April 13, 2026
Ki Sisa
The Sacred Wait
The revelation at Sinai was a wondrous experience. The Jewish people were promised a great ongoing connection with Hashem. They yearned for the day when Moshe would return from his personal audience with Hashem to guide them to greater heights. But it seemed that Moshe was delayed and the Jewish people really wanted more. So, a small but significant group decided to pursue a sort of elevated spiritual connection. They made the Eigel, a golden calf.
As we see recorded in the prophecy of Yechezkel, one of the conduits of connection with Hashem is described as a calf. But we are forbidden to use such conduits to reach Hashem. We are obligated to connect to Hashem without intermediaries. To use an intermediary is Avodah Zorah (idol worship); to create a graven image, icon, or figurine, is strictly forbidden.
The Beis Haleivi commentary explains that the yearning for connection with Hashem is a good thing. But the relationship with Hashem must follow the commandments that Hashem gives us. Even the most sincere and spiritually sophisticated person cannot choose on their own how to connect with Hashem. The invitation must come from Hashem’s side. Without that invitation, even the most well-intentioned gesture can be Avodah Zorah.
Interestingly, there was one person who was personally spared from the Eigel story. Yehoshua, the loyal student of Moshe, had not been assigned any task while Moshe was away. Free and available, he decided that the best use of his time would be as an honor guard, outside the camp, at the foot of the mountain, waiting for Moshe.
But what emerges is that Yehoshua’s waiting wasn’t just fortuitous. There is a theological difference between the path of those who followed the Eigel and the path of Yehoshua. Yehoshua’s wait wasn’t just patience — it was a statement of faith that Hashem will provide the terms of connection. He didn’t fill the void with his own initiative. Instead, he held the space waiting for Moshe to return.
Waiting is an interesting thing. To Yehoshua it was purposeful and deliberate. But sometimes waiting can seem like a waste of time.
I recall on one occasion a man was honored to take out the Torah on Shabbos morning, and he went up to the Aron holding the Parsha sheets he was reading. Not to waste time while the congregation was singing, he opened the Aron quickly and stood by reading his sheets until the singing and prayers would be completed and it would be time to take out the Torah. In a certain way it seemed admirable. The Parsha sheets were interesting, and he didn’t want to waste any time. Yet I called him over afterwards to chat. Because standing as the honor guard when we take out the Torah is not called wasting time. Consider the guards at Buckingham Palace. They stand motionless for hours and nobody accuses them of wasting time. Their stillness is not emptiness — it is a statement. Their presence declares: what stands behind these doors matters. That is what they are doing. And so it is when the Aron is opened. The congregation standing at attention, present and unhurried, is declaring that what is about to emerge matters infinitely. That standing is not the gap between two activities. It is itself the activity. And perhaps more — it is a moment of receiving, of being open, of waiting for Hashem’s word to reach us rather than rushing to fill the space ourselves. That waiting is sacred waiting.
How we experience waiting depends entirely on the lens we use to measure it. The most common lenses are time and money.
How we experience waiting depends entirely on the lens we use to measure it. The most common lenses are time and money. When things happen, we typically ask, “How much time did it take?” and “How much money did it cost?” Based on that, we determine if it was a worthwhile endeavor.
Yet there are other important lenses that we would do well to consider. Asking ourselves how it impacts the relationship is also an important question to ask. Sometimes the very things that seem to be so time-consuming or costly are actually investments in a relationship.
A woman once shared with me how she made peace with one of her husband’s “mistaken” behaviors. She described how whenever they were going somewhere together, she found that her husband would always take the longer route. When she tried to set him straight, he mumbled some excuse about left hand turns being difficult to make without a traffic light. But it bothered her because it was such a great waste of time to always take the longer route.
One day it dawned on her that she was making a big mistake. She said to herself, “For the longest time I have wanted that we spend more time together. Here he is taking the longer route and giving us more time together, and I am busy complaining?!”
I think the same lens exercise could be practiced whenever we are inconvenienced by a loved one. We can process behaviors through the lenses of time or money, as if these are the only lenses possible. Or we can realize that there are other lenses, such as the lens of relationships which will help us process and discuss behaviors in a much calmer way.
Waiting and yearning have great value. In the story of the Jewish people, had the waiting and yearning stayed within the framework of Halacha it would have produced the Mishkan without the Eigel detour. For Yehoshua, standing at the foot of the mountain, he could easily have calculated the cost: time lost or tasks undone. But Yehoshua was measuring with a different lens entirely. Yehoshua knew that Moshe would return and would guide them to the Mishkan—by Hashem’s invitation.
For Family Discussion
- The woman in the story reframed her husband’s longer route from “waste of time” to “gift of time together.” What’s a situation in your own life that might look different through the lens of relationship rather than time or money?
- The man at the Aron was trying not to waste time — a genuinely good instinct. Where is the line between productive use of time and missing the sacred moment you’re already in?
© 2026 by TEACH613