (now URJ) President Rabbi Alexander Schindler, ז׳׳ל, the Reform Movement established programs to make Judaism accessible to the "unchurched" and to encourage non-Jewish spouses of Jews to convert to Judaism.

Today, many Jewish communities offer "Introduction to Judaism" courses and other programs to help people who are curious about Judaism start on the path toward conversion. It has become common for American Jewish congregations to include large numbers of people who were not born Jewish, but who chose as adults to become Jews.

As the number of converts to Judaism has grown, the Jewish community has learned to be more welcoming toward those who have chosen to join the Jewish people. We are more careful not to assume that every Jew grew up as a Jew. Even the term "convert" largely has been replaced with the more complimentary term, "Jew by Choice." 

It can be argued, though, that in current American culture, all self-identifying Jews are, in some way, "Jews by Choice." In our society, not even those born to two Jewish parents are forced to accept a Jewish identity as adults. The act of identifying as a Jew and living as a Jew in America today requires a conscious choice. There is no "automatic Jew" anymore. Today, more than ever before in Jewish history, there is little difference between Jews who were born Jewish and those who have chosen as adults to identify as Jews.

This coming Shabbat, the congregation I serve will celebrate an entire family – two parents and their three children – who became the world's newest Jews last December when they emerged from the waters of the mikveh at Mayyim Hayyim. The parents, Kimberly and Jayson, will talk about their journeys toward Jewish identity. Their stories, like the stories of all converts to Judaism, are unique. But, then again, each person who was born Jewish also has his or her own unique way of being Jewish. In a society that cherishes choice and individuality, there is no way to be a Jew but by choosing to do so.


Other Posts on This Topic:
Chayei Sarah: Loving the Stranger
​Demystifying Conversion to Judaism

​The secular calendar we use was originally a religious calendar. It is officially known as the Gregorian Calendar and is named for Pope Gregory XIII who introduced it in 1582 to solve a religious problem.

Christianity's calendar problem had to do with the date of Easter. By the 16th century, scientists noted that because the average calendar year was slightly longer than the astronomical year, the holiday of Easter was forced into progressively later dates, violating the rule that Easter fall on the Sunday after the first full moon of spring.

To fix the problem, Pope Gregory's calendar eliminated three leap years out of every four centuries. That tiny correction stopped the slow drift of the calendar through the cycles of the sun and the the seasons. 

The Gregorian Calendar is a solar calendar. The earth should be (more or less) in the same location relative to the sun each year on any given date. But not all calendars work like that. 

The Islamic Calendar is a lunar calendar in which a year is made up of twelve lunar cycles with no regard for the position of the sun. As a result, Muslim holidays drift through the seasons – from spring, to winter, to fall, to summer and back again over a thirty-three year cycle.

The Hebrew Calendar is a hybrid between solar and lunar calendars. Each month represents one lunar cycle, but we occasionally add a thirteenth month to the year to keep the calendar in sync with the sun and seasons. That correction was, like the Gregorian Calendar, a response to a religious problem. According to the Torah, the holiday of Passover must fall in the season of spring (Exodus 23:15). The Hebrew Calendar, by adding that extra month every few years, makes sure that Passover will not drift out of springtime as it would in a purely lunar calendar.

However, because the Hebrew Calendar also is not a purely solar calendar, dates on the Hebrew Calendar do shift back and forth each year in relationship to a solar calendar. That is why Passover can begin anywhere from late March to mid-April.

This year of 5776 is a leap year and we are, right now, beginning the "extra month." This month is called Adar Aleph and it only occurs in seven of every nineteen years. (Next month, Adar Bet, is the "real" Adar). There won't be another Adar Aleph until 5779 (2019 in the Gregorian Calendar). 

So, think of it this way. This year, you get an extra month. Because the Jewish month of Adar is associated with joy, you are getting an extra thirty days this year to make your life a little bit happier. What will you do to make the most of it?


Other Posts on This Topic:
"When Adar enters, we increase joy"
​Joy Increases