Chukas - The Golden Calf Was A Panic Attack, Now Mom Has To Clean Up The Mess

1:57 He was remembered well. He was remembered well. But as we'll see in today's shir, which is on the topic of paraduma and dealing with the inyan of death, it's not the we lost a good friend, but hopefully his memory will be a tremendous source of growth for us and for his community. On that note. There is an amazing medrash, medrash Tanchuma, that speaks about the Parah Aduma. Parah Aduma is the ultimate chok. This week's parsha, the Parah Aduma, the medrash says, is compared to a child of the king's handmaiden, and the child has soiled the palace. So the king commands his handmaiden, let the mother come and clean up the mess of her child. That's what the medrash says.

2:54 Which means that the purpose of the parah aduma is, of course, the mother cow, and she's coming to clean up her mess. What was the mess of the mother? The mess of the mother was the egal ha'zav. When Klal Yisrael worshipped the egal ha'zav, that created some sort of spiritual rupture in the world, and now the parah aduma comes to clean up the mess. The egal was the child. The parah aduma is the mother coming to clean up the mess of the child. The obvious question is, what is the connection between Parah Aduma, which is related, of course, to Tumas Mase and the purification of Tumas Mase, and the Avera of the Egal Azov, which is Avod Hazara? Those, in other words, even though one is a Parah and one is an Egel, they really, at first glance, have nothing to do with each other. This brings us to a fundamental concept, which is, what exactly was the Chet Egel?

3:51 What precisely went wrong over there? Chazal tell us that the Chet Ha'egel is what happened when Moshe Rabbeinu did not come down from the mountain. We know that Chazal say that the Satan showed Klal Yisrael an image as if Moshe Rabbeinu had died, and in the space of Moshe Rabbeinu's absence, where they thought that Moshe Rabbeinu had died. Their reaction to that was to create the Chet Ha'egel. In other words, the Chet Ha'egel is what happens when Klal Yisrael has a terrifying encounter with loss. That's the nature of what happens when we can't tolerate absence. What we do is we tend to create something that's tangible and controllable, and in this case, valuable, which we're going to get to later. But I just want to make it clear.

4:49 What we do when there's a sense of absence in the world, that's a terrifying prospect for us. There's a void, and we are very uncomfortable in the void. In the void, we feel because we're not okay with that uncertainty of the void. What we do is we create something tangible, something visible, and often we lean into something valuable, which is the definition of avodah zarah. It goes like this. Hakadosh Baruch Hu. When we speak about Hashem, the nature of what we're speaking about is a mystery. There's no way to actually express what Hashem's essence is, and Hashem's essence, by definition, is incomprehensible. And so, in the face of something that's incomprehensible, what do we try to do? We try to create something that's comprehensible. In other words, I need something that I can hold. I can't hold Hashem.

5:47 By design, because the nature of religion is the claim that there's something beyond the tangible universe. It's one of the issues that I always have with the proofs of God, there are things. Rabbi Lawrence Kalman, if you ever read the books Permission to Believe and Permission to Receive, you ever see those books? There's like a little blue book and a little red book. I thought it was a very thoughtful title for a sefer. He didn't say proofs of God. He said these are the things that give you permission to believe in God. These are the things that give you permission to believe in the Torah. But an actual scientific proof of God would be impossible. Why would it be impossible? Because by definition, what science seeks to do is it seeks to measure something. So I can define this table. I can tell you it's a table. I can give you a definition. I can give you its measurements. I can, with all five senses, experience the table. By definition, Hakadosh Baruch Hu is not something that I can scientifically prove.

6:41 That doesn't mean that there aren't indications that there's a God. Certainly, one can make the argument that if there's a designer, right, if there's a design, then that implies that there's a designer, right. But just because it indicates that there's a designer, right, and it might fill, it might fit our definition of proof, right. But that's only if we speak about proof in a very broad way, right. But to actually tangibly hold Hashem, to actually experience Hashem in a tangible way, that's not something that we're meant to do. In fact, the opposite. We encounter Hashem in the places that are beyond measurements, right? And so, our need for something tangible, visible, certain, right—something that we can touch, feel, hold, see, right—that's actually the opposite movement from Hashem. We're moving away from Hashem when we move into the realm of certainty. This brings us to a fundamental question, though: absence is so unbearable that we'd rather live with a lie.

7:39 Than to remain in our state of uncertainty, because that's really what Avodah Zarah is. Avodah Zarah is a lie, right? The Egel is not God, right? The Bal P'ar is not God, but that's a crazy thing. I'd rather tell myself that idol is God than live with the uncertainty that comes with the absence that I can't measure. Hashem, that's a very strange thing. So why is that psychologically? Why do we have that need? I know this sounds very pie in the sky, but you'll see it's very. You'll see soon. It's very meaningful to us, Benja. What about avodah zara, where it's like you believe in, you know, you say the moon's also a god, same concept, right? I think that's how the Rambam describes, right? Isn't that how the Rambam describes the beginnings of avodah zara? Right. So the idea that anything else is a power, right? Is why do I ever need to say the moon is round? It's because it's something I can experience, right? I can experience the moon even on a day-to-day basis, not just seeing it, but its impact on the world, right? The tides.

8:37 So I can experience it in a way that's really tangible. Absence is terrifying because we learn to experience ourselves through presence. Because a human being learns to experience himself by presence, absence becomes terrifying. For example, I now have a little baby. Steve knows what it's like to become a parent again. I was already well into grandparenthood, and now Baruch Hashem, little baby Sarah Malka, keeping me up at night, or more likely keeping my wife up at night. But I wake up with a headache because I'm not sleeping as well. I can't tell that to my wife. I can't say to her, 'You got to keep that baby quiet. I need to get a full, I need to get a solid six.' I'm a very considerate husband. I think I've changed three diapers so far. So Baruch Hashem, I'm under the second apron.

9:30 I'm carefully holding myself to a certain standard. But when a child is held, when a child is fed, when a child is changed, when a child is soothed, what is the child experiencing? The child experiences I am real and I exist because you are holding me, because you are feeding me, because you're soothing me, because you're changing me. We learn to experience our own reality when we're children through somebody else's presence. This is what we call attachment theory in psychology. We learn to become ourselves because somebody else gave me that gift, they showed up present in my life, and they said, 'I exist,' which means that at the deepest levels of our psyche, in the space of absence, there's this primal, infantile terror.

10:29 That I'm going to collapse into non-existence. That's what that's like your most primal self. Because if you don't imagine, let's say Chassid Shalom again, we should never know from these things. But let's say Chassid Shalom, we would lose a parent, right? Why is that like such a big deal? I've seen people who lose parents, and the parents are much older. Just kind of natural. You're gonna people do pass away, right? But there's something terrifying about this. I remember when one of my friends lost his second parent at a very young age. He said to me, 'There's nobody left in the world that loves me just because I am.' That's from your savor. Was that? I wrote it in my savor, but it's laughing because I wasn't going to give that answer from the introduction to the tefillah. Correct. There's nobody else in the world that loves me. I remember when he told me those words, I was like, 'But you're an adult now. You're right? You have a parnasa and you have a wife and you have kids.' And it's like, no, the gift of presence.

11:26 Is that we feel right like as an adult? I'm sure he knows that he's right. But it's like it's almost like now you've got no safety net. That's kind of the gift that our parents gave us, right? For some of us, it's like an emotional safety net, a financial safety net, right? Even just having somebody to talk to. Some of us have grandparents that are that safety net, right? Like today, grandparents are more involved in people's lives than ever before. When I was growing up, grandparents were like this distant thing. Today, grandparents are involved. The gift of family is that it's like they hold us, and in that space of being held, we exist. But the child inside of us believes: What happens if my parents leave? What happens if my parents aren't around anymore? I'm going to collapse. I'm not okay. I'm not enough for myself, and I'm going to collapse into non-existence. This is what happens by the Egal Azov. Moshe Rabbeinu is the ultimate attachment. He's Klal Yisrael's living bridge between us and the Rebbeinu Shalom. So by Arsinei, it's kolusu brakim. By Arsinei, everything is visible. And after Arsinei, I have Moshe Rabenu. Moshe Rabenu makes the invisible feel near to me.

12:40 It's not kolusu brakim. It's not the presence of Hashem in a seen way. But as long as I have Moshe Rabenu, from that very childlike state, we go okay. But we're right? I can still survive in this unknowable world. That's why, by the way, you just see it over and over again. The way that Klal Yisrael relates to Moshe Rabenu in the Midbar, they managed to look to him as a parent. Like feed us, take care of us. And there's a very primal sense of Moshe Rabenu takes care of us. But when they don't know what happened to him, when they think that he might have died, and now it's like the safety of slavery is over. And I know that sounds like a funny thing to say, but slavery is very safe. That's why people will choose to be enslaved. And that's why a slave who refuses to leave their master, what do we do? We puncture their ear by the door. And you're not supposed to feel safe as a slave, but there is a certain safety to it. It's like Stockholm syndrome. It's like these are my these.

13:35 Your captors become your like protectors. So even though we were tortured in Mitzrayim, there was a safety to it. There's a rhythm to it. At least I know what it is. But now I'm in the Midbar, right? I don't have the safety of Mitzrayim. I don't have the safety of that slavery, and I also have no Moshe Rabbeinu right now. And what's my relationship with Hashem? It's still external. I still haven't internalized it. All I have is complete void, complete absence, complete uncertainty. And so what Klal Yisrael does. Is they say, we have to make something tangible. I want to bring this down from a philosophical idea or a psychological idea to very practical. This is what we call the next stage. The next stage, right? You guys, except for Chick, you guys are all on a bet, right? But even at the next stage, right? On some level, you're held.

14:26 Whether you're going to this yeshiva or that yeshiva, or even if you're going to college and you're not in a yeshiva, but there's something that holds you. I'm in this one's shir. I have this rebbe, I have this one that I could go to for eitzah. This mashgiach is around. There's a lot of systems that are available. The deepest test of religious life is what happens in absence. What happens when the rebbe is not there? What happens when the system and the structure is no longer in place? Or let's make it more dramatic for a second. What happens when the inspiration fades? What happens when you no longer have that clarity? Because the clarity that you guys have now, while you're in yeshiva, that clarity—I promise you—it's right now. It's part of that kolosu brakham experience. But over time, you'll see the excitement, the clarity that comes.

15:23 It often fades away because life becomes a lot more complex. And now all of a sudden, it's like I have to balance all of these things, and I haven't felt anything about my Yiddishkeit in a while. Because it's not easy, especially in today's day and age when everything is very emotional. I want to feel connected to Hashem. It's not always easy to feel connected to Hashem if I'm davening, and especially if I have so many other pressures. And now all of a sudden, it's like. I've got to be right because a good balabas is a hero. Let's be absolutely clear about that. A good balabas is a hero. If you wake up at 5:30 in the morning so you can get to a six o'clock daf, so you can be a 6:45 minion, so you can be home by 7:30 to help get your kids out the door, and then you go on the li double r for an hour, and you basically are passed out on the train because you're already exhausted before your day even starts. And now you're working from let's say nine to six thirty. You get home at seven thirty. You stop in the middle of your day to daven mincha.

16:12 Daven by of at night. Spend some time with your wife. Spend some time with your kids. Get a good night's sleep because you got to do it all again tomorrow. You're a hero. Remember, you're a hero. In such an environment, is it possible that your davening is going to start to become less than inspired? That you might feel distant from Hashem in those moments because the pace of life doesn't allow you to actually daven. I remember I went to America once for a Talmud's wedding. And the father picked me up from the airport, and it was like 5:30 in the morning. And we went to his shul six o'clock on a Sunday morning. I was in a spaul. There must have been 200 people, and a six o'clock more a six o'clock minion on Sunday morning. I was blown away. Must have been 200 people. I'm not gonna say where, because I'm gonna about say a not such a nice thing. Minion was over at 6:23. 6:23 on a Sunday morning.

17:05 Now I had never, with you, I never experienced a minion that fast in my life. Matzah minion is 18 minutes. They were 23, and I didn't know what to do with it. I was very confused by it because on the one hand I'm like, wow, these guys woke up at 6 o'clock in the morning for minion on a Sunday. I don't know if I'm waking up at 6 o'clock in the morning for minion on a Sunday morning in America. That's like an off day. We hear these guys, but 6:23 was over, and you know what? I came to the conclusion. I'm not judging them. It's probably what we do when we need to check a box, right? Like I'm up early anyway. At some point, right? Your adult body doesn't need to sleep the same as it does when you're 18 years old. You're waking. I'm betting these guys were up at 5:30. You know what? Call a kavod to them for going to Minyan, but the fact that it was a 6:23 Minyan meant that at some point the inspiration fades. That's the real test of where your religious identity is formed in that space of absence.

17:54 In that space of absence, in that space of that void, can I hold on? That's where the religious test is. So avodah zara is what occurs when a person cannot hold an invisible relationship and they need to make it visible. People are not always aware of how important this is. So, you know, it's kind of like, if you have a job, you want to be able to say that you're doing something meaningful. So people would rather live with a lie but it's a lie that gives us that sense of control, than deal with the truth and realize there's nothing here. There's no real meaning. It's just a big void. Right? It's the mystery of Hashem, but I'm okay, even in the absence. Why am I terrified in the absence? Because remember, I was born in presence. Absence feels like non-collapse.

18:46 But the truth is, as we get older, we have to learn to deal with the uncertainty of life. Here's where the idea I mentioned before comes into play. One of the features of the Egal Azov is the fact that it's valuable, because it's not only tangible and visible; it's even more than that. It's financial. And the question is, what is the role of money? Now we know when it came to the Chet HaEgel, Aaron Cohen wanted the women to donate money to the Egel. Why did he want that? Because he was trying to slow the process up. The women refused to donate money to the Chet HaEgel. Why? It seems that in general, the concept of absence is different for men and for women.

19:37 Let's say in the world of the female, right? They literally take the kima absent zera and they nurture it into a child, right? There's the notion of something that's non tangible seems to be easier for women. They're more spiritual in that way. They can hold on to the mystery a little bit better. Men have a harder time with that. Men need it to be visible and they need it to be controlled. And here's the thing, I'm going to use my money to give me that sense of control. I think that's something we're seeing a lot of today. There's a very large conversation that's happening in the world today. It's an important conversation about how money has impacted our Yiddishkeit. David Bashefkin, I think, was the first person to coin the term 'ghvir culture.' That there's today. You ask most kids who are, depending on their community, of course, I think it varies. But if you ask your average kid at 15, 16 years old, what do you want to do with your life?

20:34 So most of the answer is financial. As I want to be, depending on where you're from, it's either if you're from Saroskin's neck of the woods, it's I want to own nursing homes and homeless shelters and hard money lending. If you're from a different world, it's I want to be in finance, investment banking, personal equity. I guess it all depends on how much college education you're looking to get, but for sure the goal is the same. I want to be rich. That's become the aspiration, and I think it was Bashyafkin that pointed out you're much more likely to know the names of the gvirim in the Jewish community than you are of the gedolim in the Jewish community.

21:17 You're much more likely to know what certain gvirim in the Jewish community say. Again, I'm not using any names, but there are certain gvirim in the Jewish community that they've become like the voice of the Jewish community. This is what they believe, and they're willing to talk about. They're willing to be the ones to speak truth to power and say these are the problems in our community. And then people talk about it. They go, Did you hear that Plony said X? But the rabbanim were also saying that. However, you're much less likely to know what they actually say than you are to know what the gvirim say, and there's a reason for that. Again, the truth is there's a lot of reasons for that, but at its core, I think perhaps we can boil it down to money gives us a sense of control. It's the visible, tangible avodah zara, so to speak, that we're worshiping today. Especially today, if you ask most 16, 17, 18 year old kids and you ask them why they're so obsessed with money, you know what they tell you? Do you know how expensive it is to live in the Jewish community? Do you know how hard it is to make it in the Jewish community? It's like, dude, you're 16. Where did you get this anxiety from?

22:17 So I don't remember being this anxious as a child about Stevie. Have a similar experience? I can't believe everyone's worried about what internship they're gonna have this and that. You have 16-year-old kids that are talking about getting internships. I'm like, go to Simcha Day Camp. Just be a counselor. Like or JC or like do the sweat equity work of being a CIT. It's like nobody wants to do that. Why? Because at the end of the day, that's what money has become, and it's an interesting thing. Where's the tikkun? The kli Yakar writes. Where's the tikkun for the fact that the men donated to the There you go. It's the mishkan, because money really lives right in that sweet spot. You have to ask yourself, in the absence, right, in the void, in the mystery of Hashem, that which is not tangible or controllable, you kind of have two totally different ways of seeing money. One is to use money as a form of control, and it's in a certain way can become an avodah zara.

23:11 Or the exact opposite. The exact opposite. Let me give you an example. If I have a car, it's not for me. It's for God. Whatever material goods I've been given in this world are meant to serve that intangible God, and that's really what happens here with the Chetah Egal in the Mishkan. We're living in a world right now where we must have a serious conversation about money, because we're watching the divide happen. That money is a form of control, and we're leaning into that anxiety as opposed to that shmuz. So important, especially for guys at this age that are making these big decisions. Is money something that serves you, or is money something that you serve? And that's a very important distinction. None of this is to vilify money. Chas v'shalom. If you have the opportunity to make money in your life, that's an amazing responsibility. Because if you make money, the question is, what will you do with that money? Are you running to give tzedakah? I remember there was a midasayr boy that he made some money and he did pretty well for himself.

24:08 And his rebbe said to him, 'You should know this money is a responsibility, not a gift. It's not a gift because if you have money, you get to solve people's problems. And how you actually figure out how to solve people's problems is no small thing, because you can solve a lot of people's problems, but you can't solve everyone's problems.' So if you've got 50 million, 100 million, 200 million dollars in the bank, you could solve a lot of problems, but you're not going to be able to solve everybody's problems. But that money was not for you. That money is now you have a responsibility to call yourself. Let's bring this back now to the sugiya that we're talking about. What is Thomas Mase? Thomas Mase is the encounter with the ultimate absence. Thomas Mase is I touched someone. I encountered someone who was dead.

24:57 And that is a jarring experience. I'm always impressed by people that are able to be involved in tahara. That's a very frightening experience. Has anyone here ever done a tahara or a sat ru? You did it all the time. It's a spook. It's a jarring experience. To sit with someone because basically what happens in death, which you're confronting, is the material body. Without the essential substance that turns it into a person, right? And what that does is it reveals something that's truly dramatic. It's the invisible part of you that makes you. And in the absence of that invisible thing, when the soul leaves the body deteriorates. And so there's an encounter with that mysterious void. There's an encounter with Hakadosh Baruch Hu that occurs every time we meet a person.

25:53 But we're so used to dealing with a person materially that we forget that we're talking to the invisible. This is like when guys come to me and they say, 'Rebbe, I have a hard time talking to Hashem. I can't see him.' And I remember I heard from one of my rebbeim. It's exactly the opposite. I have a hard time talking to people because I can see them. Because when you're talking to somebody, you're not actually talking to their material person. You're talking to the thing that's beyond comprehension. That's what we're actually doing. In the blind museum, you guys go to the blind museum, and so then spoiler alert, if you haven't been, close your ears. But in the blind museum, so what happens is that the big like surprise ending is that your tour guide is blind. So my tour guide in the blind museum was actually a teacher in the Medevaseret high school, and I remember thinking to myself, this guy is the ultimate hero. Not only is he blind.

26:49 He's teaching those kids, maybe he's able to do it because he's blind and they don't, he doesn't actually know what's going on. But he was an amazing dude, and he said to me, "You should know. Don't feel bad if you're not sure about the answer. I can help." And I'm thinking to myself, I didn't want to say this out loud, but I'm like, "You shouldn't, because life is awesome. If you could see it, life is amazing. I could see the sunset, the sunrise, beaches, trees, my children. Like, don't feel bad. It's okay. Don't feel bad for me. I'm good with sight." But he said something I thought was very profound. He said I feel bad for you because you're sight addicted, because you only relate to the world through your eyes. He said you don't listen nearly as much as you see, right? You don't smell nearly as much as you see. Remember that you eat with your eyes also, right? And so much of eating happens with your eyes. But if you actually were, if you'd close your eyes, you'd actually taste the food differently. Other senses get heightened when you lose your eyesight.

27:45 Because he was someone who had seen earlier in his life, he's like, I've seen and I've not seen, and don't feel bad for me. He said because I'm experiencing life in a way that you're not. To stop being and this is why we close our eyes when we say Shema, right? Because to actually confront Hakadosh Baruch Hu in a certain way, to confront the mystery of Hakadosh Baruch Hu, is to close your eyes. It's to stop being so sight addicted. It's to be able to lean into the void and say it's okay that life is not necessarily something that I can grasp. Let's return to the Medrash.

28:16 The Medrash says the calf made the mess. Let the mother cow come and clean it up. What this means is as follows: the calf, meaning that childish panic that we spoke about, that if something, if I can't touch it, if it's invisible and it's absent, I'm going to lose everything. I'm going to fall into non-existence. That's our childlike part. That's the part of us that needs certainty. The Para Aduma, which is the adult, that's the mature vision. Says I can hold this panic, meaning it's okay to be scared, but I'm not going to collapse and try to turn God into something visible and controllable. I'm not going to use money to try to control my life. I'm okay with uncertainty. I'm okay with that which is invisible. How does the paraduma do this? This is what a chok is. We can use our minds to serve Hashem, or we can turn our minds into an avodah zara, because sometimes.

29:14 We can use our minds to create a certainty in an uncertain world, but that's also a lie. I don't know if anyone here struggles with anxiety. I struggle with anxiety. But if you struggle with anxiety, this is basically what you do: you make up a story to convince yourself that you're okay, or you play out every single possibility until you. So if this happens, then I'll do this, and if this happens, then I'll do this, and if this happens, then I'll do this. It's just stories you're telling yourself. You know that just because you can figure something out doesn't mean that that's actually what's going to happen. In fact, if anything, I think one thing that I did learn from Joko is he didn't know. He didn't know literally from I mean the Shabbos that he collapsed.

29:57 And then we all kind of knew right away that he had gotten this diagnosis. And then we spoke about learning to live with I don't know what's going to happen. Just because you could okay but we're going to do this and we're going to do that. It's all just using your mind to create certainty. The nature of a chok, and especially paraduma. Paraduma is matayer temeim, it's matamitaor. It doesn't operate within the normal system of the rational. Which means that it forces us into a posture of humility. That's basically what the paraduma does. The cheta egal says, "I need to know." There's a certain arrogance there. I need to know. I need to be in control. Or it's the humility of the surrender of the mind. And that's okay. I don't need to know. Not everything is given over into the realm of the rational. I can serve Hakadosh Baruch Hu even when I don't understand. That's part of what it means to live with the invisible.

30:53 Now you'll say, as budding loamdim, it's very difficult because I'm sitting here, arraigning the tongue in the suddu all day. I'm trying to figure out everything. It's true. We do everything we can within the realm. Hakadosh Baruch Hu gave us brains. We're meant to use our brains, but we also have to know there's a limitation. That's what a chok is. A chok is you can use your brain to serve Hakadosh Baruch Hu because that's what He gave you a brain for. But to understand the limitations of the mind, that's humility. To think that God Himself is logic, and therefore I can reduce Hakadosh Baruch Hu to logic, that is a hashkafic problem. So I don't need to understand. I can surrender. There's a halachic act that I can do called paraduma, and that halachic act allows me to say, I have no idea why I'm doing this. I don't understand it. It's beyond human comprehension. But ultimately, that's what a mature person does.

31:48 A mature person knows how to hold space and remove noise. A mature person knows how, in the space of absence, when I confront that terrifying void that I can't touch God and I can't measure God, and life appears to be chaotic, the mature person is able to hold space for that feeling and say, 'This is my childish panic,' but ultimately I live with complete emuna, complete bittul, complete surrender, complete humility in front of Hakadosh Baruch Hu. Boys, have a wonderful Shabbos. Enjoy your mishmar later with R' Steiner's shalita.