Ki Tisa - כי תשא : "When you take"
Torah : Exodus 30:11-34:35
Haftarah : 1 Kings 18:1-39
Gospel : Mark 13-14

Thought for the Week:

We find it all too easy to go from being spiritually high to plummeting into sin and disobedience when the buzz wears off—and it always wears off. Part of the solution is to quit looking for spiritual buzzes. A traveler who is always charging up mountaintops and then sliding down into valleys will not get very far. If he wants to achieve real progress, he needs to stay on the level ridge routes, avoiding the peaks and the dips. We need to work on the simple, day-to-day disciplines of faith.

Commentary:

Aaron said to them, "Tear off the gold rings which are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me." (Exodus 32:2)

When we attempt to "do religion" without first consulting God's instructions, we end up with golden calves. The Torah tells the story of the golden calf in juxtaposition to the instructions for the building of the Tabernacle. The Tabernacle represents God's way of doing spirituality. The golden calf represents man's way of doing spirituality. God and Israel were both striving for the same end: they were each attemptin...