Category: Shmot

When it comes to the Sin of the Golden Calf, I believe that the most inconceivable element actually serves as the key to unraveling the sin’s essence. The baffling mystery surrounding the Sin of the Golden Calf is: How could the people possibly worship a Golden Calf a mere 40 days after seeing God Himself on Mount Sinai and hearing Him explicitly declare, “I am the Lord your God who took you out of Egypt.” I would like to suggest that it is precisely the people’s experience at Mount Sinai that causes them to worship the Golden Calf.

The essence of the Sin of the Golden Calf is that the Children of Israel are not ready for a covenantal relationship with God that entails rules and self control. The giving of the Torah is not merely an inspirational sound and light show; it contains binding laws and obligations.[1] At this point in their development, the people are simply not ready for such a monumental commitment. All of Parshat Beshalach, the parshah that serves as the bridge between the Exodus and the giving of the Torah, consists of test after test[2] that the Children of Israel seem to fail. They complain about the lack of water in Marah (Exodus 15:22-26); they grumble again in the Wilderness of Sin about the lack of food (16:1-4); they leave over manna until the morning against explicit instructions (16:19-20); they go out to collect manna on Shabbat (16:25-29); they complain about the lack of water again in Refidim (17:1-7); and they are accused of testing whether God is in their midst (17:7).

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Dyed red ram skins, anointing oil, incense spices, precious stones, smoothed wood – the Mishkan is a full-on luxuriant testament to the tangible love of a people for God. It is also a dizzyingly meticulous list of nuts, bolts and measurements. Terumah details the physical space for containing this particular worship of God.

וְעָשׂוּ לִי מִקְדָּשׁ וְשָׁכַנְתִּי בְּתוֹכָם: כְּכֹל אֲשֶׁר אֲנִי מַרְאֶה אוֹתְךָ אֵת תַּבְנִית הַמִּשְׁכָּן וְאֵת תַּבְנִית כָּל-כֵּלָיו וְכֵן תַּעֲשׂוּ:

Make a sanctuary for me and I will dwell among them. Just as with all that I make you see, the form of the sanctuary and the form of all its vessels, you shall it make it so. – Exodus 25.8-9

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Why, asks Vayikra Rabbah, does it say ‘ויקרא אל משה’, ‘God called to Moses’ at the beginning of Vayikra? Why does it need to say that God called to Moses and also that God spoke to him. What’s the difference? Does one need to be ‘called’ for the subsequent interaction to take place, is it personal to Moses or is there something else going on? The midrash sets us going with a heaping handful of options.

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One of many classic West Wing episodes, “Take the Sabbath Day” (season 1, episode 14), portrayed its characters’ struggles with the notion and implementation of capital punishment – including how to juggle personal beliefs with fulfilling their various roles in the American government.

After a difficult conversation with his rabbi, Toby Ziegler has another with his boss, President Bartlet, who is facing the difficult decision of whether to commute a death sentence.

TOBY: I had a strange experience this weekend. One of the P.D.s on the Cruz case, I guess trying the things you do when you’re desperate, he went and spoke to my rabbi.

BARTLET: Jewish law doesn’t prohibit…

TOBY:  I know.

BARTLET: The commandment does not say, ‘Thou shalt not kill.’ It says, ‘Thou shalt not murder.’

TOBY: I know. But the fact is that, even 2,000 years ago, the rabbis of the Talmud couldn’t… [tries to find the right word] …stomach it. I mean, they weren’t about to rewrite the Torah, but they came up with another way. They came up with legal restrictions, which make our criminal justice system look… They made it impossible for the state… to punish someone by killing them.

BARTLET: We make it very hard to kill anybody in this country, Toby.

TOBY: It should be impossible.

BARTLET: But it’s not.

TOBY: But it should be.

(Script excerpt from http://westwingwiki.com/2014/04/season-1-episode-14-take-sabbath-day/)

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Moses has the almost impossible task of being the sole judge of this newly formed nation and It takes Jethro to explain to his son-in-law that he will not be able to uphold God’s law without help, for no one person can possibly teach, explain, and adjudicate. Indeed, Jethro devises a judicial system, and Moses listens to the older man, appointing capable men over the people to help judge.

There is a problem, however. The Torah has not yet been given! The story of the giving of the Torah appears in chapter 19 — after the visit from Jethro in chapter 18. Commentators argue that chapter 18 must have taken place after the giving of the Torah, and the question is why the text is presented out of chronological order.

I believe this shift in the text teaches a valuable lesson about the Torah itself. Namely, the Torah explains the system of the Oral Law, Torah SheB’eal Peh, before the actual account of the Torah being given on Sinai as way of showing how essential that system of commentary and interpretation is to the preservation and practice of the Written Torah. Without the Oral Law, the Written Law cannot be implemented.

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When the Children of Israel left Egypt, passing through the midst of the sea, they then set out on the long-awaited three-day journey into the desert (Exodus, 15:2;. see also: 3:18, 5:3, 8:23.) Anticipation, however, turned quickly to disappointment when after three days of thirst they find only the bitter water of Mara.

The people complain to Moses, who in turn cries out to God.

And the Lord instructed him regarding a tree (etz), and he threw it into the water and the water became sweet” (15:24).

What is striking about this story, and what sets it apart from the surrounding narrative, is that it is completely devoid of any real negativity. The people justifiably complain about the lack of water without the usual segue to critique and complaint about everything else. Moses cries out, but without the despair, anger, or exasperation found in every other stories. God miraculously comes to the rescue, as usual, but without the customary word of rebuke toward the people or their leader. Even the conclusion of the story, a vague mention of the giving of laws, and the even vaguer suggestion that the event was some sort of test, followed by encouragement to follow God’s laws and hearken to His voice, is said without any definite indication that the people had acted to the contrary or failed in any way.

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Hollywood created the “Let My People Go” idea, but, in reality, all Moses asked for was a three-day furlough to worship God. A statement to that effect is made at least three times in the exodus story. Nowhere is there an indication that he intends for the Israelites not to return. This apparent lie of purpose therefore seems to come from God Himself, forcing one to ask, “Could God not have found a more moral upright way of taking His Chosen People out of Egypt, without resorting to deceptions and untruths?” Does God lack power that He need resort to deceit?

The simplest approach is to suggest that this was not a real lie but one of omission: the Israelites said they were leaving for the three days. They never once said that they were not coming back. If that is what Pharaoh assumes, well, then that’s his problem. Moses says that they would go and sacrifice to God for three days, and leaves out that they would then continue on to freedom, let the Egyptians think whatever they want.

This answer is unsatisfactory; it is still dishonest. Yet many commentators opine that sometimes deception is necessary and therefore justified. Moreover, in this case, would such an attept to deceive be believed? What dictator would allow a whole work force to leave overnight? In addition, God had promised Abraham that the Israelites would leave Egypt with “riches” — which could only happen by means of the Israelites’ “borrowing” gold and silver from their Egyptian neighbors. And who would have given up their wealth had they believed the Israelites were gone for good? Finally, had Pharaoh and his nation known that Moses’ people were leaving for good, they would not have chased them, as they did upon the realization that they had fundamentally moved on. But wasn’t the Egyptian army’s demise at the bottom of the sea part of the goal?

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