(א) וַיַּ֣רְא הָעָ֔ם כִּֽי־בֹשֵׁ֥שׁ מֹשֶׁ֖ה לָרֶ֣דֶת מִן־הָהָ֑ר וַיִּקָּהֵ֨ל הָעָ֜ם עַֽל־אַהֲרֹ֗ן וַיֹּאמְר֤וּ אֵלָיו֙ ק֣וּם ׀ עֲשֵׂה־לָ֣נוּ אֱלֹהִ֗ים אֲשֶׁ֤ר יֵֽלְכוּ֙ לְפָנֵ֔ינוּ כִּי־זֶ֣ה ׀ מֹשֶׁ֣ה הָאִ֗ישׁ אֲשֶׁ֤ר הֶֽעֱלָ֙נוּ֙ מֵאֶ֣רֶץ מִצְרַ֔יִם לֹ֥א יָדַ֖עְנוּ מֶה־הָ֥יָה לֽוֹ׃
(1) When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, the people gathered against Aaron and said to him, “Come, make us a god who shall go before us, for that man Moses, who brought us from the land of Egypt—we do not know what has happened to him.”
(א) כי בשש משה. כְּתַרְגּוּמוֹ, לְשׁוֹן אֵחוּר, וְכֵן בֹּשֵׁשׁ רִכְבּוֹ (שופטים ה'), וַיָּחִילוּ עַד בּוֹשׁ (שם ג'); כִּי כְּשֶׁעָלָה מֹשֶׁה לָהָר אָמַר לָהֶם לְסוֹף אַרְבָּעִים יוֹם אֲנִי בָא בְּתוֹךְ שֵׁשׁ שָׁעוֹת, כִּסְּבוּרִים הֵם שֶׁאוֹתוֹ יוֹם שֶׁעָלָה מִן הַמִּנְיָן הוּא, וְהוּא אָמַר לָהֶם שְׁלֵמִים – אַרְבָּעִים יוֹם וְלֵילוֹ עִמּוֹ – וְיוֹם עֲלִיָּתוֹ אֵין לֵילוֹ עִמּוֹ, שֶׁהֲרֵי בְז' בְּסִיוָן עָלָה, נִמְצָא יוֹם אַרְבָּעִים בְּשִׁבְעָה עָשָׂר בְּתַמּוּז. בְּי"ו בָּא שָּׂטָן וְעִרְבֵּב אֶת הָעוֹלָם, וְהֶרְאָה דְּמוּת חֹשֶׁךְ וַאֲפֵלָה וְעַרְבּוּבְיָּה, לוֹמַר וַדַּאי מֵת מֹשֶׁה לָכַךְ בָּא עַרְבּוּבְיָא לָעוֹלָם, אָמַר לָהֶם מֵת מֹשֶׁה, שֶׁכְּבָר בָּאוּ שֵׁשׁ שָׁעוֹת וְלֹא בָּא וְכוּ' כִּדְאִיתָא בְמַסֶּכֶת שַׁבָּת (דף פ"ט); וְאִי אֶפְשָׁר לוֹמַר שֶׁלֹא טָעוּ אֶלָּא בַיּוֹם הַמְּעֻנָּן בֵּין קוֹדֶם חֲצוֹת בֵּין לְאַחַר חֲצוֹת, שֶׁהֲרֵי לֹא יָרַד מֹשֶׁה עַד יוֹם הַמָּחֳרָת, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר וַיַּשְׁכִּימוּ מִמָּחֳרָת וַיַּעֲלוּ עֹלֹת:
כי זה משה האיש. כְּמִין דְּמוּת מֹשֶׁה הֶרְאָה לָהֶם הַשָּׂטָן, שֶׁנּוֹשְׂאִים אוֹתוֹ בְּאֲוִיר רְקִיעַ הַשָּׁמָיִם (שבת פ"ט):
(1) כי בשש משה [AND WHEN THE PEOPLE SAW] THAT MOSES DELAYED LONG — Understand (בשש as the Targum does, as an expression denoting “lateness”.. Similar are: (Judges 5:28) “[Why is] his chariot so long (בשש) [in coming]?”; (Judges 3:25) “And they waited until it was late (עד בוש)”. For when Moses ascended the mountain he said to them (to the Israelites): at the end of a period of forty days (i. e. on the fortieth day) I shall return during the first six hours of the day (before noon). They thought that the day on which he ascended the mountain (the seventh of Sivan) was to be included in this number (thus — Sivan having 30 days — he was expected back before noon on the sixteenth of Tammuz). In fact, however, he had said to them “after forty days” meaning complete days — forty days, each day together with its night that precedes it — (as is the customary Jewish reckoning; cf. Genesis 1:5: ויהי ערב ויהי בקר). Now, as regards the day of this ascent, its night was not part of it that it can be reckoned as a complete day, for he ascended on the seventh of Sivan early in the morning (cf. Rashi on Exodus 19:3); it follows therefore that the fortieth day really fell on the seventeenth of Tammuz and not as the people had believed on the sixteenth. On the sixteenth of Tammuz Satan came and threw the world into confusion, giving it the appearance of darkness, gloom and disorder that people should say: “Surely Moses is dead, and that is why confusion has come into the world!” He said to them, “Yes, Moses is dead, for six hours (noon) has already come (בשש = בא שש) and he has not returned etc.” — as is related in Treatise Shabbat 89a (cf. Rashi and Tosafot there and Tosafot on Bava Kamma 82a ד"ה כדי). One cannot, however, say that they erred only on account of it being a cloudy day, their mistake consisting in not being able to distinguish between forenoon and afternoon, and that thus they were correct in their supposition that he was to return on the sixteenth of Tammuz; for this assumes that he really returned on the day when they made the calf, but that they were under the impression that noon was past — for, as a matter of fact, Moses did not come down until the following day (the day after they had made the calf), for it is said (v. 6) “And they rose up early in the morrow, and brought up burnt offerings”— and only after wards the Lord said to Moses (v. 7) “Go, go down; for thy people … have corrupted themselves”.
כי זה משה האיש FOR AS FOR THIS MOSES — This Moses implies that Satan showed them something that looked like Moses being carried on a bier in the air high above in the skies (cf. Shabbat 89a).
The contrast between above and below is subtly suggested. Between the solitary grandeur of Moses in the presence of God and the panicked abandonment of the people, the narrative mediates by the use of the word boshesh: “he was delayed.” In itself exotic—never found elsewhere in the Torah5—the word conveys the quality of the people’s rebellion. “The people saw that Moses was delayed”: the people perceive a lateness, an absence that is measured by time. The reader knows that Moses is sublimely present at the top of the mountain, while the people at the base are almost comically provoked by lateness.The peculiar anxiety of this sense of the missed moment is fleshed out by Rashi.... Implicit in this reading is a pun on the word boshesh—Ba shesh!—“The sixth hour has come!” The people’s nervous perception of lateness is graphically plotted in a scenario of temporal misunderstanding. Rashi amplifies the text with a narrative of specific disappointment: “Ba shesh!—the promised time has come—and that man Moses … we do not know what has happened to him.” ...Rashi, citing the Talmud, explains the rational basis for the misunderstanding. The calculation of the forty-day period is distorted by a full twenty-four hours, if the count begins by day instead of at night. The idolatrous project of the Golden Calf, in effect, is predicated on an ambiguity, for which Moses is at least partially responsible. This ambiguity, apparently technical in nature, produces a time lag in the people’s expectations and the residue of that time lag is the Golden Calf. If we explore the midrashic narrative further, we find that its mythic imagery largely serves to exonerate the people. Not content with the scenario of a misunderstood time frame, the midrash has Satan show the people an “image of darkness, deep fog and chaos, as if to say, Surely Moses is dead …” That is, a mass hallucination affects the people. Indeed, in Rashi’s Talmudic source, the satanic fantasy is of Moses dead on a bier. In response to this hallucination the people cry: “this man Moses, who brought us up from the land of Egypt—we do not know what has happened to him.” A specific image of Moses, satanically generated, is responsible for the people’s faithlessness. The world becomes a phantasmagoric blur; chaos is come again. Imagination spawns icons of meaninglessness. In Rashi’s Talmudic source, Satan moves from insidious speech to visual fantasy; only then, afflicted by a vision of horrifying intimacy, the people make their demand of Aaron. Manipulated by Satan, their panic response seems almost plausible. The weight of the time factor in the people’s betrayal is reminiscent of infant experience as described by D. W. Winnicott in Playing and Reality. He writes of the trauma suffered by the infant if the mother is absent for a period that exceeds the infant’s capacity to retain her in imagination: The feeling of the mother’s existence lasts x minutes. If the mother is away more than x minutes, then the imago fades, and along with this the baby’s capacity to use the symbol of the union ceases. The baby is distressed, but this distress is soon mended because the mother returns in x+y minutes. In x+y minutes the baby has not become altered. But in x+y+z minutes the baby has become traumatized … We must assume that the vast majority of babies never experience the x+y+z quantity of deprivation. This means that the majority of children do not carry around with them for life the knowledge from experience of having been mad. Madness here simply means a break-up of whatever may exist at the time of a personal continuity of existence. The condition that Winnicott simply terms, “madness,” is, I suggest, the condition of the people experiencing an x+y+z quantity of deprivation. Some essential root of continuity with the personal beginning has, for them, been snapped. That this is a question of time, of lateness, is only apparently a trivial circumstance. For time is of the essence in questions of attachment and separation, trust and trauma.