There is a beautiful quote from Rachel Held Evans’ posthumous book “Wholehearted Faith,” that, while about Christianity, is perfect for this week’s Torah portion. She writes: “the beauty of Incarnation is not just that God came to us in human form. Inherent in the Incarnation is that God came to embody relationship, to remind us that love is personal – and interpersonal.”
In Ki Tisa, Moses asks to meet God face to face. After the tragedy of the Golden Calf, he wants confirmation of God’s love for him and for us. Moses is granted his request, and in one of the most beautiful scenes in all of Torah, God tucks Moses in a crevice of Mount Sinai and passes by his back reciting the words of the 13 attributes: “Adonai, Adonai, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abundant in kindness and truth, preserver of love, forgiver of sin, who makes all clean.”
Even if our particular God does not take human form, we do not shy away from ascribing God human emotion. And, it turns out, the emotion most needed by us is love.
A NY Times editorial this week referenced the five love languages coined by counselor and pastor Dr. Gary Chapman: words of affirmation, quality time, touch, acts of service, and receiving gifts. In the dramatic scene in Ki Tisa, God accomplishes all five at one fell swoop: speaking, embracing, serving, residing with, and gifting Moses with God’s presence. Rachel Held Evans, who died in 2019 of Cancer at only 37, would have greatly appreciated the way our two faiths intertwine over this issue. Love is personal, as she writes, it is, after all, what makes the world go round.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Alex