Ki Tisa: Believing in Man - Rabbi Reuven Taragin

this week's Parsha Parsha kirtisa focuses mainly on the eagle and its aftermath it's interesting though that the parachute begins with the conclusion of the parshasa mishkan with the need to collect money one wonders why this is the beginning of the Parsha that's going to focus on I believe a better understanding and of the collection of the max that a shekel can help us answer this question as we know the eagle is one of the seminal sins of the Jewish people in fact even once the Jews are forgiven we're told in bed that when God punishes us for our sins there's always being punished for Rashi says tamid tamid the aim purana Baal Israel hazal connect the sin of to the original sin of other maricion the Czar explains that the zuama the filth that the gemarin Shabbos tells us was removed that Muhammad harsinai Nazar tells us that it was returned to Mankind we see also maniksharim between and the question is what the relationship between these is a major question stands out the people are of course motivated by the fact that they don't know where Moshe is so why not appoint Aaron they come to iron and they say we don't know what Moshe is make us a Graven image there's something missing come to our own and appoint our own instead the answer seems to lie in the public itself in the words of the Jewish people they said yes we've lost faith in human beings they're not reliable we don't know if we can expect any human being to remain with us we don't want a human being to rely on anymore this is similar to what motivated Adam and Hava to eat from the tree told them you can be like God God wants to keep you down they're uncomfortable with who they are as human beings they're trying to transcend that and be Godly and of course is also about low self-esteem grasshoppers in our own eyes and so in the eyes of others and thus a negative you on the world around us is that we have to believe in the value of man we're of course familiar with the peace where he says that just like people need to believe in Hashem so they need to believe afterwards in human beings and this is the backdrop to the famous gamara and Shabbat which says that when Moshe went up to shemaim to receive the Torah the angel said what is this Mortal man doing amongst us God told Moshe you have to answer them you can hold on to the Giza cover but you have to answer them you can only take the Torah if you see your own value your own potential the balatanya is a beautiful piece where he talks about how when human beings learn to hear our learning the level we can achieve through Torah as opposed to the lack of confidence that led to Mercedes and this is why until in Paris said we were describing we describe all the aspects of creation but the climax is you make us just a step below you but man has this Grandeur of this potential I believe this idea is represented by the way the martial is described Israel raised the heads of the Jewish people says Hashem how do I raise the Jewish people and he said should bring a person to raise their head to see their value to see their significance that's the tension between what Mata and Torah is supposed to teach us and the potential fall of to realize our value in our worth particularly when we realize it both internally and externally through talmatore and what Torah teaches us