By Nina Pressman and Rena Stoler

This week’s parsha...is...drum roll please...

Ki Tisa! Basically in this parsha there’s a census and that whole golden calf deal happens. If you want a more detailed summary you can check out this website or preferably this awesome video.

There’s a lot that can be said about this parsha and a lot of cool questions that come out of it that are relevant to the movement. We want to focus on one interpretation of the golden calf. As we all probably know by now, living a life that accords with movement values is a lot of times pretty difficult. It’s easy to give in to social pressures or to norms instead of sticking with the values and actions that you really believe in. Especially when the goals we are all collectively and individually working for are not super tangible it can be hard to stay strong without seeing a clear result. We all have our own golden calf and its important to think about why we are straying from our ideals and to also recognize that sometimes thats ok!) in order to know what we need to live a life based on our values.

Although this is one interpretation of the golden calf story, we also want to give some props to the Israelites for creating their own experience. They were sick of waiting around for Moses to come down Mt. Sinai so they found their own way of making life meaningful ( even if that wasn’t something that g-d agreed with in the end) . So while we’re not urging you to go out there and make a golden calf ( though that does sound like a pretty fun omanut project) it is important to recognize when it’s time get up and do your own thing.