Awakening Ki Tisa: Torah Mussar Mindfulness, 21st Sitting

Welcome.

Allow yourself this next minute to settle and arrive before we begin our awakening.

Welcome.

You are joining awakening.

Tora Musa mindfulness.

Our weekly program here at the Institute for Holiness.

Kehilat Musa.

I am Rabbi Hasi Oriel Steinbauer,

The founder and director of the Institute.

And we offer this weekly talk and sitting practice to look at the weekly Torah portion from the lens of Musa mindfulness,

Which is our joy and specialty.

And we're delighted that you've joined us either on live stream on the YouTube channel,

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Or with us on Zoom,

Which you can find the link on our page of our website at www KehilatMusa.

Com under the sittings,

The offerings.

May you join us also each Sunday,

3 p.

M.

Eastern Standard Time.

This is Rata Sham,

God willing.

Before we begin,

We always begin with our kavanot,

Our intentions,

And for today's practice,

Which is our 21st sitting for the parasha,

The weekly Hebrew Bible Torah portion called Ki Tisa on February 20th,

2022,

We move into the shared screen together so you can see our kavanot.

Let me move this over for you.

For those of you joining on audio,

I will be reading this so you don't have to worry about not seeing the text.

Thank you for your patience.

So we have before us number one,

We're going to be doing number one in three.

Number one is before doing acts of caring for the self,

We say this is something I am doing to strengthen my own soul in order to be of benefit to others in the future.

And we really see as part of our Musa mindfulness practice that this sitting together,

This talk and sitting is one of the many acts of self-care that we do in our practice so that we can strengthen ourselves in body and spirit in order to be of benefit to others.

That's what we're doing in this half hour to 45 minutes together right now.

The third kavanah,

Which is the third one in this list here.

Before doing acts to strengthen our relationship with the divine,

We say this is something I'm doing to strengthen my relationship with the creator so that I can be a better conduit of God's good to others when they need me.

So this is where we get behind in our practice.

When we say I dedicate the merit of this practice,

This meditation,

This talk to all beings that may all suffering end,

May we all become more awake,

Alive and alert,

More wise,

More kind,

More compassionate.

So this is part of the kavanah.

This is the intention,

The meaning behind them.

So I begin with how difficult kithi may be for you.

It is for me.

So I begin with this to honor it,

To recognize it,

To acknowledge it.

That this is one of several parshiyot,

The weekly Torah portion in the Hebrew Bible that may trigger strong responses and reactions,

Sensations in the body,

Emotions,

Thoughts.

So part of this practice for us today is to acknowledge that and to honor it,

To allow it as we move into investigating it in our actual seated meditation practice at the end of this talk.

So we begin with that because I will just honor and say that this is one of the most difficult parshiyot in my life,

Always has been.

And I'll give you a personal example that I have an 11 year old daughter who can't even study or read this parshah,

She refuses to.

It's very difficult for her,

The kithi,

Because she disagrees with God's response,

Reaction,

With Moshe's reaction,

With what is done to our people in response and reaction.

We'll delve into it if you haven't.

But do come to these portions,

This time,

This sitting together on Sunday,

Having read the parshah,

The section,

The Shabbat before.

So yesterday we engaged in kisitsa and all Jewish communities and synagogues throughout the world and at home in study of the week before.

So I'm going to model for what that looks like,

That discomfort,

Before we move into the text.

For me,

My stomach gets tight.

There is heat,

There's a cramping,

There's even a sick feeling.

It's a ball in my stomach.

And it's there no matter when I study it and how.

And so part of the practice is developing somewhat of this intentional witness to myself and my experience to recognize and to allow.

So that may be going on for you too.

So we've been triggered by other texts,

As you may recall in our study together.

For instance,

In the parshah Noach,

For some of us,

We were deeply disturbed by God destroying the whole planet based on the behavior of the human beings.

It's like this sense that some are guilty but all are responsible,

Including the Adama,

Including the earth,

Including the animals,

Which is profoundly disturbing to us for what the human behavior was.

We were also disturbed by Noach not arguing with God and trying to stop the marwah,

The flood.

And so that was part of our own struggle and reaction of what arose within us.

Some other difficult texts for us have been,

For instance,

When Shimon and Levi murder all the men and Shechem in the town where their sister Dina was raped.

They pursue all the men and murder them in response to this.

And that is deeply difficult text to sit with.

And of course,

One that we just had not too long ago is Yosef's brothers throwing him into the pits,

Sitting down to have a meal while he is in the pit,

Presumably screaming and crying for help,

Mercy.

And then they sell him into slavery.

Those texts have the feeling immediately of,

And this is part of our mindfulness practice and most of our mindfulness,

This aversion of pushing it away for some of us,

Of not wanting to deal with it,

For wishing it to be different,

Clinging to a different history,

A different story.

And so that's what we witnessed,

For instance,

In my 11-year-old daughter,

Is this aversion,

So strong that she's not ready in her own window of tolerance and her own toolbox to engage with this text and to see what else can come from the inner encounter with it.

So that's what we do today.

May our practice and learning today merit less suffering in my daughter and your children and all of us and the whole world,

Especially when we are engaging in difficult ancient texts from ancient traditions,

Which we are.

You know,

Judaism is an ancient tradition with ancient texts that are difficult.

Same thing with Buddhism,

Ancient tradition,

Ancient texts,

Some of them difficult.

So now we can see and really recognize and allow that we are witnessing God's rage at the Israelites' behavior.

What is the behavior?

Okay.

So a lot of people,

We've inherited a tradition.

We've inherited stories about this golden calf.

It is one of the most famous stories in the Torah.

And so when you've inherited,

Sometimes you're not even aware that you've inherited stories before you even encounter the text yourself,

That there's already ideas about this,

That the Israelites build a golden calf,

That they've done adultery,

That they have idolatry,

Excuse me,

And adultery,

That they have sinned,

That they've done something bad,

Something they shouldn't have done,

And that's it.

Two thousands of years of rabbinic exegesis will support this ongoing kind of condemnation,

Finding why they did it,

But never having a different wise response.

But before we jump into that,

Let's just look at what we've inherited.

Let me just share with you briefly.

So of course I turn to one of my favorite,

If not my favorite,

Torah parshanitic rabbinic commentator,

Which is Nachama Leibowitz.

May her memory be for a blessing.

Beautiful,

Beautiful teachings.

I highly recommend her if you don't know her.

So let me just,

How she opens the text.

There's two quotes I want to share from her.

So she's on,

We are on her,

Say,

For new studies in Shemot,

Exodus,

On page 549,

Called The Sin of the Golden Calf.

How was it conceivable,

And I'm quoting,

That the generation which had witnessed the miracles of Egypt and had scaled the loftiest heights of communion with God at the revelation on Mount Sinai could descend to the depths of pagan idolatry and make a calf?

Lots of judgment there.

Lots of aversion.

Lots of wishing,

Clinging to attachment to something,

Other behavior,

Something that should have been different.

So here we have similar language.

Okay.

Page 555.

Therefore we should not be astonished at the fact that the generation which heard the voice of the living God and had received the commandment,

Thou shall not make any,

Make other gods besides me descended to making the golden calf 40 days later.

One single religious experience,

However profound,

Was not capable of changing the people from idol worshipers to monotheists.

Okay.

There one,

I don't think that's the project with the people in the desert at the very beginning.

That might be God's intention and project long term,

But immediately after bringing them out of slavery,

We'll sit with that.

But you're hearing in this voice from our rabbinic tradition,

This,

The shock,

This judging almost anger at our ancestors of Beni Israel,

The ones who engaged in the building of the golden calf and perhaps the worship of it.

That's to be questionable.

This like anger and resentments that like to just put it in words,

Like you were that close to God,

You heard God's voice,

You were taken out of Egypt.

How could you have done this?

Like had I been there,

Like behind that is the voice.

Had I been there and I heard God's voice and I was saved from slavery in Egypt and I was told not to worship other gods or make molten images or whatever,

I wouldn't have done that.

Okay.

So we have to acknowledge a lot of judgments and throwing,

Throwing of that kind of view.

So but I want to point out very clearly in this text what it is.

Okay.

So let's look here at the very important.

We are in chapter 32,

Which is verse eight.

Very clear.

Okay.

So it says in the Hebrew.

They have been quick,

They've been very fast to turn away from,

To leave the path.

Okay.

Leave what they should be on the path,

Right?

That I had actually commanded them to follow.

Okay.

And what did they do?

They created an egg which is,

I guess the best way to word is kind of cast metal,

Golden calf.

Okay.

All right.

They bowed to it.

Then they offer a sacrifice to it.

Yeah.

Okay.

So what is the key thing here?

They've turned away from the path that I told them and they did something that I can add in them not to do.

Our ancestors and through the rabbinic exegesis will argue,

Did they,

Were they really worshiping it as an idol?

Perhaps they were actually creating something to replace Moshe because they wanted a leader.

They wanted someone leading him.

They really knew it wasn't that this golden calf wasn't really God and,

You know,

Rush bomb even goes on to say,

Of course they didn't know.

They knew that this wasn't God who took them out of Egypt,

That it was like a stand in that they needed like a physical image in order to imagine the God that they can't see there.

There's all these voices and struggle around it.

Right.

Okay.

So it's clear that the issue is that they have made themselves a calf and that was unacceptable.

They weren't supposed to do that.

All right.

I want to sit with that.

Okay.

So in order to do this practice of Moshe mindfulness and reaction to this text,

We need to envision that there could have been another response than what is going on with all this reaction and anger and emotional attachment and judgment.

Okay.

So yes.

What I want to share with you is that we're witnessing,

As I've already mentioned,

The 2000 years of rabbinic exegesis of much excuses or condemnation,

But a lack of an encounter with our ancestors as human beings worthy of being given the benefit of the doubt.

So let's look.

Okay.

Let's look at Moshe in chapter 32,

Hasuch 21.

He does something actually quite beautiful and profound.

He's a really very interesting ancestor.

I don't have time to go into him,

But this is the beauty thing.

This is the beautiful thing about coming to this sitting with me and this talk is that I later on in the next days will go up and go ahead and write up a written blog of both this talk,

But with much more analysis,

Sharing citations.

So it's very important to go to the written blog after this and that we give to subscribers,

Which you're welcome to subscribe to our newsletter on our website.

And you'll get access to this written blog.

Eventually it'll be for members only,

But we're starting with subscribers,

But this is why it's so important is I don't have time to go into everything obviously.

But what I do want to point out is in 32 21,

He does something very profound.

He says to his brother Aharon,

Because if you haven't read this Aharon,

His brother,

Who's training to be the cohinga do,

The high priest who be the head of the people,

He actually participates in the whole golden calf thing.

And of course there are rabbis that say he was,

They made him do it.

They were threatening him.

They'll have some excuse for his behavior,

Right?

But they don't have some excuse really for the children of Israel,

Right?

But this is Moshe comes down and says,

What did this people do to you?

You would have brought this sin,

This great sin on them.

Cause he participated.

They,

He told them to bring all their gold.

Supposedly he threw the golden and out came pop this,

This golden calf.

But what she's doing right here is he's coming in and he's like,

There's no way my brother would have participated in this.

And so something,

Some extenuating circumstance,

Some stimuli,

Something else conditions must have made him,

Caused him to do this.

Cause he never would have done this on his own.

And this is,

This is where I want our practice.

This is what I want.

This is what,

If I'm going to look at my own cleaning aversion,

But this is our reading because I want us to actually be able to take this in our own lives and practice is that I want Moshe to extend this same giving of the benefit of doubt,

Which is a huge needs for,

It's a huge commandment to give people the benefit of the doubt,

To assume that they wouldn't have behaved the way if they've gone off the Dara,

Which is what Hashem has said,

The people have gone,

They've gone off the path that if they've gone off the path,

There must be some reason because we know their higher self we've encountered it,

Or we believe in it because we know it from our own practice that we have this ability to call on our future selves,

Our higher selves are the best version of ourselves.

So we believe it in others.

If this is a religious practice in Judaism to do this as part of our most,

Our mindfulness.

So of course we want Moshe to extend this benefit to our people,

Our ancestors,

But there's not,

There's no inquiry,

There's no inquiry at all.

He doesn't ask to the people,

Why did you do this?

Why did extenuating circumstances made you commit this,

Engage in this,

This building of this golden calf?

There's no,

There's no extending that conversation,

That compassion,

That there's no withholding judgment to allow that conversation to happen.

Instead,

All we witness is judgment and condemnation and the reaction is swift.

So I want to point this out when someone's angry,

When there's anger and jealousy,

Which is sure as part of what's behind this jealousy on the point of God,

Feeling that the people have not remained loyal to God jealousy on the point of the,

The,

The half of Moshe,

Which is never discussed in the text,

But really these people were upset that he wasn't returning,

That they're human leader,

Who is this intermediary between God and them,

Who they even told you be the one that talks to God.

They said this right at the,

When they first kind of got at the mountain that he did not show up when they thought they should.

They were upset.

They were worried.

They had their own reaction to either a lack of patience,

To a lack of trust.

They had their own unbalanced me-doth that they obviously had to deal with and obviously take responsibility for that because it,

It,

They allowed that reaction to what was going on to engage in this behavior.

So you know,

To take responsibility that they were quick to leave the path,

Meaning they didn't have that,

They didn't bear the burden of the moment.

Okay.

If that's,

If that's where their sin is,

Is that where their,

Their behavior is,

Where they've gone off the Derak,

The path.

So we notice with Moshe in the name of God and Pasuk 26 verse 26 chapter 32,

That he,

He says,

Who's on God's side.

Come over here.

He's holding up the banner,

All the Levites,

Which is his own family.

Okay.

He comes,

His father was a Levi.

He comes from the Levites.

They come and he says,

Go and murder your sons and your brothers who committed this sin who were involved and building the golden calf.

Obviously there's lots of texts and exegesis on how did they know who was responsible,

Which is ties into Moshe forcing them to drink a certain portion of the golden calf that's been melted down with water.

We're not going to get into that right now,

But the issue is that we have a beloved ancestor who's carried this people with God's help out of Egypt.

Now I think hitting the most depraved lowest moment of willing to murder his own brethren in response and reaction to what they did.

This is not something that will go lightly.

This will be something that will be with them throughout the 40 years and probably responsible for a lot of later resentment,

Fear,

Lack of trust.

You don't just go and murder your own people when they don't follow what you think they should do.

We know this,

And this is what we're witnessing.

There has been no giving the benefit of a doubt,

No inquiry,

No having a different wise just response.

So there's much more that we could say about this.

And I would love to spend time on the reunion of Moshe and God on the behalf of the people,

This beautiful mirroring.

It's almost like the couple who adultery had happened and now they're coming back together and trying to build that I forgive you and where's the trust and I'm building the trust.

I need you to really forgive and I need you really to let go.

I really need this to shoo by this turning back in order to be in relationship with you.

And that's what happens with God and Moshe.

It's quite beautiful.

I don't have time to get into it now.

This rotation,

God willing,

I'll get into it in the written blog.

So please do take time to look forward and read it.

But for us,

I just want to say at the end of this chapter,

Chapter 32,

The verse 35,

We even end with God striking the people with a plague.

It says,

Vayigo fadonayet haam,

Ala sher asu et egel,

Asher asa a'haron.

Fix the people of the plague because a calf that Aharon made.

So you might be thinking,

I thought that Moshe and the Levites had murdered all the sons and brothers who had engaged in the golden calf.

Why is there a plague being sensed?

Who's left?

And this is where that beautiful quote,

I think it's by Eli Wiesel.

Forgive me if I'm quoting the wrong person,

But he said,

Some are guilty,

Like,

Especially in like a genocide or horrific act of violence,

Some are guilty.

All are responsible.

And this is what I think we're seeing in our,

In our ancestors,

Ancient culture and tradition that and maybe even in the world,

If we're going to imagine God's thoughts,

God's head,

To put it that way,

That if you had witnessed something,

Then you're responsible.

If you had seen this going on and didn't intervene to try to stop it,

Even if you didn't build the calf yourself,

Even if you didn't dance around it,

Even if you didn't have the meal and the give offerings.

That's one reading,

Perhaps.

That's a little bit more complicated,

And there's a gray,

Gray place where there were those who did participate.

But when Moshe said,

Who's with God,

They actually ran over because guess what?

They were for God.

And even building that golden calf was an act of still worshiping God.

But not in a way that God commanded or wanted in an inappropriate way.

It's like being in a relationship with someone and you tell them this is how to be in relationship with me,

But then they,

They do it how they want,

Not how you want and how you've agreed,

Where it was consensual.

So there's a violation there in the sense of this feeling of like,

I told you not to do this and you did it.

Okay,

So for some of those people,

They really were still worshiping God,

Just in an inappropriate way,

In a way that was commanded not to.

So that could have been the people that were hit by God's plague,

In the sense that they still are for God.

But they're going to be responsible.

Very hard to live with,

Very hard to swallow.

So we're going to move now into our practice of seated meditation and the the Pasana Theravada insight meditation practice mindfulness.

And this is going to be key that we're going to engage and what is coming up for us and how to address it with nurturing,

With non-identification,

With love in the sense of chesed of how we can offer it to our ancestors and offer it to ourselves.

So I invite you now,

Please come to a seated upright position.

If you cannot sit,

You're someone who's unable to due to either pain or discomfort,

Please choose to lie down,

Eyes open so you remain awake and alert.

Some of you can stand,

Do so by a chair to keep you grounded.

For others,

You can engage in a walking meditation.

For those of us in a seated position,

Please allow your feet to firmly allow the ground to hold you.

Feel all the points of your feet.

Let's kind of dance the feet on the ground right now.

If you're on a zafu or seated cushion,

Allow that experience to happen either with the tops of your feet or your knees,

But feel all the points of your feet come into contact.

You're being held by Mother Earth.

Same thing with your sit bones.

Feel where they come into contact with the seat or cushion,

How you are held and supported,

Upright,

Created in the image of God,

Dignified,

Held.

Three deep cleansing breaths.

Allow the breath to begin to settle,

No need to control it.

If you feel safe,

Shut your eyes.

If you don't,

That's okay.

Just lower your gaze.

And we'll begin.

We'll begin with entering this practice of attempting to be with what we've learned,

To enter a contemplation meditation.

Can we witness,

Can we recognize and allow what our ancestors,

What those children of Israel,

What they were engaged in when they felt that Moshe wasn't coming down the mountain?

He said he was going to return after a certain amount of time and he wasn't there.

Allow your higher self,

Your wise self,

Your future self to witness this.

Can you see them?

Can you offer compassion?

This people who was formerly enslaved not too long ago,

Who went through so much,

Their children murdered,

Their baby boys,

Witnessing the plagues and so much destruction and death.

Being held and carried this whole time by Moshe Rabbeinu,

By Moses.

It's like your own mother or father not coming down that mountain.

And then you witness their reaction,

Their unwise response to whatever came up for them in reaction to Moshe not coming down to the mountain when they thought he should.

How many times even in our own lives have we due to impatience or a lack of trust,

The middah of bitachon,

Of not bearing the burden of the situation that we rush to,

A rash reaction,

One that causes ourselves and others suffering.

So we witness this,

We witness them run to Aharon.

Make us,

Make us a replacement for this man,

This man who carried us and held us.

Make a replacement for him.

We need another leader.

He hasn't come down,

He hasn't returned.

And Aharon,

Perhaps out of mercy,

Perhaps out of fear,

We don't know,

Maybe a combination of both,

Does as they say,

Attempts to help them,

Attempts to help calm the anxiety,

Calm the reaction.

So wise is actually his response even in the unwise response is that he says tomorrow we will worship.

He tries to put it off by a day.

You have to be very careful looking at the language.

Pay attention to what's said.

I think he was hoping in that day that there would perhaps be some reflection,

Some space between the match and the fuse that our people could have pulled themselves out.

But no.

So what would have been a wise,

Just right response?

What would have looked like?

It is up to us,

The inheritors of this text and tradition.

Can we engage in a visioning,

Another way,

Another response,

Another reaction to our ancestors behavior?

Even God,

The first time we're witnessing our beloved God not going down to inquire.

Before God came down to inquire,

God always comes down to inquire before God causes wrath to happen.

God came down before going to Sodom and Gomorrah to really check out the screens and what was happening.

We learn from God that we attempt to emulate that.

So a wise response would be immediately and maybe even to ask of Moshe to demand this,

Go down to inquire.

Why are the people behaving the way they are?

They must miss me.

They must miss you.

We're going to sit for a moment of silence to allow that to sit in.

Now it is part of your practice to recognize whatever's coming up for you.

What sensations in the body,

What emotions,

What thoughts are arising as you listen to me?

To acknowledge them,

To honor them,

Investigating the real felt sense of whatever is going on for you.

Then to extend the N of RAIN,

The nurturing,

Nurture yourself during this practice today.

For others of you,

It'll be a non-identification,

Non-identifying with whatever is arising,

Recognizing it as a femoral,

That it will be a state that arises,

Has its life and then passes.

That's how it is with all states,

With all thoughts,

Emotions,

And sensations in the body.

We are developing this inner witness so that we can have this wise,

Compassionate response to the texts that we encounter,

To our ancestors,

To our own reaction or response.

So imagine now Moshe comes down to inquire,

Really envision this,

Contemplate this.

Maybe even God comes with Moshe to inquire,

See what's happening.

Imagine the joy of the people.

He's returned.

Moshe,

Look what we did.

We were so afraid when you didn't return when we thought you should.

Maybe he would have heard a voice like that in his inquiry.

Surely if he gave the benefit of doubt like he did to his brother Aharon,

He could say,

Yes,

I can see how this led you to do this,

How you needed something more secure.

I can see that.

I can see that you made unwise choice.

I can see how you actually wanted to be with God and were worshiping God but did so in a way that was inappropriate,

That God did not want,

That God commanded you not to.

Could you imagine the rachamim,

The compassion,

The mercy pouring out from God that moment,

Even Moshe?

Knowing that that window of tolerance just opened,

Like God opened,

The Sea of Reeds,

That God and Moshe in that moment could hold it all,

Could know in their practice that they could hold it all.

And the people in that moment of compassion would be able to recognize where they had gone off the path.

They could have done teshuva,

They could have returned to God,

Taken responsibility and given a chance.

We move into silent meditation.

I will ring the bells when we are to come out.

Please.

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