The inevitable comedown after Sinai

It was over 40 years ago, but I remember the feelings very well. They were overwhelming, and were not dispelled easily.

It was just after I had completed all of my course requirements and dissertation defense in the process of obtaining my doctorate in psychology. Like any graduate school experience, it was the culmination of years of study and hard work. A celebration was in order.

And celebrate I did, together with my wife, my young children, other students, and assorted friends. But then the celebration was over. I found myself inexplicably moody and depressed. A sense of emptiness enveloped me.

At first I thought it was just the transition to a state of boredom. However, the feelings lingered. I tried to rid myself of my moodiness, and it must have been difficult for those close to me. Luckily, the feelings were soon gone, as suddenly and as mysteriously as they had come.

I learned that this curious phenomenon was very common. When people achieve great accomplishments, having put great effort and toil into them, they experience a sense of exhilaration and excitement. A “high.” Soon afterwards, there is a comedown from that high.

It is as if, now that the goal with which one had been long preoccupied was reached, life had become meaningless. There is nothing further to do, no ongoing purpose. A sense of emptiness ensues.

In my own case, the emptiness thankfully passed in short order, with no harm done and no unusual “acting out” on my part. But others in similar predicaments frequently attempt to fill that emptiness in ways that result in great, and sometimes tragic, difficulties.

The psychology helps to explain a most puzzling event in this week’s Torah portion, Ki Sisa (Exodus 30:11-34:35). I refer, of course, to the episode of the Golden Calf.

Just a few short weeks ago, in Yitro, we read of how the children of Israel experienced the most momentous occasion in human history. The Almighty revealed Himself to them at Mount Sinai in an awe-inspiring atmosphere of thunder and lightning. They heard the voice of G-d and were spiritually elevated by His revelation. They were, almost literally, on a “high.”

Moshe then ascends Mount Sinai, and remains there for 40 days and 40 nights. The people come down from their high. His disappearance mystifies them. They become impatient and irritable. We can empathize with their sense of emptiness, although we are shocked by the way they choose to deal with it.

 “When the people saw that Moshe delayed to come down from the mountain, the people came together to Aaron, and said to him: ‘Make us a G-d’ … And all the people took off all the golden earrings that were in their ears and brought them to Aaron … he … made a molten calf and they said: ‘This is thy god, O Israel’ … he built an altar before it … and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to make merry” (Exodus 32:1-6).

What a comedown! How can one explain deterioration as drastic as this? Just weeks ago the Jewish people were on the highest possible level of commitment to the one G-d. Now they are dancing before a golden idol. Is this not inexplicable?

Yes, it is inexplicable, but it is a common human phenomenon. People are capable of attaining greatness, but they are not as capable of sustaining it. They can achieve “highs” of all kinds, but they cannot maintain them. There is an inevitable “comedown.”

This concept is expressed in the verse (Psalms 24:3) “Who may ascend the mountain of the Lord? Who may stand in His holy place?” 

Homiletically, this has been interpreted to mean that even after the first question is answered, and we learn “who may ascend the mountain,” the question still remains: Who can continue to stand there?

It is relatively easy to ascend to a high level; much more difficult is remaining at that high level and preserving it.

My colleague, one of the most insightful spiritual thinkers of our age, Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz, believes that the best example of deterioration following an exciting climax is childbirth. He points to the phenomenon known as “postpartum depression.” A woman has just experienced what is probably the highest of all highs, the emergence of a child from her womb. But commonly, that experience is followed by a sense of depression, sometimes incapacitating and sometimes even disastrous.

The physiological process of giving birth calls upon every part of the woman’s body, from her muscles and nerves to her hormonal system. Her body has exerted itself to the maximum. In the process, she has achieved the greatest of all achievements: the production of another human being.

But soon afterwards when the body, as it were, has nothing left to do, she feels depleted and empty. She can easily sink into a depression, sometimes deep enough to merit a clinical diagnosis of postpartum depression.

This is an important lesson in our personal spiritual lives. Often we experience moments of intense spirituality, of transcendence. But those moments are brief. When they are over we feel shortchanged, and we despair of ever returning to them.

We must take hope in the knowledge that almost all intense human experiences are transitory, and are followed by feelings of hollowness. We can ascend the mountain, but we cannot long stand there. We must humbly accept our descent, our frustrating failures and limitations, and persist in climbing. Ups and downs, peaks and valleys, are to be expected.

We will experience highs, but we must expect the inevitable comedown. And we must hang in there, and try and try again to recapture those highs.

This is the lesson of this week’s parsha. Our people ascended a spiritual mountain. They then descended into an orgy of idolatry. But they persisted, and with G-d’s bountiful mercy, as we read later in the Torah portion, received this divine assurance (Exodus 34:10): “Behold, I make a covenant: Before all thy people I will do marvels such as have not been done in all the earth … and all the people… shall see the work of the Lord.”