This week’s Parashat Ki Tisa is sandwiched between the discussions of Shabbat and the Mishkan, and it talks about the sin of the Golden Calf, which is in the middle. But the commentaries explain that the Sun of the Golden Calf is not as simple as it seems. Just a few days after getting out of Egypt, and seeing the sea split, they're not going to forget about God.
What happened was that they felt that they needed an intermediary. Moshe Rabbenu was gone (or so they thought), and they didn't feel that they were able to deal with God directly. That was a mistake. We don't need a middleman. We deal directly with God. Rav Wolbe says that this mistake is prevalent today as well. He writes about this in his introduction to Rabi Yaakov Hillel’s sefer Tamim Tihyeh, which means Be Pure in your Faith.
It's also an English book called Faith and Folly. Rabbi Yaakov Hillel wrote this sefer about 30 years ago, discussing various mekubalim, whether real or not, that people were falling into.
In the introduction, Rav Wolbe wrote that rather than dealing directly with Hashem, people were using a back door to get to God. But we don't have to walk through the back door. We can walk in through the front door, with our heads up high, because we are the children of the King. Rav Wolbe gives a mashal of a man whose child needs something. Imagine if one day in shul, this man’s friend approaches him and says, “Your son came to me and asked me to ask you for some money for the new car that he needs to buy.”
The father would be shocked. He’d say, “Why'd he come to you? Why didn’t he come to me? He's my son! Doesn't he know that he can talk to me? Doesn’t he know that I care about him?”
It happens sometimes when collecting for causes, that you ask someone else to approach a person. Sometimes the people say, “You don't know me well enough? You have to send an intermediary? You can't talk to me directly?” It's insulting.
The same is true with Hashem.
We are His children! We should already have learned, from Yetziat Mitzrayim that we are His children. Hashem calls us, “My firstborn child, the Jewish people,” and therefore, we don't need a middleman.
Our rabbis tell us that we see from the fact that Shabbat is put before and after the sin of the Golden Calf, that Shabbat is a cure for the sin. It says that even if someone worshiped idols, his sins are atoned through Shemirat Shabbat. Of course, you have to do teshuva and repent, but Shabbat will fix the mistake. How so? The Gemara tells us that a non-Jew who keeps Shabbat is deserving of the death penalty. Shabbat is only for the Jewish people. When someone wants to convert, they can't fully keep Shabbat. They have to turn the lights on or something, because until a person is a Jew, they can't keep Shabbat.
The Midrash compares it to a king and queen. If they’re alone in a room and a stranger, who doesn’t belong, comes into the room, he’ll get the death penalty for interfering with the intimate time of the king and queen. So too, Shabbat is the time when God and the Jewish people are alone, so to say. That's why, as we read through the prayers of Shabbat, we have different levels- Friday night, Shabbat and Shabbat mincha.
The night is like the Kiddushin of marriage, putting the ring on the finger. Then we have Yismach Moshe, which is like the wedding canopy. Atah Echad V’Shimcha- Mincha time, is like when the couple is alone. So, the whole Shabbat process is showing the special, individual connection between God and the Jewish people. And if a person keeps Shabbat properly, he’s forgiven for the sin of Avodah Zara.
That means those improper thoughts will be purged and purified through the Kedusha of Shabbat. On Shabbat, we actually feel that special connection. It says that during the week, we're like servants to God, but on Shabbat were like God's children.
That is the special Shabbat feeling, and that is supposed to cure the mistake of the sin of the Golden Calf.
Deal direct. Feel the connection of Shabbat, and realize that we don't need a middleman. Have a Shabbat Shalom.