The problem with idolatry is not just that it limits who God is, but also that it limits who we are as reflections of God. When we have idols, we, too, become more limited. In Hallel, we say that idols can’t see or hear or move, and – “so, too, are those who make them, and all who trust in them (Psalm 115:8).” Kmohem yehiyu oseihem vekhol asher boteach bahem. We are as limited as the idols that we construct in our lives.
Our Idols
As humans we are prone to idolatry. Anything we give power to and make ourselves dependent on and enslaved to can become an idol for us, as if we would not be okay without it. Work, money, physical appearance, social approval, success and health can all be idols as can spiritual pursuits and inner work, when there is around them some undue weight, rigidity and dependence. The test is how it limits our conception of ourselves and what we are capable of, how it constrains our freedom. It’s not the thing itself that’s the problem, but the power we invest in it that takes away some of our own power and freedom and possibility. Often what we call obsessions or addictions have this idolatrous quality, some rigidity, and some sense of limiting and constraining who you are, as if you are only okay if you have this thing.
Idols As A Response to Anxiety
We invest this power in things outside of ourselves to soothe our anxiety about the basic uncertainties and vulnerabilities of a human life. That’s what happened with the Golden Calf last week. The people saw that Moshe was delayed in returning and they couldn’t bear the terrible anxiety that comes from such uncertainty. Lo yadanu (Exodus 32:1)– we don’t know what happened to him. And so they attempted to soothe that anxiety with an idol, something they could invest with power to make them feel okay again.
Constraining Nature of Golden Calf Project
It’s natural that we do this, find an idol to soothe ourselves, but it has an impact on our freedom, limiting our sense of ourselves and what we think we are capable of. Thinking about the Golden Calf project in contrast to the building of the mishkan (tabernacle) in this week’s parsha, we can see how severely limiting the Golden Calf actually is. For the Golden Calf, the people bring only one substance – gold, and only in one form – earrings. Only the men are involved, and only one object is constructed, the calf. Only this. That’s what our idols do to us – limit our options and possibilities, like a rigid box.
Mishkan As Expansive
By contrast, the mishkan offers us space and possibility and expansion. For the building of the mishkan, there is not just that one gold substance, but an explosion of color and texture and material: gold, silver and copper, blue, purple and crimson yarns, fine linen and goat’s hair, tanned ram skins, dolphin skins and acacia wood, oil for lighting, a plethora of aromatic spices, and precious stones of many varieties and colors for the breastplate (Exodus 35:6-9). And even the gold that is brought is explicitly not from one source, not just earrings, but “gold objects of all kinds,” brooches, earrings, rings and pendants (Exodus 35:22). Suddenly it’s all here and welcome, an open door, infinite possibility.
I invite you to feel this explosion of visual and tactile possibility in your body, perhaps like a kaleidoscope or like an exquisite bouquet of flowers, or, to include all the senses, like the experience of walking through a blooming garden in springtime, breathing in the smells and the textures and the sights around you in all their brilliance and variety. Take it all in. This is God’s world, alive and limitless in its variety, as you, too, are.
Notice the contrast between this shefa, this abundance and variety, and the monochrome of the golden calf. Also in terms of who is involved and what is made, the mishkan is so much more varied and inclusive, with women as well as men enthusiastically contributing, and the objects that are made of great variety, no one a representation of God, but all together creating a space where God might dwell within the overflow and cornucopia, giving the sense that God can’t be pinned down by any one thing but is so much more expansive and complex, as we, too, are.
Our Own Abundance
When we are involved in idolatry-like behavior, we are reducing and limiting our conception of God, and in the process we are reducing who we are and can become. What is so moving about the description of the bringing of materials for the mishkan is the endless outpouring of contributions, day after day, like an overflowing fountain, until finally Moshe had to actually ask people to stop bringing, saying they had enough, day, and even hoter, even more than they needed (Exodus 36:7).
This is the divine shefa, the divine overflow, that exists inside all of us. We are all linked to the divine source which is endless and full of variety and abundance and aliveness. We just usually limit ourselves to one pre-ordained path, like the gold earrings for the Golden Calf. But, when we are aligned with our Source and able to open to that continual outpouring, we actually have inside us all of those colors and textures, and not in small quantities, but unlimited.
I invite you to sense that cornucopia in yourself right now. It’s ok if there is also a sense of intense limitation. We are also that, and it’s ok. We are always both. But maybe for this moment, we can feel into our connection to this limitless divine overflow, to our inner capacity to blossom into a thousand colors and textures and to offer that to the world. Letting yourself feel that expansion inside you, that growth, that sense of possibility, an opening, a nourishment from beyond, our connection to a limitless fountain. Worshiping an unlimited God also means believing in our own capacity for abundance, in our own infinite possibility. Not just one golden calf made of earrings, but so many shapes and colors and directions we could go in.
That is what the divine lens offers us, and that is who we really are. We are so much richer, so much less limited, so much freer and more vibrant, have so much more potential, than we ever imagined. It’s like we’ve been living in a hole and thought we were that small and then we come out into the open to find we can stand up and run free in a thousand directions. Above all I believe that God desires our freedom, our fullness, our abundance, for us no longer to live in the cramped shell of our idolatrous addictions and obsessions, all the things that keep us small. Perhaps the prohibition against idolatry is not for God’s sake but for our own, to help remind us of our own greatness.
From The Heart
This greatness of ours comes from deep within, from the lev, the heart, the place where we and God meet. That word lev is repeated again and again in our parsha, describing the way that people brought their contributions to the mihskan: kol nediv libo or kol asher nesa’o libo – anyone whose heart moves them or inspires them (Exodus 35:5 and throughout). And then for the artisans, again and again the term hacham lev, wise of heart, is used (Exodus 35:10 and throughout). The implication is that all this abundance comes from the heartspace. Whereas the Golden Calf was made of something external – earrings – here the emphasis is on the offerings of the heart.
Lifted in the Work
Nesa’o libo. A person’s heart lifts her up (Exodus 35:21). When we are connected to this heartspace, we are lifted up and carried in our work. By contrast, at the Golden Calf, Moshe describes the people as paru’a (Exodus 32:25), wild and out of control, frazzled and restless. We try to soothe anxiety with our idols but only end up more restless than ever. The only real rest is in God, in our heart, allowing the heart to carry us and lift us up out of our impossible restlessness and limitations. It’s like we are as heavy as that solid golden calf, so much heaviness, like a rock inside us, and then we are lifted, we float and become light and airy, like the space in which God dwells in the mishkan, not inside any particular object, but in the space between them. We become like that space, nesa’o libo, we are carried by our heart’s desire, by our yearning for and connection to God, by our sincerity in divine service, somehow no longer heavy with worry and fear, but carried aloft into the realm of infinite divine possibility.
Asking For Help
This is not always easy or possible for us to feel, but we can ask for help. We do not do this alone, but by grace; it is with God’s support that we move out of our idolatrous addictions and into the limitless space of divine sanctuary.
This week is also Parashat Parah, and in the special haftarah, it says of God: ”I will sprinkle clean water upon you and you shall be clean. I will cleanse you from all your uncleanness and from all your idols. And I will give you a new heart – lev hadash – and put a new spirit into you: I will remove the heart of stone from your body and give you a heart of flesh (Exekiel 36:25-26).”
Here is my prayer. Please God, we cannot do this alone. We want to let go of the heaviness of our heart of stone, the heaviness of our Golden Calf rigidity, our obsessions and idols. We are aware of how limited we have made ourselves Please help us to live into our full abundance and aliveness, to have a new spirit and a new heart that is open to You and Your infinite love, and that is open to our own full capacity and potential, that lives into all the colors and textures that You buried inside us so that we can offer them to the world as a sanctuary. Please help us make this transformation, again and again, as often as we need to. Sprinkle water on us, sprinkle your healing waters on us and let us be renewed and free and whole.
Image by Jill Wellington at Pexels
