Overview of Parshas Ki Sisa

God instructed Moshe to take a census of the Israelites; everyone 20 or older, regardless of wealth, should give a half-shekel offering. God told Moshe to assign the proceeds to the service of the Tent of Meeting. God told Moshe to place a copper laver (כִּיּוֹר‎, kiyor) between the Tent of Meeting and the altar (מִּזְבֵּחַ‎, mizbeiach) so that Aaron and the priests could wash their hands and feet in the water when they entered the Tent of Meeting or approached the altar to burn a sacrifice so that they would not die. God directed Moshe to make a sacred anointing oil from choice spices—myrrh, cinnamon, cassia—and olive oil. God told Moshe to use it to anoint the Tent of Meeting, the furnishings of the Tabernacle, and the priests. God told Moshe to warn the Israelites not to copy the sacred anointing oil's recipe for lay purposes. God directed Moshe to burn sacred incense from herbs—stacte, onycha, galbanum, and frankincense. God warned against making incense from the same recipe for lay purposes as the anointing oil. God informed Moshe that God had endowed Bezalel of the Tribe of Judah with divine skill in every craft. God assigned to him Oholiav of the Tribe of Dan and granted skill to all who are skillful, that they might make the furnishings of the Tabernacle, the priest's vestments, the anointing oil, and the incense.God told Moshe to admonish the Israelites to keep the Sabbath on the pain of death. God gave Moshe two stone tablets inscribed by the finger of God. Meanwhile, the people became impatient for the return of Moses and implored Aaron to make them gods. Aaron told them to bring him their gold earrings, and he cast them in a mold and made a molten golden calf. They exclaimed, "This is your god, O Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt!" Aaron built an altar before the calf and announced a festival of the Lord. The people offered sacrifices, ate, drank, and danced. God told Moshe what the people had done: "Let Me be, that My anger may blaze forth against them and that I may destroy them, and make you a great nation." But Moshe implored God not to do so, lest the Egyptians say that God delivered the people only to kill them off in the mountains. Moshe called on God to remember Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and God's oath to make their offspring as numerous as the stars, and God renounced the planned punishment. Moshe descended the mountain bearing the two tablets. Yehoshua told Moshe, "There is a cry of war in the camp," but Moses answered, "It is the sound of song that I hear!" When Moshe saw the calf and the dancing, he became enraged and shattered the tablets at the foot of the mountain. He burned the calf, ground it to powder, strewed it upon the water, and made the Israelites drink it. When Moshe asked Aaron how they committed such a great sin, Aaron replied that the people asked him to make a god, so he hurled their gold into the fire, "and out came this calf!" Moshe stood at the camp gate and called, "Whoever is for the Lord, come here!" All the Levites rallied to Moshe and, at his instruction, killed 3,000 people, including brothers, neighbors, and kin. Moshe went back to God and asked for God to forgive the Israelites, but God insisted on punishing only the sinners. God dispatched Moses and the people to the Promised Land but decided not to go into their midst for fear of destroying them. Upon hearing this, the Israelites went into mourning. Now Moshe would pitch the Tent of Meeting outside the camp, and Moses would enter to speak to God, face to face. Moshe asked God whom God would send with Moshe to lead the people. Moshe further asked God to let him know God's ways so that he might know God and continue in His favor. God directed Moshe to carve two stone tablets like the ones that Moshe had shattered. The thirteen attributes of Hashem are exclaimed: "compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in kindness and faithfulness, extending kindness to the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin; yet He does not remit all punishment, but visits the iniquity of parents upon children and children's children, upon the third and fourth generations." Moshe bowed low and asked God to accompany the people in their midst, to pardon the people's iniquity, and to take them for God's own. God replied by making a covenant to drive out the people of the Promised Land. God warned Moshe against making a covenant with them lest they become a snare and induce the Israelites' children to lust after their gods. God commanded that the Israelites do not make molten gods, that they consecrate or redeem every first-born, that they observe the Sabbath, that they observe the Three Pilgrim Festivals, that they not offer sacrifices with anything leavened, that they do not leave the Passover lamb lying until morning, that they bring choice first fruits to the house of the Lord, and that they not boil a kid in its mother's milk. Moshe stayed with God 40 days and 40 nights, ate no bread, drank no water, and wrote down the terms of the covenant on the tablets. As Moshe came down from the mountain bearing the two tablets, the skin of his face was radiant, and the Israelites shrank from him. Moshe called them near and instructed them concerning all that God had commanded. When Moshe finished speaking, he put a veil over his face. Whenever Moshe talked to God, Moshe would take his veil off. And when he came out, he would tell the Israelites what he had been commanded, and then Moshe would put the veil back over his face again.