Ki Tissa - All Is Divine

 After last week’s very late post (in the wee hours of this morning), I am trying to be a little earlier this week.

This week’s parasha is chock full, and so there are multiple challah shapes. Thursday has become “Inappropriate Challah Shape Suggestions” Evening. The most popular was a golden calf. I might have considered it, but free form challah shaping is very fickle. I sometimes think about getting molds to shape my challah. Points and corners round out when bread rises. But where would I keep them? Maybe sometime in the future.

Instead, I look to easier shapes. This week I made feet. Some may think it odd to have foot-shaped food. Feet are considered dirty in many cultures. In some, it’s the worst affront to show one’s sole. To wash one’s feet before seeking God, or to have one’s feet washed is a humbling experience. It harkens back to childhood and being cared for and loved. Aaron and his sons, and the those who come after, are cared for by the community. They are provided for. And through them (though not only through them) the community interacts with God.

The other shape is a paintbrush. It is not only Aaron, the kohanim and leviim who do God’s work. Every artisan shares a divine gift with the community. Betzalel, after whom Israel’s art institute is named, provides just as vital a part of our lives as Aaron. What is life without art and creativity?

This week is also the week of the Aseret Dibrot, aka the Ten Commandments (thosugh there are more than ten and not all are commandments, but I digess). 

(Keeping in mind my commends about free form bread rising,) these are the second tablets. The five balls per tablet represent each of the utterances. They sit on the broken pieces of the smashed tablets. God instructed Moshe to put the whole and the broken in the ark together. Both are holy, the broken and the whole, and sometimes we need the broken to be whole.

Finally, it’s not a Gorman Shabbat without a cupcake challah. Both the cupcake challah and the tablets are covered in streusel, For Torah is supposed to be sweet in our mouths. Even though there is much that can frustrated me in our texts and our history, I believe Judaism to be a religion seeking always to be better, and so we balance the bitter with the sweet.

A sweet Shabbat shalom to all.