This week’s parasha tells of the golden calf incident, which arose from a tragic error. The Torah tells us: וירא העם כי בשש משה לרדת מן ההר וגו' (“And the people saw that Moshe was delayed in descending from the mountain....”; XXXII, 1). As Rashi explains, following the Talmud (שבת פ"ט.), Moshe announced that he was going up the mountain and would return in forty days; he meant forty twenty-four-hour periods, night and day. But he was misunderstood to include the day he ascended (whose night had already passed) in the count; when the “fortieth” day arrived, and Moshe had not returned, panic ensued.
So they rounded on Aharon: קום עשה לנו אלהים אשר ילכו לפנינו כי זה משה האיש אשר העלנו מארץ מצרים לא ידענו מה היק לו (“Get up, make for us gods who will go before us, for this man Moshe who brought us up [he‘elanu] from Egypt, we do not know exactly what has happened to him”; ibid.).
Faced with the panic-stricken people, Aharon told them to collect gold from their wives and children for the purpose. They brought him the gold, and he raised the image of a calf from the melting pot. ויאמרו אלה אלהיך ישראל אשר העלוך מארץ מצרים (“And they said, These are your gods, Israel, who raised you up [he‘elucha] from the land of Egypt”; ibid., 4). וירא אהרן ויבן מזבח לפניו ויקרא אהרן חג לד' מחר: (“And Aharon saw, and built an altar before it; and Aharon called out, 'A pilgrimage [hag] to Ha-Shem tomorrow!”; ibid., 5).
So Aharon melted their gold and made a golden calf; he heard them proclaim it to be elohim, and his response was to build an altar before it and declare a hag la-Shem!? What was he thinking? Where did he imagine this would lead?
B.
First we observe, with Ramban, that what went on was not a case of gross idolatry, כי אין טפש בעולם שיחשוב שהזהב הזה אשר הי' באזניהם הוא אשר הוציאם ממצרים (“for there is no-one in the world so stupid that he would think that this gold which had been in their ears had brought them out [hotzi’am] of Egypt”). Everybody in the frightened crowd gathered around Aharon had been there to hear that cataclysmic announcement at Sinai אנכי ד' אלקיך אשר הוצאתיך מארץ מצרים (“I am Ha-Shem your G-d Who brought you out [hotzé’thicha] of the land of Egypt”; XX, 2; ע"ע בענין זה ראב"ע והכוזרי מ"א סי' צ"ז ). Ramban sees a vital distinction between the wording of G-d’s pronouncement, which everyone acknowledged, and what “they” said.
That the unique, omnipotent, omniscient Being Who addressed them at Sinai had engineered their liberation from Egyptian domination (hotza’a), nobody denied; yet every step of the way had been performed through Moshe, at his words and gestures. It was Moshe who had raised them up (ha‘ala’a) from the lowlands of the Nile valley to the high plain of Sinai. In their eyes, Moshe had been invested with powers [elohim] by Ha-Shem; indeed, G-d Himself had said to Moshe: ויאמר ד' למשה ראה נתתיך אלהים לפרעה (“And Ha-Shem said to Moshe, 'See, I have made you elohim for Pharaoh....'”; VII, 1). Elohim, in short, does not necessarily mean “gods.”
The Talmud tells us that our passage is מלמד שאוו לאלהים הרבה, “teaching that they desired many elohim”; סנהדרין ס"ג.). Ramban explains this to mean that they had no idea what they wanted or needed, but profoundly hoped that Aharon would be able to tell them. So what was Aharon thinking, that he proposed the golden calf?
To understand what follows, one must know that there are two sets of terms for the cardinal directions in the Holy Language, the words tzafon, darom, mizrah, and ma‘arav (“north, south, east, and west”), and another set which assumes an orientation facing eastward: sëmol, yamin, qedem, ahor (“left, right, front, back”), such that “left” and “north” are equivalents. Next, remember that the Sinai peninsula is generally north of most of Egypt; and finally that at Qëri‘ath Yam Suf all of the bënei Yisra’él saw the vision later shown to the prophet Yëhezqél (known as the Ma‘asé ha-Merkava), at a level of perception such that ראתה שפחה על הים מה שלא ראה יחזקאל בן בוזי בימיו (“A servant girl saw at the sea what the prophet Yëhezqél ben Buzi never saw in his life”; מכילתא בשלח סי' ב').
So Ramban tells us: והכונה לאהרן היתה מפני שישראל במדבר חורב שממה והחרבן ושממות עולם יבואו מן הצפון כדכתיב "מצפון תפתח הרעה על כל יושבי הארץ" כו' כי מן השמאל תבוא מדת הדין לעולם להשיב על כל יושבי הארץ כרעתם, והנה במעשה המרכבה אמר "פני שור מהשמאל לארבעתם" ולכן חשב אהרן כי המחריב יורה דרך מקום החרבן כי שם כחו הגדול ובהיותם עובדים לא-ל יערה רוח ממרום כאשר נאצל על משה וזהו שאמר "חג לד' מחר" שיהיו כל העבודות והזבחים לשם המיוחד להפיק רצון ממנו אל בעל הצורה וגו' (“And Aharon’s intent was due to Israel’s being in a desolate, desert wilderness, and world desolation and devastation come from the north, as it is written: ‘From the north the evil will be opened upon all the inhabitants of the earth’ [Jeremiah I, 14]... for from the left will come the measure of judgment to the world to repay all the earth’s inhabitants according to their iniquity; and behold, concerning the Ma‘asé ha-Merkava [Yëhezqél] says ‘the face of an ox from the left of the four of them’ [Ezekiel I, 10], and so Aharon reasoned that the destroyer points the way [to] the place of destruction, for his main strength is there, and whilst they were serving G-d, He would pour out a spirit from on high as had been emanated upon Moshe; and this is why [Aharon] said, ‘Hag la-Shem mahar,’ so that all the services and sacrifices would be for Ha-Shem, to draw down the will from Him to the owner of the form....”;ע"ע שמות רבה פ"ג סי' ב', פמ"ב סי' ה', פמ"ג סי' ח', נזיר ח:, שבת נ"ב., וויקרא רבה פ"י סי' ג' ).
Aharon, as much as anyone else, did not know what had happened to Moshe, but was ready to step up and fill the leadership position himself, if need be. Their location in the desolate landscape of Sinai led him to reason that the strict middath ha-din, through which punishment is brought to the world, reigned there, to the north of Egypt, which had so recently been judged. He understood from the Merkava that the “face,” the form of din, was that of an ox, a male calf, and was therefore inspired to make such a form to serve as a focal point, a metaphysical lens, so to speak, through which the kavvanoth of the “services and sacrifices” might be directed to bring the “outpouring of spirit” upon him, as it had previously been emanated to Moshe.
There was nothing wrong with Aharon’s approach in se, as may be discerned from a similar example, that of the copper snake which Ha-Shem Himself instructed Moshe to make (Numbers XXI, 8-9). The form of the calf was a temporary expedient to bring about Moshe’s replacement by Aharon, nothing more.
So what went wrong? Aharon forgot about the ‘erev rav.
C.
The ‘erev rav, the “mixed multitude” of ex-slaves who took advantage of the chaos engendered by the makkoth to leave Egypt with Israel, unlike Israel, had not been prepared by centuries of selective breeding from the Patriarchs on for all of the challenges and rigors of Mattan Torah. It was “they” who said, “These are your gods, Israel....” Their role may also be discerned from G-d’s words to Moshe: שחת עמך אשר העלית מארץ מצרים (“...your people whom you brought up from the land of Egypt have corrupted”; XXXII, 7). Your people – not Israel, My people – whom you, on your own permitted to accompany Israel, have corrupted; the pi‘él verb, shihéth, transitive by nature, requires a direct object (often implied, rather than stated); had He meant “been corrupted,” “become corrupted,” He would have said shahath. Here, the implied direct object is Israel.
But the ‘erev rav nonetheless were also there, had also directly experienced Ha-Shem’s pronouncement, and also knew where the gold had been only hours before. They were no more stupid than the bënei Yisra’él. To understand their mindset, we turn to the Or ha-Hayyim, who writes that they understood Aharon to intend: להכין בו בחינת האלקות שהוא המוציא ותהא העבודה לחלק מהכל והרי הם העובדים לכל והחלק הי' הולך לפניהם והוא יענה לניקח ממנו ולא הי' בעיניהם זרות, כי הלא יש באדם חלק אלקי ממעל, אלא כי לצד שהרכבתו אינה מין המתקיים הרוח תשוב אל האלקים, ונתחכמו לעשות הדבר להמשיך כח עליון בדבר המתקיים ויהי' תמיד לפניהם ולעולם לא עקרו "אנכי ד'" כו' אלא אמרו "אלה", ואולי כי לזה אמר "העלוך" לשון רבים לרמוז כח תחתון כעליון חס ושלום וגו' (“to establish in [the calf] the category of Divinity, Who is the Motzi’, and [their] service would be of the Part of the [Divine] Whole, such that they would be serving the Whole, and the Part would go before them, and He would surely answer [the Part] which had been taken from Him; and this did not seem idolatrous in their eyes, for is there not a Divine Part from Above [i.e., a soul] in every human being? But the human constitution is such that it is not permanent, and the spirit returns to G-d; so they conceived the idea to make a thing in order to draw a supernal power into a permanent object which would always be before them. So they never uprooted “I am Ha-Shem”...but rather said, “These,” and perhaps this is why they said he‘elucha, in the plural, to allude to [equal] lower and supernal power, has vë-shalom....”).
The ‘erev rav, in other words, turned the calf into an idol, in their desire to splinter His ineffable Divine Unity. and claim one of the pieces for themselves (cf. the A”z Yashir, Yithro 5771 for a fuller discussion of this aspect of idolatry).
D.
ובאהרן התאנף ד' מאד להשמידו ואתפלל גם בעד אהרן בעת ההיא" וגו', said Moshe later; “And Ha-Shem became very angry with Aharon and I prayed also for Aharon at that time (Deuteronomy XX, 20).” In this heartfelt plea, Moshe said: למה יאמרו מצרים ברעה הוציאם להרג אתם בהרים ולכלתם מעל פני האדמה שוב מחרון אפך והנחם על הרעה לעמך (“Why should Egypt say, 'With evil He brought them out to kill them in the mountains and to wipe them from the face of the earth?' Turn back from Your wrath and be comforted [vë-hinnahém] about the evil to Your people”; XXXII, 12).
I have translated he word hinnahém as it is normally understood regarding, e.g., comforting mourners, but the translation seems inapt here; what does the word really mean?
The Torah frequently employs it in this sort of context; for instance, when Yoséf’s brothers were confronted by the august personage whom they had sold into slavery, they begged his forbearance (Genesis L, 17); the Torah characterizes his response: וינחם אתם וידבר על לבם (“and he comforted [va-yënahém] them and spoke to their heart”; ibid., 21).
Rabbi Shimon Schwab זצ"ל suggests that these phrases mean two different things, and that it is the expression “speak to the heart” which conveys what we ordinarily think of as words of comfort or conciliation. Nëhama, he explains, is the complete overturning of one’s thoughts or intentions, a reversal of polarity, as it were, from ra‘ to tov, as Rashi explains our verse: התעשת מחשבה אחרת להטיב להם "על הרעה" אשר חשבת להם (“Consider another thought, to benefit them ‘over the evil’ which You had thought for them”; עיי' ספר מעין בית השואבה, פ' יתרו). Hence, nëhama, when we pay a shiv‘a call, should bring about tzidduq ha-din, the justification and acceptance of the judgment which has been rendered.
Does Rashi then mean that G-d changes His mind? Halila! Rather, it is the human perception of reality which changes. In Yoséf’s case, what had been an unpardonable crime became the vehicle of his father’s and brothers’ salvation from the ravages of the great famine. In our case, the incident and subsequent nëhama led to the implementation of mitzvoth (e.g., pidyon ha-bén) which, though written in the Torah, would, it seems, not otherwise have been realized.
כל דעביד רחמנא לטב עביד, Hazal tell us; “Whatever the Merciful One does, He does for good” (ברכות ס:). It is the point of view and mindset of the human observer that makes it bad or good here below, even as it does the physical position or velocity of he observed phenomenon (as Schrödinger and Bohr demonstrated); and it is possible to bring about a nëhama.
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