A Taste of Torah: Parashat Ki TissaPrepared by Rabbi Ari Lucas

Associate Rabbi, Temple Beth Am  

There is, literally, a thin line between serving God and idol worship. That appears to be the message behind the big letter reish we encounter in this week’s Torah portion, Parshat Ki Tissa. Exodus 34:14 reads:

לא תשתחוה לאל אחרDo not bow down to any other God.

The Hebrew word for “other” in this context is .(aher) אחר The custom among scribes isto write the final letter reish in larger font than the other letters in the line. Compare the letter ר towards the end of the second line pictured above, to another ר directly above it. Can you see the difference? There is no comprehensive theory explaining why the 11 small and 30 big letters scattered throughout the Torah are scribed differently. Rather, these textual anomalies are prime opportunities for interpretation.

Sammy Goldman, a 7th grader at the Pressman Academy Day School, suggested that perhaps the reish is large because the shape of the letter (ר) actually looks like a person in the bowing position. In this interpretation, the text is showing us what not to do - don’t take a reish-like posture when facing other Gods.

This is the only time in the Bible that the Hebrew phrase eil aher “other God” appears. Perhaps the big reish is calling our attention to the uniqueness of the term.

Many rabbis point out that the letter ר (reish) looks awfully similar to the letter ד (dalet). That similarity could cause a dangerous misreading of certain words. In our context, if the reish were mistaken for a dalet, the sentence would have a completely different meaning. Instead of, “Do not bow down to any other God (eil aher),” the verse would instruct us, “Do not bow down to the one God (eil ehad).” Similarly, in the Sh’ma, we emphasize the last letter dalet in ehad so as not to mistakenly say, “Hear O’ Israel, Hashem our God, Hashem is other” (God forbid).

The goal of a religious life - authentic service to God - is only a small flick of the quill away from its antithesis - bowing down to foreign Gods. Foreign worship becomes a catch-all for the most despicable immoral behavior. It’s everything the Torah is against. We might like to think that we are immune to evil behavior, that it is so foreign that there’s no chance we’d ever do it. We’re good people, after all. But the Torah is sending us a subtle message that the line between authentic service and evil is a finer one than we might think - and we’re all susceptible.

Whether in religious life, ethics in business, or in interpersonal relationships, it can be very easy to slip from the realm of the appropriate and legal to the realm of the inappropriate and fraudulent. Maybe it’s a fudging of accounting or willfully looking the other way when people are engaging in acts of abuse or deception. It’s not dramatic. There’s often no smoking gun. Instead, it’s mundane, banal decisions that make the difference between good and evil. That’s why the Torah would tell us to be extra careful, to try to avoid making that mistake.

In this week, when we read of the sin of the golden calf, we remind ourselves that the difference between good and evil, right and wrong, holy and profane can be as subtle as the difference between a dalet and a reish. Let’s take our lesson from the big reish and be extra careful in our pronunciation and our behavior in the world.

This is part of a series Rabbi Lucas is writing on the big and small letters in the text of the Torah.