When we’re confronted with chaos and panic, how do we keep ourselves from spinning out of control?
This week, as our brothers and sisters in Israel once again take shelter in their safe rooms, and as the Middle East reshapes before our eyes, that question has become as relevant as ever. Here in the US, our national conversation about the war with the Islamic Republic—its aims and successes, how the president and Congress are or are not working together, and what should happen next—has brought a swirl of responses. It’s easy to be overwhelmed by the opinions, perspectives, and messages coming from all directions.
In moments like these, my mind returns to a simple phrase I learned years ago: “The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.” Coined by the late Stephen Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, the message is simple: stay focused on what matters most, and everything else will fall into place.
It is wisdom our ancestors could have used in this week’s Torah portion, in which they committed one of the gravest sins in our people’s history. Having just left Egypt and received the Ten Commandments, the Israelites grew anxious when Moses did not return from Mount Sinai as quickly as they expected. Panicking, they asked Aaron to make them a god, elohim in Hebrew. Aaron collected their gold and fashioned it into a molten calf, declaring it to be elohecha, “your god,” and announcing a festival to the Eternal the next day.
On its face, the Israelites failed the “main thing” test miserably. Still standing at Mount Sinai, where they had just been told not to make sculptured images, they did exactly that.
Yet their failure was not complete. They did not ask Aaron to lead them back to Egypt. Nor did they embrace the polytheism of the surrounding nations. If they had asked for a rain god, a sun god, a fertility god, and a host of others, it would have been a total rejection of the covenant they had just entered with the Holy One. Instead, their sin, while grave, was a gross corruption of how they expressed their faith; not an abandonment of the faith itself.
The clues are in the language. They called the calf elohim, the same word the Torah often uses for God, not the terms used for foreign deities. And the festival Aaron proclaimed was dedicated to the Eternal, YHVH in Hebrew, the four-letter name of God. The Israelites broke God’s instructions, but they did not abandon their commitment.
So when Moses pleaded with God to turn away from anger, God relented. God saw the possibility that the people could learn from their mistake. In that moment, the main thing, the covenant between God and the people Israel, remained the main thing.
We, too, are living through a moment of tension and uncertainty. With the United States and Israel at war with the Islamic Republic, daily life in Israel has once again been disrupted. Families are staying close to home, preparing to spend Shabbat in shelters, caring for children while schools are closed, and praying that the war’s aims can be achieved quickly so that life can return to normal. Here in the United States, many in the Jewish community feel relief at the war’s accomplishments thus far. At the same time, the conflict has stirred criticism around the world and, more troublingly, renewed antisemitic accusations that Jews place Israel’s interests above America’s.
In moments like this, it becomes even more important to remember the main things.
As we enter Shabbat and pray not only for a day of peace but for a lasting one, these are the main things I hold onto:
Israel, the Jewish people, and the world are safer this Shabbat than we were a week ago.
We must remain open to learning from our past mistakes, without fearing what those lessons might reveal about us.
Our people’s message – the pursuit of peace and the enduring hope for a better future, has carried us through generations and will continue to do so.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Greg Weisman
[1] Ketubot 67b
[2] Kedushat Levi, Exodus, Yitro 4
[3] https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2022/09/asking-help-hard-people-want-help-realize
