Mishmar with Mrs. Septimus

Every Thursday after school, North Shore holds a Mishmar open to all students. All who attended this week’s after-school Mishmar enjoyed a Dvar Torah by Mrs. Septimus. In addition to the terrific Dvar Torah, students were treated to pizza and French fries at the end. There were a variety of valuable lessons Mrs. Septimus taught in her Dvar Torah on Parashat Ki Tisa. Mrs. Septimus introduced the Parasha with a story about a man who lost every penny after attempting to invest in a technology-related business and then failing after it went bankrupt. The theme of failure very much relates to this week's parashah, because Bnei Israel failed Hashem greatly after engaging in the sin of the golden calf. What makes this sin even worse is that it was done particularly after Bnei Israel received the Torah, so they were well aware that the idol worship that they did was forbidden. Building upon this, there is a disagreement between Rashi and Ramban. Students learned that Rashi’s commentary was that the Torah’s events don’t go in chronological order in every scenario.

On the other hand, the Ramban strongly disagrees with Rash because the Ramban believes the Torah does run chronologically. The Ramban furthermore believes that after the event of Har Sinai, the first commandment given by Hashem was to build the Mishkan, so according to this view, most of the mitzvot were rather given in the Mishkan. Rashi says that the Mishkan came after the sin of the golden calf because according to his logic, the building of the Mishkan was a commandment after the sin.

The concluding statement was that there is a profound connection between Har Sinai and the Mishkan, being that they are both places where Hashem and Beni Israel can connect. In the sin of the golden calf gold was being collected to create the golden calf and so too, Bnei Israel contributed their gold to the building of the Mishkan as well. Circling this all back to the man who failed and lost it all: this man failed because of his pride, but his pride helped him get out of poverty in the end. This relates to Bnei Israel because when engaging in the sin of the golden calf, they wanted to be closer to Hashem, but because of their pride, they ended up doing the opposite

If you missed this excellent Mishmar, keep your eyes on your email - many more are coming in the future!

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