Shabbat Shekalim: Self Definition
Order is important. When reading the Torah, chronology informs us of how people and a people hood develop. We watch as the life of Moses, for example, is first described in the opening chapters of Exodus. We then follow him as he grows, matures and changes through adulthood. Without this order we would have a faulty, sporadic view of how this redeemer/lawgiver came to be. That is why this Torah parsha is so troubling. It is out of order. The Sages, of blessed memory, universally agreed that the narrative of the census belongs elsewhere in the Torah. They tell us that all the commandments enumerated here were given before the episode of the Golden calf…yet they are placed after the event. The Sages were unmoved by the conundrum. They figuratively shrugged their collective shoulders and said, “There is no chronology in the Torah.” For those who sit and learn in the light of th...