Parashat Ki Tissa – 5785

Yishar Koah!

A D’var Torah for Parashat Ki Tissa

By Rabbi Rob Scheinberg

Among the various words and phrases you’re likely to hear in a synagogue is the phrase “Yishar koah,” sometimes pronounced as “Yashar koah” or “Yeshar koah” or even abbreviated to “Sh’koyah!” Since Talmudic times, this phrase has been a way to express praise for an achievement, even an extremely minor achievement. “Yishar” comes from the root “y.sh.r.”, meaning “upright” or “aligned,” and “koah” means “strength” or “force.” The phrase itself can be translated in a few different ways; it could be a prayer or good wish for the future, “may your strength be upright,” or it could be a complimentary statement of fact, “your strength is upright” or “your force is aligned.”

Functionally, “Yishar koah” means “you did a good job,” especially in performing a synagogue ritual-related task — whether or not it is one of the synagogue tasks that requires any skill or preparation whatsoever. Rabbi Alan Lew z”l, the eminent author and spiritual teacher who served as a congregational rabbi in San Francisco, once commented that one of his favorite things about synagogue life was the way people would wish each other “Yishar koah” even when they performed the simplest of synagogue tasks, such as opening the ark, and even if they made errors when doing so. For Rabbi Lew, the “Yishar koah” greeting is less about what one has done and more about the fact that one has shown up to do it: “We are congratulating you, because of all the places you could have put your energy in this world, of all the forces you could have aligned your force with, you freely chose to be here, to put your energy here, to align yourself with the three thousand year old stream of spiritual energy we call Judaism.”

Surprisingly enough, the “Yishar koah” greeting comes up most frequently in rabbinic literature in reference to a passage from this week’s Torah portion of Ki Tissa. When Moses descends from Mount Sinai and sees the Israelites worshipping the golden calf, he is furious, and he thrusts the tablets of the Ten Commandments down to the ground and they shatter. Soon thereafter, God calls out to Moses and says: “Carve two tablets of stone like the first, and I will inscribe upon the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you shattered.” (Exodus 34:1) In the Talmud (Shabbat 87a and Menahot 99b), the ancient sage Resh Lakish comments on the final two Hebrew words of this verse, asher shibarta, “which you shattered,” noting that the Hebrew word “asher” sounds similar to the word “yishar.” For Resh Lakish, this passage really means that God said to Moses, “yishar kohakha she-shibarta,” which we might translate colloquially as “Yishar koah on breaking the tablets.” For Resh Lakish, these words indicate that God approved of Moses’ act, even though it involved the destruction of the tablets that had been carved by God.

For the Israeli theologian Yeshayahu Leibowitz, Moses’ breaking of the tablets is the ultimate anti-idolatrous act. Moses reacts to seeing the people worshipping the golden calf by dramatically modelling a disregard for any special sanctity that any physical object could possibly have. Despite the fact that God was the one to carve the original tablets, they should be smashed rather than potentially become objects of veneration for a people that seems to be too hungry for physical objects to worship. For Leibowitz, Yishar kohakha is God’s way of applauding Moses’ commitment to treat every physical item equally, understanding that none of them are divine in any way. Moses’ deed may look like an act of destruction, but it is actually a profound act of spiritual alignment.

Similarly, I appreciate the egalitarian way that the “Yishar koah” greeting is dispensed in synagogues today. Anyone who plays any ritual role whatsoever in synagogue life is likely to be greeted with “Yishar koah” — Torah readers, public speakers, and ark openers alike. Part of the point of the “Yishar koah” greeting is that it is not distributed judiciously based on skill or effort but is given freely to each person, in recognition that they have chosen to align their energy with the spiritual life of the community. Each person, in their own way, is contributing to the collective spiritual force that has been flowing for thousands of years. And each one of us who chooses to participate in Jewish communal life can benefit from the community’s blessing that our force continue to be aligned and that our strength continue to be upright.

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Rabbi Robert Scheinberg, Ph.D., is the Rabbi in Residence at the Academy for Jewish Religion, where he teaches courses in Jewish Liturgy, as well as the Rabbi of the United Synagogue of Hoboken. Rabbi Scheinberg was a member of the editorial committees for Mahzor Lev Shalem and Siddur Lev Shalem, the prayer books used in many Conservative congregations.