By Rabbi Susan Laemmle, Waiting for Moses, March 15, 2025
Two texts. Two creations that offer perspective on life and moral instruction on living well. First something modern: Several months ago, a friend and I saw a beautiful production of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot at the Geffen Theatre. In the days and weeks that followed, my mind kept looking through the play’s lens to view the actions of myself and others. It’s master metaphor — living as waiting — particularly captured my imagination.
Second, our Torah. As we Jews cycle through our foundational Jewish document each year, one family evolves into fledgling Bnai Yisrael. Leaders instructed by God typically act decisively, but sometimes challenges intervene to prolong things. Jacob must serve Laban for an additional seven years before he can marry Rachel but “they seemed to him but a few days because of his love for her.” Meanwhile, this period of waiting strengthens the inclination toward mischief within Laban, revealing the immorality that will continue to characterize him. But Jacob is up to the task; he holds firm as he waits and perhaps his capacity to love expands to include two strong women.
Fast forward into Sefer-Shemot, beyond the Exodus & Red Sea Crossing into the Sinai Revelation. This week’s parsha, Ki Tissa, includes static description that establishes the census, tabernacle, Aaronite priesthood, and Sabbath. It also contains a strong dramatic thread that picks up from Parshat Mishpatim’s conclusion, where select representatives of the people advance part way up the mountain to experience a vision of divine majesty and where God then instructs Moses to “come up to Me on the mountain and wait there [literally, be there heh-yeh sham] [for] the stone tablets with the teachings and commandments which I have inscribed to instruct them.” Of course, proceeding through the canonized Torah sequence, we’ve already encountered many of those teachings and commandments in Yitro and Mishpatim. But the commandments have not yet been physicalized in the enduring substance of stone just as instructions for creating the Tent of Meeting have not been implemented.
In effect, the Sinai Revelation is bifurcated by the great apostacy of the Golden Calf, which occurs during the period described several weeks ago at the end of Parshat Mishpatim: “the Presence of the Lord appeared in the sight of the Israelites as a consuming fire on the top of the mountain. Moses went inside the cloud and ascended the mountain, and Moses remained on the mountain forty days and forty nights.” Ki Tissa summarizes that forty times twenty-four hour period thus: “When God finished speaking with him on Mount Sinai, God gave Moses the two tablets of the Pact, stone tablets inscribed by the finger of God.”
Rather like a film that toggles between concurrent happenings at two different settings or times, the text then moves to the people assembled at the foot of the mountain. Having been terrified by the sound and light effects in Parshat Yitro, they had persuaded Moses to serve as exclusive mediator between themselves and God. However, this wound up rendering them vulnerable to deep anxiety when his absence becomes protracted. And so: “When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, they gathered against Aaron and said to him: ‘Come, make us a god who shall go before us, for that man Moses — who brought us from the land of Egypt — we do not know what has happened to him.” Aaron responds with dispatch, and the Molten Calf arises as the object of offerings and celebration. Commentary largely excuses his action, enabling his reputation as a peacemaker and worthy partner to Moses to endure.
As for our Israelite ancestors, they are judged by commentators more or less harshly depending on how much their behavior is seen as outright idolatry and how much as extenuated by circumstances. The fundamental questions is this: How could it happen that forty days after the Sinai Revelation, with the commandments still ringing in their ears, they would seek other gods? Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch provides a comprehensive answer: “They did not see the Divine laws and ordinances that had come to them through Moses as things that would remain with them even after the mortal who had communicated them was no longer there. . . . They had not yet completely absorbed the Jewish concept that man has direct access to God without the need for any intermediary, as long as he conducts himself in accordance with God’s will.” Nechama Leibowitz also offers a large-visioned answer: “Evidently the Torah wished to impress on us for all time that such a thing was conceivable. The assumption that people who have scaled the loftiest heights of Divine communion are not capable of descending into the depths of depravity is without foundation…. One single religious experience, however profound, was not capable of changing the people from idol worshippers into monotheists. Only a prolonged disciplining in the precepts of the Torah directing every moment of their existence could accomplish that. The all-embracing character of the Torah’s observances regulating the individual’s relations with himself, family and society constitute the surest guarantee against moral relapses.”
For me, the word “guarantee” often triggers scepticism. It seems to me that even a mitzvah-scrupulous person enmeshed in an observant community may engage in transgressive behavior when strained beyond their capacity. The question that nags at me in the episode of the Golden Calf is why is Waiting for Moses so difficult? More generally put, what really is the challenge of waiting? And so let’s go back to Waiting for Godot, which presents a world without metaphysical foundation or solace — a world in which human beings are mutually dependent on one another. The classic play’s few characters represent a humanity that comically & also tragically looks outside itself to break a repetitive cycle of days. Beckett shows the foolishness — but also the tragic grandeur — of people who haven’t figured out how to live without meaning or salvation beyond themselves.
I draw now from a third text, where Business author David Maister writes about the “Psychology of Waiting in Lines.” In this essay, Maister presents eight propositions that dovetail with the Golden Calf episode quite provocatively: (1)occupied time feels shorter than unoccupied time, (2)people want to get started, (3)anxiety makes waits seem longer, (4)uncertain waits are longer than known, finite waits, (5)unexplained waits are longer than explained waits, (6)unfair waits are longer than equitable waits, (7)the more valuable the service, the longer the customer will wait, and finally, (8)solo waits feel longer than group waits.
Over our long history, we Jews have done a lot of waiting. We wait as a group. I’ve been known to say that if the mystery of Christianity is the Trinity, the mystery of Judaism is the Jewish People. And yet, Judaism is a civilization with religion — God — at its core. Our texts are full of questions about God but also full of reassurance, including Isaiah 40:31’s “Youths may grow faith and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but they who trust in (or wait for) the Lord — ____________________________— shall renew their strength.” Jewish liturgy emphasizes reassurance, but it also acknowledges the challenges that life presents. The Kedushah implores “Our sovereign, manifest yourself from wherever you dwell and rule over us, for we await you: ki m’chakim anachnu lach. And in the Amidah’s penultimate prayer, Modim, we affirm meolam keveenu lach: “We have always placed our hope in you.” Which can also be taken as “We have been continually waiting.” Most tellingly, the Psalm that accompanies us through the Fall Holy Days, Psalm 27, in effect acknowledges how bleak a life full of waiting would be without hope and so how vital a hope-fueled faith in God is:
Through answering its own question in a kind of dialogue, Psalm 27 in effect reminds us how important it is to honestly share our doubts and difficulties with other Jews, who can then encourage us: “Look to the Lord; be strong and of good courage. O look to the Lord.” In contrast, back at the foot of Mt Sinai our ancestors seem to have kept their growing anxiety bottled up for forty days — until they poured it out upon an unprepared Aaron, with terrible consequences.
People talk a lot about hope, or its lack, these days — applied to Israel, the United States, and Planet Earth. Hope isn’t the same as confidence, but neither is it despair. Hope is what’s required when you have to wait for what’s deeply needed — often within uncertainty, without explanation, unfairly and without meaningful substitutes. Being part of a generous, supportive community, and having leaders who know how to set interim goals and generate worthwhile activity in the meantime can make all the difference. Reaching toward God, even a God you may not be sure is there, can also make a difference.
Welcome to the Library Minyan of Temple Beth Am!
Shabbat shalom.