A thought on Parshas Ki Sisa
"...va'yar es ha'egel u'mecholos...""...and he saw the calf, and the drums..." (32:19)
There was something about those drums which caught Moshe's eye. We know that Moshe had already heard the loud commotion going on down in the camp (verses 17 & 18.) There was wild recklessness and the roar of the crowd yet what catches his eye here is the drums.
What's with the drums? After all, there are many Biblical instruments - the horn, the lyre, the harp, the organ, the flute, tambourine, the trumpet, the cymbal, and the drum. These are cited at the end of Tehillim. Why the drum here?Now before you get snared in that question, Rabbeinu Bachya gives an interpretation which can't be beat. He reminds us that there are nine instruments cited at the very end of Tehillim. Dovid HaMelech beckons us to
"praise Him with the blast of the shofar... with lyre and harp...
with tambourine and drum...with organ and flute...with clanging
cymbals and blaring trumpets... (Psalm 150:3-5)
We know that the forms of musical instruments span the brass (such as the Biblical trumpets), the woodwinds (such as the Biblical organ), the winds (such as the Biblical flute), strings (such as the harp of the Bible), percussion (such as the cymbals) and timpani (such as those drums).
Amidst the cacophony and blasting down in the camp, why did Moshe focus on those drums? The verse seems to harp on them, horning in on the pounding of the drums as Moshe takes in the sight of the throngs of people below. The beat goes on as does the jeering and the shrieking of the crowd yet Moshe picks up on those drums. What did they cymbolize? Rabbeinu Bachya teaches us a lesson about the greatness of Moshe. Imagine a Rorschach inkblot test, which you have all heard about but may know little about. A person is shown an inkblot printed on a card, with no precise form or shape, hence an ambiguous stimulus. The person is asked to look at it and give his or her reactive impression. They may imagine that it looks like some object, or concept, or it reminds them of a particular idea, or person or animal or whatever. The skilled clinician studies the person's perceptual style and learns about what their "mind's eye" does as it guides their actual eye. Each person will associate to images which reveal something about their preoccupations, their attitudes, their biases, their moods, their internal ideas and drives and longings and how they structure or conceal them from awareness.
Moshe our Teacher looked and listened as the people went wild around the egel and when he saw the drum - the machol - he did what we do on Rosh HaShanna. We take a fruit or a vegetable with an ambiguous name (a name which sounds as if it has multiple meanings) and we make an association to some positive thought to which its sound alludes. Hence, we may take a turnip and say at the meal "may good things turn up for us this year" or we may take a pear and say "may we be regarded as pe'er (beauty) before HaShem" and so on (these are some of the creative simanim which we use in my home on Rosh HaShanna.)
Moshe saw the egel, he saw the defiant dancers, he heard the horns and organs and flutes and drums ... but what he saw were the drums. He saw the drums because the word for drum is machol and even as he looked at the egel and saw it, he also picked up on the machol and rather than associate to the sound of the machol, he associated to the sound of the word machol which sounds somewhat like the word mechila. Mechila means forgiveness. Moshe looked at the tragic scene but in his mind, the fact that he noticed the machol meant to him that from amidst this horrible sight could emerge forgiveness from HaShem to His nation. With that association, he ran down to the camp and proceeded to put together a remedy for the people, for those who would seek mechila in earnest.
We can take a lesson from this for ourselves. We must learn to look beyond the obvious, especially when times are tough for us. We can become ensnared and entrenched in stress but we can at times take inspiration from something incidental which may appear on our periphery. Sometimes, those fringe details or coincidental issues may contain the resource or the remedy or the solution, or just the inspiration to help us through. And if we are very great, we can even find amidst our difficult circumstances a tool which may later help us deal with, or better understand, someone else who may later have a related predicament.
Moshe may have been horrified at the grotesque scene at the foot of Mt. Sinai yet he saw a trace of hope somehow in the fact that one of the instruments was called a machol. He let this shift his perception of the event and alter his attitude. More importantly, he directed his response and actions accordingly so that from out of abject desecration would emerge Divine forgiveness.
Wishing you a joyful Shabbos with song and praise. D Fox
There was something about those drums which caught Moshe's eye. We know that Moshe had already heard the loud commotion going on down in the camp (verses 17 & 18.) There was wild recklessness and the roar of the crowd yet what catches his eye here is the drums.
What's with the drums? After all, there are many Biblical instruments - the horn, the lyre, the harp, the organ, the flute, tambourine, the trumpet, the cymbal, and the drum. These are cited at the end of Tehillim. Why the drum here?Now before you get snared in that question, Rabbeinu Bachya gives an interpretation which can't be beat. He reminds us that there are nine instruments cited at the very end of Tehillim. Dovid HaMelech beckons us to
"praise Him with the blast of the shofar... with lyre and harp...
with tambourine and drum...with organ and flute...with clanging
cymbals and blaring trumpets... (Psalm 150:3-5)
We know that the forms of musical instruments span the brass (such as the Biblical trumpets), the woodwinds (such as the Biblical organ), the winds (such as the Biblical flute), strings (such as the harp of the Bible), percussion (such as the cymbals) and timpani (such as those drums).
Amidst the cacophony and blasting down in the camp, why did Moshe focus on those drums? The verse seems to harp on them, horning in on the pounding of the drums as Moshe takes in the sight of the throngs of people below. The beat goes on as does the jeering and the shrieking of the crowd yet Moshe picks up on those drums. What did they cymbolize? Rabbeinu Bachya teaches us a lesson about the greatness of Moshe. Imagine a Rorschach inkblot test, which you have all heard about but may know little about. A person is shown an inkblot printed on a card, with no precise form or shape, hence an ambiguous stimulus. The person is asked to look at it and give his or her reactive impression. They may imagine that it looks like some object, or concept, or it reminds them of a particular idea, or person or animal or whatever. The skilled clinician studies the person's perceptual style and learns about what their "mind's eye" does as it guides their actual eye. Each person will associate to images which reveal something about their preoccupations, their attitudes, their biases, their moods, their internal ideas and drives and longings and how they structure or conceal them from awareness.
Moshe our Teacher looked and listened as the people went wild around the egel and when he saw the drum - the machol - he did what we do on Rosh HaShanna. We take a fruit or a vegetable with an ambiguous name (a name which sounds as if it has multiple meanings) and we make an association to some positive thought to which its sound alludes. Hence, we may take a turnip and say at the meal "may good things turn up for us this year" or we may take a pear and say "may we be regarded as pe'er (beauty) before HaShem" and so on (these are some of the creative simanim which we use in my home on Rosh HaShanna.)
Moshe saw the egel, he saw the defiant dancers, he heard the horns and organs and flutes and drums ... but what he saw were the drums. He saw the drums because the word for drum is machol and even as he looked at the egel and saw it, he also picked up on the machol and rather than associate to the sound of the machol, he associated to the sound of the word machol which sounds somewhat like the word mechila. Mechila means forgiveness. Moshe looked at the tragic scene but in his mind, the fact that he noticed the machol meant to him that from amidst this horrible sight could emerge forgiveness from HaShem to His nation. With that association, he ran down to the camp and proceeded to put together a remedy for the people, for those who would seek mechila in earnest.
We can take a lesson from this for ourselves. We must learn to look beyond the obvious, especially when times are tough for us. We can become ensnared and entrenched in stress but we can at times take inspiration from something incidental which may appear on our periphery. Sometimes, those fringe details or coincidental issues may contain the resource or the remedy or the solution, or just the inspiration to help us through. And if we are very great, we can even find amidst our difficult circumstances a tool which may later help us deal with, or better understand, someone else who may later have a related predicament.
Moshe may have been horrified at the grotesque scene at the foot of Mt. Sinai yet he saw a trace of hope somehow in the fact that one of the instruments was called a machol. He let this shift his perception of the event and alter his attitude. More importantly, he directed his response and actions accordingly so that from out of abject desecration would emerge Divine forgiveness.
Wishing you a joyful Shabbos with song and praise. D Fox
posted by Rabbi Dr. Fox at 7:56 AM
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