What Love is All About

This week’s Torah portion is Ki Tissa, which means.” when you take.” It begins with the taking of a census, goes on to appoint two people to oversee the work of the Tabernacle and holy vestments, and reiterates that Shabbat observance supersedes work for God on the tabernacle. Later in the portion, while Moses is gone, the people make and worship a golden calf. Moses wins forgiveness for them and has an intimate encounter with God, in which he hears a description of God’s attributes: that God is compassionate and gracious; slow to anger, forgiving, and great in kindness and truth. At the end of the portion, Moses’ face shines with divine light.

Ki Tissa is one of the few Torah portions that speaks about relationship: specifically Moses’ intimate relationship with God. While Moses is on Mt. Sinai, with the Eternal, receiving the tablet of the Ten Commandments, the people long for him to return so they can feel connected to their Divine Protector. When Moses does not return on time, they demand an idol, the Golden Calf, thus breaking their promise to God. The prophet Hosea likens the relationship of God to the Jewish people to a marriage, where God is the groom and Israel the bride. “And I will betroth you to me forever; I will betroth you to me in righteousness, and judgment, and in loving kindness and compassion, I will betroth you to me in faithfulness; and you shall know God. (2:21-2)

Most of Ki Tissa traces the development of Moses’ relationship to God. As in a human relationship, there is testing. God offers to kill the people and create a new nation, beginning with Moses. Moses passes the test, refusing to abandon the people and hence, refusing to abandon God. Then it is Moses’ turn to seek a deeper relationship. He repeatedly seeks out God, speaking to the Divine at the entrance to a special tent outside the camp, which Moses calls tent of meeting. At one of these encounters, Moses says, in Rashi’s translation, “If I have indeed found favor in your eyes, make you ways known to me, so that I may know you, so that I shall find favor in your eyes.” Knowing someone, in the Torah, when applied to humans, means sexual relations. Here, it describes the great longing we have for completion, for perfect union, that we occasionally find in human relationships, usually only for a short while. But we are really seeking something more universal and profound. We are all looking for the Other in which we can find the Self. Only we can’t usually distinguish romantic love from spiritual love. It all feels the same and one gets mixed up with the other. We don’t have the words to describe the feeling of love, no less the difference between the two kinds. Love is one of our highest human functions.

We literally mint the spiritual currency of the universe when we love. The whole universe works on the principle of love, the more we love the more love we experience in return. Moses, like us, wants more of the good stuff – spiritual fulfillment, through love. And he finds it, by going one step further, asking God, “Show me your glory.” God grants him a close spiritual encounter, cautioning him by saying that he must not come too close, “for no human can see me and live,” which reminds us of what we all know: the flame of love, whether romantic or spiritual, can warm or burn us. This is stated in Song of Songs: “Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a sign upon your arm; for love is strong as death, Its passion as cruel as the grave. Its sparks become a raging fire. Great seas cannot extinguish love. No river can wash it away, If a man offered all the wealth of his house for love, it would be utterly scorned. I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine.”(Chap 7)

In Moses’ close encounter, God calls out with the attributes of the essence of who God is: compassionate, gracious, slow to anger, truthful, and forgiving. Like the song by Lieber and Stoller recorded by Peggy Lee, Is that all there is? We feel let down. To us it sounds good, but not great; not good enough to satisfy us. However we have to put ourselves into Moses’ experience. For him it is communion or even union, for in experiencing this intense love for the other, he has lost himself in God and found himself; not only the self he knows, but his best, highest self, which, really is what love is all about. When we find that completion, those spiritual riches in ourself, we have found peace and contentment, which can then be shared. We have enough, we’re less needy, able to give more than receive. In a paraphrase of the W.B. Yeats’ poem of 1919, the center holds, the journey is more placid, we are at home in our own skin. The love we give can bring about the peace we seek. May we give it to each other, and experience that peace.