Shabbat Parashat Ki Tisa - 5783

Shabbat Parashat Ki Tisa - 5783

Rabbi Hal Miller

The people heard this bad tiding and they grieved, and they, each man, did not put

on his crown. [Shemot 33:4]

Three consecutive verses discuss "edi". What is this? In our verse, "edyo" is translated as

"his crown" or "his jewelry", "his ornaments", etc. In 33:5, God tells the people to remove

"edicha", "your crown", and in 33:6, the children of Israel were divested of "edyam",

their crowns from Mt. Choreiv.

The Alcalay dictionary defines the word edi as jewel, ornament, or the trappings of a horse

such as in Tehillim [32:9]. Rav Soloveitchik uses the word "finery". Rashi and others call it

a crown, citing Seder Olam (and Gemora Shabbat 87b) about ten crowns, but the word

used there for crown is atarah, not edah.

Yechezkel [16:11-12] says "I adorned you with edi" then lists what God put on the Jews,

bracelets, necklace, nose ring, earrings, and a crown. Then in [13] it says that the Jews

adorned themselves with gold and silver, linen and silk garments, etc., to which it does not

refer by the word edi, thus giving us a list of things included and excluded in the word.

Yeshayahu [49:18] uses the word to refer to adorning a bride.

Rav Hirsch addresses the word in Tehillim [103:5] saying that it refers to the "trait that constitutes

perfection, the nobility, the ornament of the soul. It is for such striving after moral perfection

that God created the soul, this ornament of its ennoblement." In our verse he says it means

ornaments, but notes the Torah does not say what kind of ornament. He writes, "It must refer to

some special decoration and not to decorations and jewelry in general." He says that this can only

mean tefillin, as one part is placed on the head but is taken off as a sign of mourning. Since the

tefillin were commanded earlier, it took God's commanding here to remove them.

The Brisker Rav asks an interesting question. If the people removed these items on their own in

our verse, why did God need to command them in the following verse, "And now, remove your

crown from upon you"? He answers that in our verse, as Rav Hirsch noted, the people removed

them as a sign of mourning, but then God told them in verse 5 that they were being excommunicated

which was a separate reason to remove them. Rashbam calls it "a type of jewelry" and explains the

second verse as being that not everyone removed them in our verse.

Rabbeinu Chananel writes, "These were the garments that the Israelites wore when Moshe sprinkled

the blood of the covenant on them" and he calls them "the jewelry of Israel." Shemot Rabbah [45:3]

cites R'Shimon bar Yochai that these were the weapons that God had given the people and had

inscribed His Name upon them. Onkelos concurs with R'Shimon bar Yochai.

While the word can mean a bridle and saddle, clearly that is not the intent of our verses. What the

Torah is referring to is some type of adornment that God put on the people at Choreiv, but He is now

directing that they remove. Whether this is some physical ornament or a spiritual one is not specified

so we can read it both ways. Because of the golden calf, the people had descended to a level too

low for God to wish to continue His relationship with them, and no longer wanted to give the land to

this generation. He stripped them of their position, but passed it on to the following generation. While

individual people may not merit what He promised us, to us as a people, His promise will always stand.