Rabbi Yoshiyahu Pinto’s talks are known throughout the Jewish world. They combine chassidic teachings and philosophy, along with tips for a better life. We have collected pearls from his teachings that are relevant to our daily lives. This week he comments on the Torah section of Ki Tisa.
"Go down, for your people whom you brought up from the land of Egypt have become corrupt" (Lev. 32:7)
We know that no other person reached our teacher Moses’s pinnacle of spiritual greatness. He reached the point where he could ask God to see Him, and God had to tell him, "You cannot see My Face because no man can see Me and live." It is impossible to see God and remain alive. God told him instead, “Look behind me at the knot of My tefillin and this will be as close as you can get to see God.”
We have a question here. God is merciful and generous. He possesses far more compassion than we do. A person’s death is an act of God’s mercy, and a person’s sickness is also an act of mercy. Every trouble and every problem that a person has is really a manifestation of God’s mercy. We do not know how to understand God's mercy, but we still know that everything He does is merciful. Even when a person is miserable and depressed at home, God’s mercy extends to him even if he doesn't realize it.
Moses went to heaven to bring down the Torah and God told him the terrible news that the Israelites had done the extremely grave sin of making a Golden Calf. Now God commanded him, "Go down."
The question arises as to why the Almighty did not treat Moses a little more sensitively. Let him remain a little longer to calm down and overcome the shock. After all, even if you have to tell a person bad news, you don't blurt out in one moment that someone has died, that he lost all his money, or that he suffered a terrible disaster. You tell him the news slowly so that his mind will slowly process the sorrow and pain. So why didn’t God comfort and encourage Moses, and instead brusquely sent him away from heaven back to the earth?
There is an important principle here. "The heavens are God's heavens but the earth He gave to the sons of men." (Psalms 115:16) The heavens are God’s place, and when God created the earth, He gave it to mankind. Although it is clear that the whole earth is full of God’s glory and God is everywhere, God gave the earth over to the jurisdiction of humans.
The Gemara (Pesachim 86b) states that whatever a host tells you to do, you must do, except if he tells you to go away. When a person is in a house where he is a guest, he must do whatever the owner of the house tells him to do, unless he tells him to leave, in which case he does not have to listen.
The heavens are the house of God and the earth is the home of humans. A person receives the power and ownership of the earth when he observes and fulfills the Torah and its commandments.
If a person works with a machine according to the manufacturer's instructions, then he will benefit from the machine, but if he doesn’t follow the manufacturer’s instructions, he won’t be able to benefit from it. The same is true of the earth. if you observe the Torah and the commandments as the Maker of the earth commanded, then you can live and exist on the earth. But if you don't do what the manufacturer said, you lost your right to existence.
When Moses was in heaven, it was not his home, and Moses was merely a guest there. When Moses descended to the earth, since he observed the Torah properly from beginning to end, he became the “owner” of the earth. The Israelites did the serious sin of the Golden Calf when Moses was a guest in heaven. As a guest in God’s house, it was not very comfortable or appropriate to ask forgiveness and God wouldn’t listen to him.
That is why the merciful and kind God told Moses to return to earth. Whatever he asks for in heaven, God will not be able to answer him positively due to the severity of the Israelites’ sin. But when Moses is on earth where he is the “owner” because "the land was given to the children of men," if he asks for God to forgive and atone for the children of Israel, then the rule is “Whatever the owner of the house tells you to do, you have to do.” God will therefore accept Moses’s request to forgive and atone for the Israelites.
When God told Moses, "Go down, for your people have become corrupt... They have quickly deviated from the way," He said it out of compassion for the Israelites. Being back on earth would make Moshe the “owner”, and God the guest, as stated in the Midrash (Shemot Rabbah 33:1): God giving the Torah to the Israelites can be compared to a king who had an only daughter who married a king from a different land. When the son-in-law wanted to take his wife and return to his country, the king told him, “I gave you my only daughter. I can't live without her, but I can't tell you not to take her because she's your wife. So do me this favor: every place you go, make a little room for me where I can live because I can't live without my daughter.”
This is the relationship God has with the holy Torah. God held on to the Torah for 974 generations in His treasure house before the creation of the world. After God gave it to the Israelites, He asked "Make me a Temple and I will dwell among them" (Exodus 8:8). God is always there because He loves the Torah. Therefore, when a person observes the Torah and the commandments and fulfills them properly, God is like his guest. If God is a guest, and the person observes and fulfills the commandments properly, everything he asks of God will be given to him in the end.
This is why the Almighty said to Moses, "Go down, for your people have become corrupt.” He was instructing him, “Go down to the earth, because you are the “owner” there, and I will be obliged to hear and acquiesce to your request. Whatever the owner of the house tells Me to do, I will have to do. I will then listen to you and forgive the Israelites.”
This article was written in cooperation with Shuva Israel