The social animal.

At the beginning of Vayaquel, Moses performs a ticun, a mending of the past,

namely the sin of the golden calf.

The Torah signals this by using essentially the same word at the beginning of both episodes.

It eventually became a key word in Jewish spirituality, khal, together,

assemble, congregate. From it, we get the words kahaul and kihila meaning community.

Far from being merely an ancient concern, it remains at the heart of our humanity, as we will see.

Recent scientific research confirms the extraordinary power of communities and social networks to shape our lives.

First, the biblical story.

The episode of the Golden Calf began with these words.

When the people saw that Moses was so long coming down from the

mountain, they gathered themselves Vajikahel around Iran. At the beginning of this week's

Pasha, having won God's forgiveness and brought down a second set of tablets, Moses began the work

of rededicating the people, Moses assembled Vayaquil, the entire Israelite congregation.

They had sinned as a community, now they were about to be reconstituted as a community.

Jewish spirituality is first and foremost a communal spirituality.

Note too exactly what Moses does in this week's

parisher. He directs their attention to the two great centres of community in Judaism, one in

space, the other in time. The one in time is Shabbat. The one in space was the Mishkan, the tabernacle, that led eventually to the temple and later to the synagogue.

These are where Kehila lives most powerfully. On Shabbat, when we lay aside our private devices and desires and come together as a community,

and the synagogue where the community has its home.

Judaism attaches immense significance to the individual.

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