Why We Don’t Need a Savior
I was meditating this morning—eyes closed, water warm around me, mind quiet—thinking about this week’s parsha, Ki Tisa. The Golden Calf. Everyone knows the story: Israel stands at Sinai, receives the Torah, witnesses God’s presence, and then, in a moment of panic, builds an idol out of gold and dances around it.
The tablets are smashed. Moses is furious. But Hashem doesn’t destroy them. Instead, He reveals the 13 Attributes of Mercy—unconditional compassion—and tells Moses, “Carve new tablets. They’ll be even better.”
Ki Tisa- The Second Set Will Be Even Better
Rabbi Warren Goldstein, Chief Rabbi of South Africa, calls this radical acceptance in his lecture on the parsha. The first tablets were perfect, divine, untouchable. The second? Hewn by human hands, born from failure. Yet they’re superior because they emerge from brokenness.
It’s like a man who supports, listens, and shows empathy—principles from Pirkei Avot that Rabbi Goldstein weaves into his teachings. “If I am not for myself, who will be for me?” (1:14). “Who is honorable? He who honors others” (4:1). These aren’t just sayings; they’re tools for rebuilding. In prison, where I teach Ish Mishlei based on Rabbi Shlomo Ruzhansky’s Garden of Peace, this hits hard. Men who’ve fallen learn: setbacks aren’t the end. They’re the start of something stronger.
Rabbi Shaul Youdkevitch takes it deeper in his Zohar on Ki Tisa. At Sinai, Israel hit a spiritual peak—every soul so elevated that even the “lowest” Jew surpassed any prophet. No death, no separation. The calf? A catastrophic fall, witchcraft from unpurified souls. But God doesn’t end the world.
Be Merciful
Moses pleads, “Show me Your glory,” and Hashem responds with mercy that defies logic. The 13 Attributes aren’t punishment; they’re the Torah’s greatest insight: love without conditions. Teshuva—return—is built in. The half-shekel? An antidote, giving to create “returning light.” Fall, but rise higher. For my class at Clements Unit, this is gold: tragedy sets the stage for renewal.
This echoes Adam and Eve, as Rabbi Manis Friedman explains in “Adam & Eve: The Whole Story Doesn’t Make Sense—Until Now.” God plants two trees: Life for eternal perfection, Knowledge for choice and struggle. Command: Don’t eat from Knowledge, or die. But Eve deciphers the divine hint—Hashem wants us to choose the hard path.
Perfection without challenge? Useless. Eat from Life, stay immortal robots. Eat from Knowledge, descend into mortality, fix the broken world. Eve tells Adam: “Better to die and have purpose—our children get real choices.” She’s the hero, volunteering for the mission. The “fall”? Not original sin, but original opportunity. Mistakes are the point; you can’t overcome without them.
Free Will
Rabbi Akiva Tatz flips “sin” in his talk on free will. Imagine an alien peeking through a keyhole at someone lifting weights—grunting, straining, faces twisted. Torture? No, perfection. Chet means “miss the mark,” like archery. Aim, miss, adjust. The world is designed for it: business, sports, skills—all thrive on failure.
Christianity says sin damns you, needs a savior’s blood. Torah? No debt. Just growth. Tatz ties it to male-female, truth-faith: male (truth) sharp, logical; female (faith) open, trusting. The split in Genesis? Eating Knowledge divides them. Torah reunites—through mitzvot, teshuva.
Dr. Iain McGilchrist echoes this in *The Master and His Emissary*. The brain’s divided: right hemisphere (master), holistic, empathetic, big-picture; left (emissary), detail-oriented, logical, but arrogant—thinks it’s boss. Genesis 1: Adam whole, male-female.
Genesis 2: split. McGilchrist says the corpus callosum—the bridge—shrinks over history, worsening the divide. Left dominates: spreadsheets, control, “facts” over feelings. Torah heals: listen to the master inside. No savior needed—just realign.
The Evil Inclination
Now the Nachash—the “shining one,” not snake. Hebrew nachash means to shine, divine insight. Ancient cultures saw it as enlightening. But in Eden, it inhibits unity, like the shrinking corpus callosum blocking flow. Rabbi Mendel Kessin says in his latest talks: Satan’s fading. Not a devil—yetzer hara, evil inclination—Hashem’s tool. Isaiah 45:7: “I form light, create darkness; make peace, create evil.” Wars today? Symptoms of Satan’s diminishment—holiness sparks returning, evil starving. No external Satan; just a test for choice.
Rabbi David Foreman (Fohrman) ties the Ten Sayings to family drama in his podcast series. Starting with “Chosenness,” ending with “Overcoming Envy.” The Commandments? From Genesis 27: Isaac, Rebekah, Jacob, Esau. Favoritism, deception, envy. Sinai flips it: God chooses Israel to bless all families. Envy? Fear of missing out. But Jacob and Esau reconcile—hug, no grudge. Torah’s therapy: repair humanity, descendants of Shem, Ham, Japheth. Return the world to Hashem as Adam had it. “Hey, family—help fix this.”
Unity -Split -Repair= Israel
The Golden Calf in Eden? Same pattern: unity, split, repair. God plants the Tree of Life in the midst—commands eating from the trees there. Adam misses it, eats Knowledge, gets blocked. Useless tree? No—mirror for choice.
Rabbi Foreman says it becomes the burning bush: fire unconsumed, life eternal. Then the cherubim—from Eden’s guards with swords—to wing-to-wing over the Ark in the Mishkan. No barriers. Invitation: “Come in, spend time with me.”
Christianity misses this: chet as curriculum, not curse. No hell, no savior. Torah’s training manual—fix the psyche, the soul. We don’t argue, Jesus; we show the map. Adam never ate the Tree of Life. But we can. Every day. Through teshuva, mitzvot. “It is a tree of life to those who grasp it” (Proverbs 3:18).
So no—don’t argue. Hand ’em the map. Torah’s not about guilt. It’s about getting up.
Links:
See- Rabbi Goldstein: https://youtu.be/NJvbsBFLD5o
Kabbalah- Rabbi Youdkevitch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-37Ub3CnPp4
– Rabbi Friedman: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_A7pFcnHVoo
– Rabbi Tatz: SimpleToRemember.com (search “Free Will”)
– McGilchrist RSA Animate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFs9WO2B8uI
– Rabbi Kessin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8rlnq6jPvI
– Rabbi Fohrman: alephbeta.org/podcasts/book-like-no-other
Hazan Gavriel ben David