This past week, I have been coming back over and over again to two images: Mookie throwing the trash can through the pizzeria window, in Do the Right Thing, and Moses smashing the tablets he brought down from Sinai, in the Torah portion Ki Tisa.
Mookie's action comes out of frustration with the continued wrongs being done to his Black community. It expresses his anger boiling over, and it leads to more destruction. Yet as I look at the scene, it seems to me that his violence against property prevents worse violence, against people.
Moses' action also clearly comes out of frustration with the continued wrongs being done by his own people, the Jews. It expresses his anger, too: they have seen God plague the Egyptians for them, part the waters for them, and speak to them from the mountaintop in lightning and thunder, and they can't stand not hearing from God, through him, for forty days?
Not only are they worshiping God through a visible symbol (which was expressly forbidden), but they're dancing ecstatically while doing the wrong thing!
Yet as I look at the scene, it seems to me that Moses is also identifying with the people. Perhaps even the apparent violence of smashing the tablet is a wake-up call, to snap them out of their trance. Certainly, whereas Moses used to speak for God to the people, now he starts speaking more to God on behalf of the people. He even tells God, in so many words, that he will stand with the people Israel and live or die with them.
He also seems to be recognizing that the people's sins are partly his own fault.
"That Man Moses..."
What is the biggest lesson that Moses has been trying to teach the people, ever since Egypt? That God--the invisible One, with the unpronounceable name YHVH--is God.
Pharaoh is not God, even though he claims to be. The Nile is not God, even though it gives Egypt life by making the ground fertile and capable of growing food. The sea is not God, even though Yam, or Sea, is one of the gods worshiped in the Middle East at that time. YHVH, the real God, triumphs over them all.
The most important lesson, however, is that Moses is not God. And they have failed to learn that lesson--which means he has failed to teach it.
"And the people saw that Moses was delayed in coming down from the mountain, and they gathered against Aaron and said to him, 'Come, make us a god who shall go before us, for that man Moses, who brought us up from the land of Egypt--we do not know what has happened to him." (Exodus 32:1)
Come again? Who was it that "brought us up from the land of Egypt"?
It may have been some comfort to Moses to know that this people, which did nothing but complain about him for most of the preceding chapters of the story, misses him so much they need to console themselves with a Golden Calf that stands in for him as their channel to God.
But oh, what a dismal realization of failure for Moses to know that they are "idolizing" him!
A New Pedagogical Approach
From that point on, Moses approaches the Jewish people in a different way. No longer is he concerned to overawe them. Instead, he seeks to instruct them.
* He grinds up the Golden Calf and, diluting it in water, makes them drink it. Thus, they literally internalize the memory of what they did wrong.
* He sets them to work on building the Mishkan, the physical location where they can turn for a sense of God's presence...at appropriate times. And he puts other people, skilled craftsmen Bezalel and Oholiav, in charge. That way, no one can say it only works because of Moses.
* He gives them more instructions about Shabbat, holidays, sacrifices and offerings, what not to worship and what not to eat. This Torah--the word literally means "instruction"--is what they are to study from now on.
Moses the prophet and lawgiver becomes Moshe Rabbeinu, "Moses our teacher." And that is a good thing. You might even say, the right thing.
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I'm reading through Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg's amazing commentary on the biblical Book of Exodus, The Particulars of Rapture. Each chapter expounds one of the portions we read in the synagogue weekly. It's slow going because it is so rich with insights. To keep on track, I will post at least one insight weekly between now and mid-March, when (God willing) I finish the book.
