WHAT’S THE BIG DEAL?
It is difficult for us to relate to the boundless passion that inspired the Jewish people to create and worship a calf of gold merely 40 days after they stood at Mt. Sinai and heard the Divine decree “You shall have no other gods before Me.” Who today would find delight in dancing around a molten calf and declaring, “This is Your G-d, O Israel?”
Even a superficial reading of this week’s Torah portion, Ki Sisa, in which the story of the golden calf is related, indicates the cataclysmic effect of this seemingly meaningless event on the eternal destiny of the Jewish people. Why did the creation of a foolish idol by a group of Jews in the Sinai Desert become one of the most central episodes in our history?
THE SOUL OF AN IMPULSE
We all experience in our daily lives various impulses and urges directed toward certain people or particular substances, objects, and behaviors. Some of us become addicted.
Are you infatuated with a particular person? Are you starving for attention, compliments, and approval? Do you crave nicotine, alcohol, or drugs? Are you obsessed with an unceasing urge for physical intimacy? Do certain websites and images play a central role in your life? Are you a gambler or a binger? Do you feel the need to control other people’s lives?
The great spiritual masters taught that these impulses and many others are not evil in and of themselves. All these cravings may be expressing the purest and most spiritual needs of the soul. At the core of a crush on another human being or an obsession with intimacy, attention, or drug addiction, is the longing of a person to escape loneliness, shame, trauma, or inner worthlessness. Addiction is not the problem; it is the solution. The addiction is coming to assuage fear, to fill an intense, sometimes subconscious, void. Can I identify the core of the problem that is fueling my addiction? Can I identify my sense of shame and worthlessness?
Our coping skills distort our clarity and attribute false symbolisms to essentially hollow pursuits. As a result of this distortion we—just like the Jews in the desert—devote our time and passion to carefully construct and worship our personal “golden calves” in the mistaken belief that they will fill the void in our hearts and nourish the hunger of our souls.
You can’t fill my void, the drugs can’t fill my void, because what I am really searching for is inner wholeness. I am searching for G-d.
Behind every addiction, there is a profound yearning to receive or give love. We are searching for true intimacy - with ourselves, with another person, with G-d. But our minds are often so bruised and wounded that the outlet we target with our addiction to achieve that love is an “idol,” a futile target that will only distance us from the true love we are searching for.
ABRAHAM’S PASSION
Abraham, the first Jew, once passionately worshipped idols. Had this young man been indifferent to the idols of his native land, he never would have searched for and discovered the true G-d. Since Abraham yearned for truth and craved intimacy with the ultimate core of reality, G-d, he passionately devoted himself to worshiping the idols of his father’s home in the erroneous belief that they embodied the ultimate truth of the cosmos.
Underlying Abraham’s fiery idol worship was a soul yearning for the one living G-d. So when he matured, he discovered that his sacred craving needed to be redirected toward the true G-d and not to the false substitutes for G-d.
The Torah’s war against the creation of the Golden Calf is central to our mission in life. It symbolizes our daily relentless effort to turn our attention from the false carriers of value to the true carriers of value.
The late Rabbi Dr. Abraham Twersky, an expert on addiction, once told me that the addicts among us are among the most spiritual souls among us – souls whose void due to their lack of experiencing genuine spirituality and love caused them to lose their sanity.
We put so much focus on the addictions; in truth, we need to focus much more on the pain behind them. That will make all the difference. Because as we know today, the antithesis of addiction is not sobriety. The antithesis of addiction is connection.
