By Lonny Moses

---Introducing Ki Tisa---

Parashat Ki Tisa starts with God giving Moses a few last commandments about how to conduct the leadership of the Israelites. Then it continues, “When the people saw that Moses was late in coming down from the mountain, the people gathered against Aaron, and they said to him: "Come on! Make us gods that will go before us, because this man Moses, who brought us up from the land of Egypt we don't know what has become of him."

This line introduces the story of the Golden Calf. But doesn’t it seem strange? Why would Moses be late in coming down the mountain? After all, couldn’t God know that if he was late, this would happen? Couldn’t God have let Moses come down on time? And anyway, why would the Israelites get so worked up over Moses being a day late?

With no explanation in the text of the Torah, the Rabbis were left to explain what had happened.

This, chaverim, is Midrash. When there are gaps in the Torah, or when something doesn’t quite add up, we have to try to explain what might have happened. Here’s one of the many midrashim that explains what happened on Mount Sinai, when Moses was late in coming down from the mountain:

---The Midrash---

From the Babylonian Talmud, Menachot 29B

Rabbi Yehuda said in the name of Rav: When Moses went up on high, he found the Holy One sitting and tying crowns on the Holy letters [embellishing each letter with calligraphic marks.] He said to the Holy One: “Ruler of the Universe, who is holding back Your hand, [that you should take so long on each crown]?” The Holy One answered: “There is a man who will appear at the end of several generations and Akiva the son of Joseph is his name and he will need these crowns,

because from each and every thorn [calligraphic mark above the letter] he will derive scores and scores of laws.” He said to Him, “Ruler of the Universe, show this man to me.” The Holy One said, “Turn around!”

So, Moses went and sat in the back of Rabbi Akiva’s class, and had no idea what they were saying. He became weak and disoriented. Soon the class reached an issue and a student asked, “Rebbe, what’s your source for this ruling?” He said, “It’s a law of Moses from Sinai.” Moses was relieved.

At first confused and upset, Moses eventually realized that, even though he didn’t recognize this future, it had indeed descended from the same Torah that he was being given. Even though it seemed completely foreign to him, that was ok, because God had intended that the Jewish people would derive infinitely more meaning from the Torah than Moses could even imagine.

---The Full Meaning of the Midrash---

Let’s focus on this idea for a second. If in the very crowns of the letters, Rabbi Akiva can derive hundreds of halachot, what a world of interpretation the Jewish scripture is! If each crown contains hundreds of halachot, then each sentence contains thousands. The possibilities of Torah, indeed, are without limit!

In this week’s Parashah, God created the central text of the Jewish people - the Torah. What’s more, he took 40 days to do so. Think about it. It took God only seven days to create the Universe, and yet for the Torah he took 40?

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