Chag Ha’Shiburim: a holiday of breakings- Shabbat Chol Hamoed Pesach

Pesach has always been a both/and holiday– springy and hopeful, yet honest and vulnerable. And this Pesach is no exception. I know that many of us are thinking about the unique quality of Passover this year– about how so much sorrow is hiding just beneath the joy and the warmth. I know some of you looked forward to Seders as a sort of refuge from the brokenness of the world. How others leaned on Pesach as an opportunity to more fully embrace the complexities and questions of this moment. And how others yet, like me, found themselves floating somewhere in-between. Feeling pulled in both directions, wanting somehow to be both comfortable and honest. And so even in our own experiences of the Seders this year, we were all doing the dance that Pesach seems to require: to look forward while looking back. To sing Hallel and songs of praise to a loving, miracle-making G-d, while also validating G-d’s desire for vengeance and retribution. We dip a hopeful, fresh vegetable into the salty bitterness of our tears. We break the middle matzah, and we pour out some wine for each of the plagues and for the suffering of innocent egyptians. During Pesach we cycle between the beautiful and the ugly, the winter and the spring, between oppression and freedom. 

And despite the fact that Pesach is also called Chag Ha’Aviv, the holiday of spring, and Zman Cheiruteinu, the time of our liberation, the other central and inescapable motif of Pesach is brokenness. And in thinking about the act of the Exodus itself, Moshe had to split, had to break open the sea so we could pass through safely and on dry land. Perhaps we could give Pesach another name- Chag Ha’Shiburim, the holiday of breakings.

Shabbat Chol Hamoed Pesach is one of my favorite moments of the holiday, because it gives us a chance to reset. We’ve come down from the intensity of our Seders, we’ve hopefully all had a chance to rest. Today we are floating, suspended in time, between brokenness, and the promise of a perfected world that Shabbat reminds us of. Shabbat, we know, is called Me’ein Olam Habah, a taste of the World to Come. But this year, I am wondering how we hold it all. How can we believe in the promise of Shabbat, in the promise of a perfected world to come, when we just went through two critical days of lingering in the brokenness. How might we find ways to bridge the gap between the first days of Pesach and the last? Between doubt and faith? Between complexity and trust?

Our Torah reading for Shabbat Chol Hamoed Pesach comes to us from Parshat Ki Tissa, which is most well known for containing the story of the Chet Ha’Egel, the story of the Golden Calf. We know it well. In the early moments after the Revelation at Sinai, the people wonder why Moshe hasn’t returned from the mountaintop. Maybe he died, maybe he abandoned us. And in this moment of great fear, the people recruit Aharon to help them build an idol, a golden calf. A deity upon which they can place their hopes and their fears. Something that they can look to for guidance, but also something tangible that they can blame, hold accountable. And when Moshe finally comes down the mountain, and sees the people worshiping the Golden Calf, he smashes the Luchot, the freshly hewn tablets, to the ground– shattering not only the stones, but maybe even the covenant itself.

 And this is a turning point for G-d and for the people. Here, we encounter a people, so fresh behind the ears with freedom and agency; and a G-d who would prefer to wipe them all out and start over with Moshe. We meet a new G-d and a new people. Both of whom are learning, in real time, how to grapple with a new reality, with a new identity, to make sense of the uncertain path forward. The story of the sin of the Golden Calf is one of the most well known in the Tanach. 

But this part of the story is not in our Torah reading for today. Even though it would make good sense to read this story as a sort of reminder and rebuke: G-d just took us out of Egypt, and gave us the Torah, for those things we should be immeasurably grateful. Read the story of the Golden Calf on Shabbat Chol Hamoed Pesach as a cautionary tale. Be grateful that you were liberated, that you were carried through that broken sea, that you received the gift of Torah. As you recall and retell the story of Yetziat Mitzrayim, remember not to make the same mistake as the Israelites who stood at the base of the mountain. 

But our Torah reading for today doesn’t include this most familiar story from Parshat Ki Tissa. In fact, our reading begins just after the incident of the Golden Calf, in a moment of great theological doubt (which I believe goes both ways), and in a moment of miraculous rebuilding. 

Exodus chapter 34 opens:

G-d said to Moses: “Carve two tablets of stone like the first, and I will inscribe upon the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you shattered. Be ready by morning, and in the morning come up to Mount Sinai and present yourself there to Me, on the top of the mountain.

Moshe is conspicuously silent here. He doesn’t argue, doesn’t say thank you. And I have to imagine that his silence is born of utter shock. Maybe Moshe didn’t expect G-d to offer this holy second chance. Maybe Moshe didn’t think that G-d could bend so lovingly– not only in sparing some of the people, but in giving Moshe, and by extension all of us, reason to believe that there is no such thing as an irreparably damaged covenant. In fact, Rabbi Saadiah Gaon teaches that the second set of tablets are even holier, even more precious than the first, because they were given on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish year. 

Moshe carves the second set of Luchot, and prepares to present them to the people. We read:

So Moses carved two tablets of stone, like the first, and early in the morning he went up on Mount Sinai, as G-d had commanded him, taking the two stone tablets with him. G-d came down in a cloud—and stood with him there, proclaiming the name of G-d: G-d passed before him and proclaimed: 

“Adonai, Adonai a God compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in kindness and faithfulness, extending kindness to the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin…

In this moment of great rupture and repair, we meet a self-described G-d of compassion. We encounter a G-d who is and strives to be all of those things. Not vengeful but sympathetic. Not spiteful or jealous, but loving and open. Not zealous, but understanding. G-d is changed by this moment, too. 

So why read this on Chol Hamoed Pesach? This to me is the ultimate both/and story in the Tanach because it is at once a story of terrible fear, uncertainty, and brokenness, AND a story of what is possible just beyond the brokenness, or even deep within it. And perhaps most importantly, it’s not only Moshe and the people who are changed in this moment, G-d too, is wholly transformed. The G-d who emerges from this crisis is a G-d of empathy and patience; a new G-d, a better G-d, a G-d who can hold it all, and show us how we can, too. 

Today, I am davening to this newly formed G-d of compassion. To this G-d who, like the second set of tablets contains the multitudes and complexities of our story, who is perhaps holier and more precious than the earlier version of G-d, who is changed in ways that make it possible for us to believe that there is something beyond the brokenness. I want this G-d to accompany me down the mountain, through the sea, and into that future perfected world that Shabbat promises us. 

Shabbat Shalom!