Parashat Ki Tisa: From Nourishment to Numbing
When Celebration Becomes Collapse – Dulling the Soul Through Eating
When Fear Replaces Awe – How Fallen Fears Take Hold
I just returned from a successful USA/Mexico tour where I led three EmunaHealing (Spiritual Healing) retreats and several book-signing events, teaching from my newest book, Esther the Moon and Me – The Hidden Path to Feminine Empowerment and Redemption.
I am deeply grateful to all of you who joined and thereby supported Midreshet B’erot Bat Ayin. It was especially moving to meet many of you in person for the first time after having known you for years through our online programs.
During our EmunaHealing retreats, we explored fear as one of the primary emotional blocks that prevents us from allowing Hashem’s light to enter our entire being. Fear can be deeply debilitating. It is rooted in a lack of awe of G-d; without that awe, fear easily devolves into what we call fallen fears – fears that constrict rather than elevate. After we learned how fallen fear closes our inner energy fields and narrows our perception, one participant expressed concern about my returning to Israel in light of the current threats of another Iranian attack. She asked me, “Are you sure you want to return to Israel at this time?” I was startled by the question. “Of course,” I responded. “Israel is my home.” The Torah describes it as “a land which G-d seeks out; the eyes of G-d are always upon it, from the beginning of the year until the end of the year” (Devarim 11:12). Just as G-d seeks out the land, so do we.
That does not mean I am immune to fear. None of us is. We all succumb to various fears, since it is nearly impossible to live with complete awe of G-d at every moment. Yet we must be vigilant about the destructive power of fear when left unchecked. Fear can quickly morph into anxiety and panic, distorting judgment and driving impulsive decisions. This is precisely what we encounter in this week’s Torah portion in the episode of the Golden Calf – a national collapse that began not with rebellion, but with destabilizing fear.
How Could Israel Turn to the Golden Calf so Quickly After Receiving the Torah?
Sometimes the most frightening spiritual falls do not begin with rebellion, but with panic. Rashi explains that the crisis began with a tragic miscalculation. When Moshe ascended Mount Sinai, he told the people he would return after forty complete days. They mistakenly included the day he went up in their count. When the expected hour passed and he did not descend, dread overtook them. Rashi describes how a vision of darkness and confusion filled their perception, and they became convinced that Moshe had died (Rashi, Shemot 32:1). What had only hours before been sacred anticipation turned into destabilizing fear. Their reaction was born of fear rather than denial.
Rabbeinu Bachaya emphasises that the people did not initially intend to replace Hashem with an idol. They were searching for a visible leader to guide them in Moshe’s absence. They claimed they needed something “to go before us” – not a new god, but a new guide. Even Aharon’s proclamation of a festival “to Hashem” indicates that, at least at the beginning, their intentions were not to reject the Divine (Rabbeinu Bachaya, Shemot 32:8). What they could not tolerate was uncertainty. They could not bear the silence.
Yet Rabbeinu Bachaya also teaches that the episode did not remain innocent. It began as an error but ended as willful sin. What started as confusion hardened into actual worship. The Midrash further explains that the mixed multitude who left Egypt with Israel played a leading role in instigating the act (Midrash Shemot Rabbah 43:7; Midrash Tanchuma, Ki Tisa 19), yet Israel followed and shared responsibility (Rabbeinu Bachaya, Shemot 32:8). Panic may explain how it started, but it does not excuse how far it went.
This is where Parashat Ki Tisa touches us. We can witness ‘open miracles’ – the gifts we have already received, the clarity we already tasted – inspiration, even revelation – and still unravel when what grounds us is gone. When guidance is hidden, when we lack strong leadership, when life feels dark and uncertain, the human heart reaches for something tangible. Not necessarily because we reject Hashem, but because we are afraid of the void. The Golden Calf was born in the space between promise and patience. And that space is one we all know. The human heart, when frightened, does not always run toward truth. Rather, it is gripped by the need for tangible control.
What is the Connection Between Eating & Drinking, and Worshipping the Golden Calf?
Although the sin began with fear, it did not end there. Fear that is not faced seeks relief. The Torah does not merely say that the people ate and drank. It states that they sat down to eat and drink and then rose to revel. They made it a settled, communal act – a feast. Ramban reads the verse as a deliberate imitation of sacred celebration: “They all sat together to eat to satiety and drink to intoxication, as is done on festivals and appointed times” (Ramban, Shemot 32:6). They recreated the structure of holiness – communal sitting, sacrificial offerings, festivity – but detached it from covenant. The form resembled sacred joy, yet the substance had shifted. The outer form of holiness can be copied, while the inner bond is severed. A ‘festival’ without covenant becomes a costume of joy – and then appetite takes the throne. This kind of eating is part of a process that begins as something seemingly innocent but ends in tragedy when we lose the center. The Pardes Yosef notes that the word “sat” implies settled calm and permanence, a kind of relaxed dwelling in comfort. When the Torah describes “They sat to eat,” it signals more than a meal; it signals a state of complacent ease (Pardes Yosef, Shemot 32:6). The Shelah HaKadosh warns of the danger embedded in such fullness: “Through satiety they rebel… ‘They sat to eat…’ and what was said of them? ‘They quickly turned aside from the way’” (Shelah HaKadosh, Sha’ar HaOtiyot – Emek Beracha). Abundance without awe breeds spiritual amnesia. In contemporary language, this is the moment when food stops being nourishment and becomes anesthesia. When the table is no longer a place of gratitude, connection, and presence, it can quietly become a place where we drown in discomfort – and then we call it ‘celebrating.’ Fear had overtaken the Israelites. Moshe was gone. Uncertainty loomed. Instead of sitting with that vulnerability, they may have sought to drown it. Food and wine can soothe trembling nerves. They can blur the edge of anxiety. The meal became an escape from destabilizing fear. What began as panic was numbed through indulgence. This dynamic is painfully familiar. Today, we often turn to food not out of hunger, but out of discomfort. We eat to quiet anxiety, to fill loneliness, to distract from uncertainty. Emotional eating has become normalized, even marketed as self-care. Parashat Ki Tisa teaches that eating is never neutral. It either deepens our awareness of Hashem or dulls it. It is always a declaration of what we serve. The table, which can be an altar of gratitude and presence, can become a refuge from facing ourselves.
Was the Golden Calf an Attempt to Serve Hashem?
If fear led to indulgence, we must ask a deeper question: did the Israelites believe they were rebelling or serving? According to Rabbi Yehuda Halevi, the Golden Calf was not a conscious rejection of Hashem, but a misguided attempt to create a physical means of relating to Him in Moshe’s absence. They did not deny that Hashem redeemed them, but they made an image without being commanded – which is forbidden. The people were still shaped by the spiritual culture they had just left, and they desired a tangible focus rather than following the Divine command. Their behavior can be compared to a patient who harms himself by self-medicating rather than trusting the physician (Kuzari 1:97). The impulse was not atheism, but misdirected initiative.
Rabbeinu Yosef Bechor Shor similarly writes that even if the act itself was forbidden, “They intended only toward Heaven… and bowed to it for honor, not as a deity” (Rabbeinu Yosef Bechor Shor, Shemot 32:6). That nuance makes the episode even more piercing. It is possible to believe we are serving Hashem while constructing a substitute that feels safer, more tangible, more controllable.
Parashat Ki Tisa not only warns against foreign gods, but also against holy-sounding replacements. When obedience feels difficult, when waiting feels unbearable, when silence feels threatening, we may build something visible and call it devotion. A person can say “for Heaven” and still be grasping for control. These are some of the issues we addressed in my EmunaHealing retreats – navigating the subtle difference between general energy healing that may emanate from Sitra Achra (the side of unholiness), and EmunaHealing, in which we verbalize our intention to become a channel for the Divine – directed to the side of holiness alone.
What Happens When a Meal Becomes a Doorway to Losing Boundaries?
“They rose to play” sounds almost childish – until Chazal strip away the softness and reveal the collapse beneath the laughter. The meal did not remain a meal. Once the heart surrendered to intoxication, the yetzer (negative impulse) did not stay contained.
And perhaps this is the most frightening lesson of all: the Torah portrays a spiritual fall that moved through the body. They sat. They ate. They drank. They rose. They ‘played.’ One step at a time, a dulled soul loses the strength to resist what it once would have recoiled from. The Shelah HaKadosh puts it in a single, piercing line: “Through satiety they rebel” (Shelah HaKadosh, Sha’ar HaOtiyot – Emek Beracha). In a generation like ours – abundant, overstimulated, constantly fed – the story of the Golden Calf becomes not a distant historical failure but a living mirror. The question is not only what we eat, but how eating affects us. Does it make us more awake, more grateful, more humble, more present? Or does it slowly train us to need more and feel less – until we are ready to dance around whatever shines.
