Citation Needed

One of you Dear Readers asked where it says that aliyot are not supposed to end with Bad News. Unfortunately, I don't know. Moshe Noiman suggested looking at the end of Tractate Megilla where many laws of reading the Torah are discussed. I hope to look it up soon. Unless one of you Dear Readers wants to save me some work and look it up for me.

Where were we? Oh yes, the first aliyah of Ki Tisa. (Which I erroneously referred to last time as "Ki Tetze". Very embarassing. Fortunately, The Internet allows us to Change The Past, so all traces of that humiliating mistake have been removed. I even changed the title of the post!) Very long, isn't it? Why is it so long, anyway? Couldn't it have been broken up into two or even three smaller aliyot?

Imagine, Dear Reader, that it was broken up into smaller aliyot. That would mean that the Golden Calf aliyah would be number three or four. As it is, the Golden Calf aliyah is number two. And aliyah numebr two, is, of course, the aliyah reserved for a Levi. And wouldn't you know it? The tribe of Levi figures prominently in the story of the Golden Calf. When Moshe sees the nation worshiping the Golden Calf, he cries out, "Whoever is for Hashem, come to me!" He is then joined by the tribe of Levi, and together they put an end to the Golden Calf worship (along with many of the worshipers). In fact, it seems to be as a reward for this heroic act that Hashem accorded a special status upon the tribe of Levi.

You could even say that it is because of the Levi aliyah in Ki Tisa that there is a Levi aliyah in the first place.

(Compare to V'zot Habracha: the aliyah of Levi begins with, "And he said to Levi".)

The First two Aliyot of Parshat Ki Tisa

Why are the first two aliyot of parshat Ki Tisa so long?

Some aliyot later in the parsha are pretty short.

It's not hard to guess why the second aliyah might be long. The second aliyah is the story of the Golden Calf. It's a long passage of Bad News. We usually assume that the Sages try to avoid ending an aliyah at a point of Bad News.

What about the first aliyah? Why is it so long?

My own personal answer will appear in a later post. Meanwhile, Dear Reader, please comment with your answer.