Ki Tissa
Do we have to wait for a crisis to be brave?
Reflection by Or HaLev Teacher Rabbah Dr. Mira Neshama:
"This year, Jews across the world will read parashat Ki Tissa right after celebrating Purim (and in Jerusalem, on the day of `Shushan Purim` itself, as, in walled cities, the holiday is celebrated a day later).
Beyond their very different settings and narratives, these two stories have a lot in common.
Just like the story of Purim, Parashat Ki Tissa is a roller coaster. After being freed from Egypt, receiving the revelation at Mount Sinai and building the mishkan, the tabernacle, B'nai Israel are finally about to receive the tablets of the covenant.
But as Moshe disappears on the mountain to receive the tablets for them, the people, left to their own devices, feel abandoned. They decide to make for themselves a new God and begin bowing down to it. God is so angry that God threatens to annihilate the whole people. It is Moshe’s compassionate intervention that stays God’s hand.
In The Book of Esther, it is the opposite; it is precisely because Mordechai the Jew refused to bow down to Haman that Haman plotted the extermination of Mordechai’s whole people. Here, it is Queen Esther’s compassionate intervention that ultimately stops Haman’s hand.
In both stories, the Jewish people find themselves in a situation where they might be completely wiped out. In both stories, a courageous individual steps up and saves them.
Esther and Moshe are faced with immense challenges, and they each step up.
But we don’t need to wait until life confronts us with matters of life and death to choose to be brave, to develop the heart qualities that help us live with better equanimity, courage, clarity and connection.
This is what mindfulness practice has taught me.
By showing up over and over again to my feelings, instead of suppressing them or looking for easy escapes, I have learned to feel what I feel, and to make decisions based on the clarity of my heart and consciousness.
This is what Esther embodies when she decides to go speak to the King, risking her own life, even though she was afraid.
This is what Moshe expresses when he pleads to God on behalf of the Jewish People, even though he too is mad at them.
Having emotions, such as anger, for Moshe, or fear, for Esther, doesn’t mean we have to act upon them.
We can begin by choosing simply to sit, day in and day out, and practice mindfulness.
And what better time than today?"