AND THE LORD SAID TO MOSES:

"GO, DESCEND, FOR YOUR PEOPLE THAT YOU HAVE BROUGHT UP FROM THE LAND OF

EGYPT HAVE ACTED CORRUPTLY. THEY HAVE QUICKLY TURNED AWAY

FROM THE PATH THAT I HAVE COMMANDED THEM; THEY HAVE MADE THEMSELVES A MOLTEN

CALF! AND THEY HAVE PROSTRATED THEMSELVES BEFORE IT, SLAUGHTERED SACRIFICES TO

IT, AND SAID: 'THESE ARE YOUR GODS, O ISRAEL, WHO HAVE BROUGHT YOU UP FROM THE

LAND OF EGYPT.'"

(Shemot

32:7-8)

And you shall eat and be

sated – Take care lest your heart be seduced – He told them: "Take care lest you rebel against the Omnipresent,

for no one rebels against the Omnipresent but out of satiety, for it is said – lest

have increases" (Devarim 8:12-13). What

does he say [next]? and your heart grows haughty, and

you forget the Lord, your God (Devarim 8:14) Similarly, you say: When I bring them to the land which I have sworn

to their forefathers [to give them], a land flowing with milk and honey. How

does it continue? [they will eat and be satisfied]… then, they will turn

to other deities (Devarim 31:20). Similarly,

you say: and the people sat down to eat and drink (Shemot 32:6), and how does it continue? They have made

themselves a molten calf (Shemot 32:8).

(Sifri

Devarim 43:16)

The question is worth considering why Aaron, who was given a

completely free hand in the choice of the form, should have just chosen that of

a calf… But we have already had the opportunity on several occasions to

remark – and when we consider the offerings it becomes practically a certainty

– that cattle, (cattle, ox, bull) being serving assistants in carrying

out the work of human beings, represent, in sacrificial symbolism, the using of

one's powers and strength to work in the service of a higher being. So what

Aaron was about, was, on the one hand to satisfy the demands of the people who

were asking not for another god but for another "Moses", and on the

other hand by doing this to keep the error within the bounds of semi-defection;

and for this purpose no more suitable form could be found than that of cattle,

which represented no directing force but a serving one. And in choosing a calf

and not an ox, Aaron expressed even this form in its weakest aspect.

(Rabbi S.R. Hirsch on Shemot 32:4, Levi

translation)

Has the Idolatrous Inclination been Truly Uprooted?

Ruthi Lazare

I

propose to interpret two dramatic events – the Theophany at Sinai and the Sin

of the Golden Calf – against the background of the stories of Bereishit, whose

major conflicts can be seen as a series of attempts to find the proper way to

communicate with God and to live in a way pleasing to Him. The search for a

proper offering begins with Cain and Abel, but that story is echoed in the

competition between Jacob and Esau to satisfy their father Isaac.

In

both stories the sons must bring an offering in order to gain a blessing from

the human or divine Father. The broad question which has occupied humanity

since its inception has been, "Which way of life generates pleasing

results?"

The

giving of the Torah marks an essential change in that which is required of God's

servants. Previously, gifts were sufficient to gain God's favor; now the

founding of a just and fair society is needed. Similarly to the stories of the

brothers in Bereishit, here again we find a contest between two types of

worship, and God is quick to make His preference known. However, God's response

to Abel and the rebuff of Esau do not leave us sufficient clues for solving the

puzzle of how to please God. The difference between fruits of the earth

and firstlings of the flock fails to explain God's preferences and

dislikes.

The

question becomes more pressing in the stories of Jacob and Esau, because their

offerings do not differ in quality. Rather, it is the manner of presentation

and the personality of the person making the offering which determines their

acceptability. Jacob is identified by his voice and Esau by his hands. Voice

and speech express the human soul, they constitute the realization of the

spirit's potential and the materialization of its interiority. The hands, which

represent Esau, symbolize action and activity.

To

this we may add that the man of voice, the man of spirit and dweller in

tents bears a soft personality. His is a spiritual personality that makes

its way through the practical world with the help of others or through

trickery, but not by sheer force. In contrast, the man of the field is

muscular and knows how to get things done. He is close to nature and depends

upon his physical strength.

This

division between the spiritual and abstract on the one side and the tangible

and physical on the other also underlies two distinct modes of worship that

took place, respectively, on Mount Sinai and at its feet. The two brothers,

Moses and Aaron, also represent these two directions. Moses is the man of

God; he represents the demand for belief in a hidden and distant God who

makes stringent demands in the realm of ethics and values. Aaron, in contrast,

is the man of action. He fosters an immediate connection with the people and he

is implicated in the creation of the Calf. Moses is the voice, the voice of

Jacob, while Aaron is the hands which make the calf, as we read in the

verse from Isaiah (17:18): The work of

his hands, and what his fingers made (Isaiah 17:8).

Nonetheless,

when different functions were originally allocated to Moses and Aaron, Moses

could not operate without Aaron's practical-mindedness. True, Moses brought the

content of the messages, but without Aaron he could not make them heard.

The

Tablets and the Golden Calf are polar opposites which draw the soul to opposite

extremes. The Calf was shiny and invited celebration, while the Tablets were

verbal and demanding. It was possible to point towards the Calf and say, This

is your god, O Israel, while the tablets announce I am your God, but

they are only the writing of God Who is without body or the image of a

body.

It

seems that the level of abstraction and the faith in the hidden that were demanded

of the Israelites were beyond their capabilities. Moses, who was late in

returning, expected the Israelites to continue to feel his presence and obey

his commands, thus accustoming themselves to knowledge of an invisible God. However,

it is the nature of every gap to be refilled with new material, as R. Behayey

Ibn Pekuda said, "One who does not trust in God will trust in something

other than God" (Hovot haLevavot 4).

That

is to say: the Israelites did not reject the existence of a Higher Power and

they did not want to replace faith with atheism. Rather, they wanted to replace

God with a strange god. The natural need to hurry up and fill in the gap left

by Moses' disappearance explains why the people failed the very first test of

their maturity, the test of patience and faith. It wasn't only God's hidden

nature that pushed the Israelites into making another God for themselves in His

place. God's demands were also infinitely more difficult than those of the

molten Calf. The I am you God of the Tablets required the performance of

commandments, while the golden statue invited them to feasting and drinking, to

laughter and release. The competition was unfair; this was a difference of

essence and principle, not a narrow difference between the fruits of the earth

and firstlings of the flock, or between game meat and the delicacies of Rebecca's

kitchen.

The

attractions of the golden god have never ceased to disrupt faith in God's unity

and to undermine loyalty to Torah and the commandments. The RaMBaN (on Shemot 32:2) explains gold's powerful attraction: "He

chose [to make an idol of] gold rather than of silver because it represents the

attribute of justice and it has the appearance of fire… which is like blood."

The

color of gold, which is like that of fire and blood, draws us towards the

limits of life and death, of justice and valor. The Torah, in contrast, offers

no expression of powerful emotions or of attraction to extremism, as found in the

worship of the Calf. The Lord in not in the wind… the Lord is not in the earthquake…

the Lord is not in the fire (I Kings 19:12). God is to be worshipped silently, and with inner strength that demands

constant self-control and self-supervision.

I

wish to quote in this context the words of a psychologist, Dr. Yair Caspi. In

his book Lidrosh Elohim (Yediyot Aharonot & Sifrei Hemed, Tel-Aviv: 2002.) [To Inquire After God] he explains

the secret of modern idolatry's charm: "Idolaters believe that god exists

in some object or world-view, or human being. They have a simple formula for

the secret of happiness and the explanation of suffering. They have a list of sacrifices

that must be offered; these constitute the secret of control over their god and

the way to get what they want from him" (pg. 210).

Enslavement

to a strange god, then, consists of every attempt to discern his will through gift

or sacrifices. It consists of the establishment of some means or another as an

end that must be placated with offerings in the form of concessions that bring

us to forget ourselves. Caspi continues in this spirit and reveals the faces of

the false gods which we all worship: the god of societal norms, the god of

technology, the god of happiness and the god of the pursuit of excellence, the

god of youthfulness and a slim figure, the god of consumption and money, and

the god of spirituality and nature. Caspi explains that these kinds of gods

reflect a world that invites us to neglect the difficult missions of life; they

form a system of values in which every sin becomes a commandment (pg. 297).

If

so, it becomes clear that it was not only the ancient brothers who tried and

failed, who sacrificed and were punished while trying to please God. It was not

only those who left Egypt who were perplexed by the commanding voice that emerged

from the cloud and fog. Our contemporaries also sanctify beliefs and objects

which separate them from the true God, from the difficult demand that they find

their purpose, and from the understanding that while God has no need for their

gifts and sacrifices humans must do their best to fulfill their mission of to

work and preserve it with which they were charged in the Garden of Eden.

Ruthi Lazare

is a lecturer, a teachers' advisor, and also prepares educational plans.

When

you take the sum of the children of Israel according to their numbers, let each one give

to the Lord an atonement for his soul

R. Eliezer, in the name of R.

Jose b. Zimra, said: Whenever Israel were numbered for a proper purpose they

sustained no diminution in numbers; but whenever they were numbered for no

proper purpose they sustained a diminution. On what occasion were they numbered

for a proper purpose? In the days of Moses, in connection with the standards

and the division of the land. When for no proper purpose? In the days of David.

(Bamidbar

Rabbah 2:17)

When you take the sum,

etc. When a person

counts his silver and gold or when the king counts his soldiers, it is very

likely that he will trust in his wealth and in the multitude of his soldiers

and become haughty and say, it was with my might and the strength of my hand

that I made this wealth or that I will do valiant deeds. And then, in most

cases, the wheel [of fortune] will turn against him and an

unexpected catastrophe will overtake him (for this is one of the rules of

Providence, pride before the fall, and it has been repeatedly validated in all

generations, in connection to individuals as well as nations and kings). This

gave rise to belief in the evil eye in all the nations. It appears that this

belief had already spread into Israel in the generations preceding the giving

of the Torah. God did not want them to completely abandon this belief, given

its being founded on faith in Providence and that it keeps people from trusting

in their power and wealth, which is the principle of the entire Torah…

The sages of our generation

take the opposite view. They scoff at belief in the evil eye and many

other things that cannot be explained naturally. I think that both sides to the

controversy are wrong. The world does not behave in accordance with the laws of

material nature alone; there are other laws which were legislated by the

Highest Wisdom at the beginning of Creation. These laws arrange for events to

bring both nations and individuals benefit and loss that testify to Providence.

When the philosopher sees them, he will call them mere happenstance. When the

masses see them, they will call them miracles. The truth is that they are the

natural consequences that necessarily follow their natural causes. However, the

entire system of causes and effects is ordered since the beginning of Creation

in accordance with the wisdom of the Highest Organizer, may His name be blessed…

the decree of pride before the fall is engraved into the procession of

events in the lives of communities and individuals, and it brings about that a

person (or an entire nation) standing at the heights of success, full of pride

and boastful, will cause those who see him to be jealous. Then the wheel [of

fortune] will turn against him and an unexpected catastrophe will overtake him,

and the masses will attribute it to the evil eye, or sometimes to the curses of

his enemies. In reality, the eye does no harm and the curses bring no evil. Justice

is meted out by God, and He decreed and legislated into the chain of causation

leading to the good and the bad that a person's pride will lay him low, while

humility will gain honor. The Me'amer says that the men of that

generation had to give atonement money [kofer] because they had sinned

with the Calf and deserved to be destroyed; however, he forgot that this

command preceded the sin of the Golden Calf.

(ShaDaL

on Shemot 30:11)

Is it possible that the Children of Israel – only forty days

after the Revelation at Sinai, while the words I am and You shall

have no gods still echo in their ears – are seeking other gods?!

It appears that the Torah wished to teach us, by presenting a

number of examples, that indeed, such things can

occur. The assumption that people who stood at the foot of Mt. Sinai

are incapable of again sinking into ignorance, into foolishness, into the abomination

of idolatry – such an assumption is basically fallacious…

Overt miracles – one-time wondrous happenings – do not change

a person, his personality, his habits. They may strongly impress him

temporarily, but they do not cut him off from his world, his accomplishments,

his past, his lifetime habits.

(From Studies In The Book of Shemot,

Nehama Leibowitz z'l)

Our Rabbi Moses exemplified this when he broke the tablets as soon as he

saw the people transgress the commandment make no idol or image for yourself.

We must understand that the expression idol or any image applies not

only to the golden calf made by Israel, but to every natural existent: Nation,

land, homeland, flag, army, idea, a personality, and so forth, whenever they

are treated as being holy.

(Y. Leibowitz: Sheva

Shanim shel Sihot al Parashiyot HaShavu'a, pg. 401)

Then the Lord

the son of Nun, a lad, would not depart from the tent.

(Shemot 33:11)

In the same sense the

word is used in the following passage, And the Lord spoke unto Moses face to

face," i.e., both being present, without any intervening medium

between them. Compare Come, let us look one another in the face (II Kings 14:8); and also The Lord talked

with you face to face (Devarim 5:4);

instead of which we read more plainly in another place, You heard the voice

of the words, but saw no similitude: only ye heard a voice (ib. 4:12). The hearing of the voice

without seeing any similitude is termed face to face. Similarly do the

words, And the Lord spoke unto Moses face to face" correspond to There

he heard the voice of one speaking unto him (Bamidbar

7:89), in the description of God's speaking to Moses. Thus it will be

clear to you that the perception of the Divine voice without the intervention

of an angel is expressed by face to face. In the same sense the word panim

must be understood in, And my face [panai] shall not be seen (Shemot 33:23); i.e., my true existence, as it

is, cannot be comprehended.

(RaMBaM Guide for the Perplexed 1:37,

Friedländer tr.)

 [Another explanation, this one] in the style

of the Midrash: Face to face – an expression of anger. The Holy

One, Blessed Be He said to Moses: "Moses, I did not tell you [to punish

the people] when I was angry and you were conciliatory, nor when you were angry

and I was conciliatory. But now I am angry and you are angry; return to the

camp; read not v'shav el hamachaneh [and he –

Moses – returned to the camp], but read it v'shuv el

hamachaneh ["return to the camp"], if we are both angry who will

bring Israel close?"

(Rabeinu Bahaye, Shemot 33:11)

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