When I became Bar Mitzvah, the big day finally arrived.

Not the aliyah.Not the speeches.Certainly not the fountain pen.

Anyone who knows me knows this: once you get me started on guitars, I won’t stop talking.My neighbors can confirm. Usually around 2:00 a.m.

As the gift envelopes arrived, I began a quiet, highly illegal side project.A tenner here.A twenty there.

I was laundering my own Bar Mitzvah money—breaking larger notes into smaller ones so the cards all felt the same.

You can’t leave a card empty, can you?Well, technically you can.I did.

Later, my mum started writing down names for thank-you notes. Every now and then she’d look up from a card and ask,“Is that all they gave?”

I nodded.Calm.Agreeable.Innocent.

Once—just once—she gave me a look that suggested she was on to my creative accounting.But my face held.Crisis averted.The Guitar Fund was secure.

At least once a month, I’d head down to Denmark Street in London.There was a shop called Andy’s Guitar, and in the window sat the object of desire:

A Gibson Les Paul Custom.Vintage Sunburst.

When I finally played it, it fit me like a glove.Not metaphorically.Spiritually.

I knew it had to be mine.

The price tag said otherwise.

So for nearly a year, every visit ended the same way: standing outside the window.Staring.Longing.Admiring the curve, the colour, the promise.

I told myself I was window shopping.

Something else was happening.

The year of waiting outside Andy’s Guitar wasn’t just about the money; it was about my inability to live with not yet.

Then the day came.I bought it.

There it was, hanging across the wall above the mantel, shining in the living room.

Admiration, before it knows what it’s becoming

Everyone who walked in stopped and gasped.“Wow.”“What a beauty.”

Then I plugged it in.

That’s when the Exodus began.

My family fled the room.Eventually, the guitar and I were exiled to the garage, where I formed new and lasting relationships—mostly with the local council’s noise-complaint department.

And it was only later that I realised:

The guitar didn’t replace my values—but it gripped me.

It shaped my decisions.It justified a surprisingly sophisticated accounting strategy at my mother’s dining room table.It sat in the window of my attention far more than it deserved.

Which brings us to this week’s parsha, Parashat Ki Tisa.

The Israelites are waiting.Moshe has been gone longer than expected.Silence stretches.Uncertainty grows.

A long time to wait for a voice you can no longer hear.

And into that terrifying gap of What now? they pour their gold.

They create something visible.Tangible.And—most importantly—controllable.

The Golden Calf isn’t about theology gone wrong.It’s about anxiety looking for an object.

The Israelites didn’t reject G-d.They just couldn’t wait anymore.

That’s the thing about idols.

They aren’t necessarily evil.They’re absorbing.

They slowly gather our attention, our energy, our justifications—until one day we realise they’ve been shaping us all along.

Which leaves us with the uncomfortable questions Ki Tisa asks every year.

The Questions Ki Tisa Asks

The Object:What goal or status symbol have I been standing outside, staring at for too long?

The Cost:What am I quietly reallocating from my integrity, my patience, or my family just to get it?

The Void:When the silence of life feels unbearable, what “calf” am I tempted to build just so I can feel like I’m in control?

Judaism doesn’t ask us to stop loving beautiful things.It asks us to notice the exact moment when admiration turns into devotion.

Sometimes the most spiritual work isn’t smashing idols.

It’s stepping back from the window— before we start calling the sunburst holy.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)