Stop and Breathe (Shabbat Ki Tisa)

We enter Shabbat with dread about escalating Russian aggression toward Ukraine, shocked by Canadian truck drivers protesting vaccine mandates. The world feels like it’s simmering atop the flames of distrust and impatience across ideological lines: we are all impatient. Impatient to hold great-grandchildren, to have relaxing meals at our favorite restaurants, to travel, see old friends, breathe easily.

This week’s parasha, Ki Tisa, speaks to this impatience: Moses ascends Mt. Sinai, to receive the 10 Commandments. He’s gone 40 days and nights. At the foot of the mountain, the Israelites make a golden calf. As they abandon hope in God and Moses, Moses and God prepare to respond in kind. On discovering the people’s infidelity, Moses smashes the tablets God prepares to destroy the people.  

Too often, in the face of uncertainty we are quick to try to create certainty. Driven by impatience and mistrust, we hurt ourselves and those we love.

Our emotions, even the darker ones – like anger, impatience, or fear – do give us crucial information. But they don’t give us the entire truth about any situation. Our challenge, especially in the face of these darker emotions, author Emily Freeman teaches, is to give our emotions a seat at the table without letting them sit at the head of the table.

Remarkably, Moses calms himself in time to advocate for the people, saving them from complete destruction. What allows Moses to give his anger a seat at the table, without letting it sit at the head of the table?

The Torah gives us a clue: just before the people commit idolatry, God speaks the words we know as v’shamru. These words, which we sang earlier tonight, declare, just as God rested on the seventh day of creation, we, too, must shavat v’yinafash, words 11th c. sage, Rashi, renders literally as “stop, and take a breath” (Ex 31:16-17).

This is the key to finding balance in a chaotic world. By mentioning Shabbat right before the Golden Calf; our day to stop and breathe, gifted us the moment before our most devastating act of impatience, Torah reminds us it is precisely in the very moment we want to act out whatever emotion is boiling inside us, that we need to stop, and take a breath.

Of course this is easier said than done! Rather than waiting for that challenging moment, we must practice ahead of time, so we can draw readily on this calm in the moments we will most need it! This is what Shabbat is all about: it’s a weekly time to practice stopping and breathing. So what can we do to make Shabbat a time of true rest, and renewal? 

During these 25 hours we might avoid reading the news, using our time instead to catch up on sleep or catch up with friends; we might celebrate this day with others in our community; read something that will edify us; take time for ourselves to review our week, and reflect on where we are in our lives. However you choose to do it, may this Shabbat be for you a time to stop, and take a breath so we can bring more calm to a world that so needs it.