Interpreting the Golden Calf Incident

Rabbi Yitzḥak says: You have no punishment that comes to the world in which there is not one twenty-fourth of the surplus of a litra of the first calf. When weighing a substance, there would often be a disparity of up to one twenty-fourth of its weight. The point is that a minuscule portion of the sin of the Golden Calf is added to every punishment imposed upon the Jewish people, as it is stated: “On the day when I punish, I will punish their sin upon them” (Exodus 32:34), indicating that atonement for that sin is incomplete, and the Jewish people will continue to suffer for it.

(1) MAKE US A GOD WHO ‘YEILCHU’ (SHALL GO — in the plural) BEFORE US. “They wished to have many gods. FOR THIS MOSES, THE MAN THAT BROUGHT US UP OUT OF THE LAND OF EGYPT, and used to show us the way we were to go, WE KNOW NOT WHAT IT BECOME OF HIM.

Now we need many gods which shall go before us.” This is Rashi’s language.

But his language does not fit [the verse, since Scripture indicates only that they wanted a leader in place of Moses, but not gods]. Rather, this verse is the key to understand the incident of the golden calf, and the thought of those who made it. For it is known that the Israelites did not think that Moses was a god, and that he did for them the signs and wonders through his own power. So what sense is there in their saying, “since Moses is gone from us, we will make ourselves gods?”

Moreover, they clearly said, make us, ‘elohim’ who shall go before us — and not a deity who should give them life in this world or in the World to Come. Instead, they wanted another Moses...who will show us the way at the commandment of the Eternal by his hand.”

(2) לנו אלוהים, “they said to him (Aaron) arise and make a visual image of G-d!” According to the plain meaning of the text there can be no question that Aaron had no intention to allow the people to revert to idolatry, G-d forbid, or somehow to replace Hashem or His prophet.... If Aaron had intended to become the replacement of his brother Moses, Moses would have had to execute him as a false prophet! Not only that, but how could that “false” prophet subsequently have been appointed as the foremost instrument of securing Israel’s atonement?! Moreover, how could he have become the first priest and all his male offspring became the priests of the whole people? Not only that; we do not even find that at מי מריבה, the waters of strife, where Moses is punished for having struck the rock and denied entry to the Holy Land as a result, that the Torah had a single word of criticism of Aaron, although he too did not enter the Holy Land? There is not a single sage that ever suggested that G-d would appoint as a prophet someone who would eventually revert to idolatry....

The problem had been that Moses had not announced by what date he would return from the Mountain. When the people noticed that Moses took an inordinately long time, far longer than a normal person can go without food or drink, they worried that he might have died.... In other words: they wanted to replace the Moses the man, not the deity, or semideity.

(6) Know, then, that it is not for any virtue of yours that your God יהוה is giving you this good land to possess; for you are a stiffnecked people. (7) Remember, never forget, how you provoked your God יהוה to anger in the wilderness: from the day that you left the land of Egypt until you reached this place, you have continued defiant toward HaShem.

(12) And יהוה said to me, “Hurry, go down from here at once, for the people whom you brought out of Egypt have acted wickedly; they have been quick to stray from the path that I enjoined upon them; they have made themselves a molten image.” (13) יהוה further said to me, “I see that this is a stiffnecked people. (14) Let Me alone and I will destroy them and blot out their name from under heaven, and I will make you a nation far more numerous than they.”....

(15) For I was in dread of the fierce anger against you which moved יהוה to wipe you out. And that time, too, יהוה gave heed to me.— (20) Moreover, יהוה was angry enough with Aaron to have destroyed him; so I also interceded for Aaron at that time.— (21) As for that sinful thing you had made, the calf, I took it and put it to the fire; I broke it to bits and ground it thoroughly until it was fine as dust, and I threw its dust into the brook that comes down from the mountain.

(22) Again you provoked יהוה at Taberah, and at Massah, and at Kibroth-hattaavah.

(16) But they—our fathers—acted presumptuously; they stiffened their necks and did not obey Your commandments. (17) Refusing to obey, unmindful of Your wonders that You did for them, they stiffened their necks, and in their defiance resolved to return to their slavery. But You, being a forgiving God, gracious and compassionate, long-suffering and abounding in faithfulness, did not abandon them. (18) Even though they made themselves a molten calf and said, ‘This is your God who brought you out of Egypt,’ thus committing great impieties, (19) You, in Your abundant compassion, did not abandon them in the wilderness. The pillar of cloud did not depart from them to lead them on the way by day, nor the pillar of fire by night to give them light in the way they were to go.

...The verse states: “And Di Zahav” (Deuteronomy 1:1). The school of Rabbi Yannai said: Moses said before the Holy One, Blessed be He: Master of the Universe, because of the gold and silver that You lavished upon the Jewish people during the exodus from Egypt until they said enough [dai], this wealth caused the Jewish people to fashion for themselves gods of gold. The combination of wealth and leisure left them open to a transgression of that sort.

There is a parable for this: A lion does not maul and roar over a basket of straw from which he derives no pleasure; rather, he mauls and roars over a basket of meat, as he roars only when satiated. In other words, the guilt is not exclusively theirs.