Ki Tisa B’H
Imagine experiencing the most powerful moment of your life.
Now take one more step and picture that moment shatter before your very eyes…
What do you do the second after that?
Welcome to our parsha
After Moshe receives and breaks the the tablets of our covenant, Moshe has a strange request. ‘Hareni Na Et Kvodecha’, Please G-d, Show Me Your Honor’.
Many of our sages have trouble with this request. Couldn’t have Moshe chosen a better time to ask for this grand request? The Slonimer Rebbe points us in the right direction. What was Moshe really asking? Since everything is from G-d, Moshe couldn’t understand what kind of G-dly glory and honor could have possibly come out from the whole incident of the golden calf. After the revelation which took place at Mount Sinai, where heaven and earth began to harmonize like never before, and all were able to see that G-d is ONE…to immediately fall so low with the calf…. what kind of kvod shamayim came out from all of this?
In one of his most beautiful and life-giving Torahs, Rebbe Nachman of Breslov teaches that sometimes it’s all about the question. Moshe Rabbeinu didn’t necessarily need to hear an answer from G-d. It might be that all G-d wanted was to hear this question. It might be that this is what G-d was waiting to hear since the creation of the world.
I’m not sure what our generation’s golden calf has been, but after every tear that is shed, after every heart that breaks, after any painful moment one goes through and after any let down, there is only one thing to ask.
Ribbono Shel Olam, I might be able to accept this, but please, show me how your name has become greater from all of this.
Har’eni Na Et Kvodecha