Parasha: Ki Tisa · Aliyah: Second (Gevurah)

ויתן …שני לוחות הברית "He gave to Moses….the two Tablets of the covenant, etc." Why did G'd insert the words ככלותו לדבר אתו בהר סיני between the announcement that He gave something to Moses and the announcement of what it was that G'd gave to Moses? We would have expected that the Torah would either write: "After G'd finished speaking to Moses, He gave him the two Tablets, etc," or: "G'd gave to Moses the two Tablets of the covenant after He finished speaking to him, etc." Why this peculiar insertion of the words "after He had finished speaking with him at Mount Sinai?" Why did G'd delay giving Moses the two Tablets until this point in time? Seeing that the only thing which was engraved on the two Tablets were the Ten Commandments, why did G'd not give them to Moses immediately, or a day after the revelation at Mount Sinai? Why did He wait for 40 days?

According to our sages in the Zohar, volume 2 page 93 all the 613 commandments are somehow contained in the text of the Ten Commandments. Seeing that this was so, the words: "when He had finished speaking with Moses at Mount Sinai," are a hint that seeing the entire Torah is somehow part of the two Tablets, G'd had to wait until He had taught Moses the entire Torah at the end of forty days. The words "שני לוחות העדות" are merely a description of what it was G'd spoke to Moses about for forty days. This comment disposes of both our questions at one and the same time.

כתובים באצבע אלוקים, "written by the finger of G'd." The Torah here describes what we have have learned in Tanchuma Parshat Eykev that the tablets had been "hewn" from underneath the throne of G'd. Perhaps our verse alludes to this with the words מעשה אלוקים, "the work of G'd (32,16)." We have explained that there are many "lights" of sanctity in the Celestial Regions as alluded to by Solomon in Kohelet 5,7: כי גבוה מעל גבוה שומר וגבוהים עליהם, "for there is One higher than the high Who watches and there are high ones above them." The Zohar volume 2 page 53 relates a miraculous story according to which Moses encountered the angel Sandal during his ascent to Heaven. He disabled this angel and subsequently the angel Mattat. The angel was afraid that the fire above Moses' head would burn him. We are told in Deut. 4,24 that "G'd is a devouring fire." His holy fire consumes every other fire. The Torah tells us here the manner in which the Tablets were written.

The words: "written with the finger of G'd" mean that G'd drew the shape of the letter with His "finger," i.e. using one of the kinds of light at His disposal. It (the light) assumed the appearance of a finger opposite the Tablets corresponding to the dimensions of the requisite letter G'd wanted to inscribe. G'd did this in order to ensure that no more and and no less than the letter should be engraved on the Tablets themselves. Seeing that the light G'd used to do this with was more powerful than the light the Tablets were made of, the light of the "finger" penetrated the requisite area of the Tablets. We may perceive of that area on the Tablets as having either been devoured or pushed aside. What remained were holes forming the letters G'd had engraved. Thanks to the superior power of the light of the "finger" the inscription became visible from either side of the Tablets. This is what is meant when the Torah wrote in 32,16, that the Tablets were written from both sides, i.e. that the inscription was deeply engraved. The Torah uses the expression חרות על הלוחות "engraved on the Tablets," instead of saying חדות בלוחות, engraved in the Tablets. This is the allusion to G'd having placed His finger "on" i.e. opposite the material of the Tablets as we have explained.

וירא העם כי בשש משה, The people saw that Moses delayed, etc. The words: "the people 'saw,' refer to their mental eye, of course. Alternatively, we may accept a statement in Shabbat 89 that Satan came and showed them the image of darkness and the picture of Moses lying on a bier, dead. This is why the Torah used the expression וירא העם i.e. that there were circumstances which justified the people thinking Moses had indeed died. Their thinking was reinforced by the arrival of the sixth hour, ב־שש, the hour at which Moses had told them he would return. Had Moses not told them that he would return at noon i.e. "at six hours," no one would have heeded the picture drawn by Satan the swindler.

ויקהל העם על אהרון. The people gathered around Aaron. The expression על אהרון needs further analysis. If it had been the people's intention merely to speak to Aaron, the Torah should have written: ויקהל העם ויאמרו אל אהרון, "the people gathered and spoke to Aaron." Perhaps the meaning here is that the people gathered in order to kill Aaron, that they said to him: "get up and make for us a deity or we will kill you." Our sages in Sanhedrin 7 have stated that the people had already killed Chur, and this would reinforce our assumption that the people gathered against Aaron. The reason that the text does not refer explicitly to the killing of Chur is so that this murder should not remain as a permanent memory for all future generations. G'd is protective of the good reputation of the Jewish people, and the only reason He recorded the details of the sin of the golden calf is so that if a community would commit a collective sin in the future they would be encouraged to repent using the fact that G'd forgave the Jewish people the sin of the golden calf as proof that their repentance too would be accepted by Him (compare Avodah Zarah 5). Perhaps the Torah did indeed allude to the killing of Chur in Exodus 24,14 where Chur together with Aaron is reported as having been left in charge of the Jewish people when Moses ascended the Mountain. The fact that Chur's name is not mentioned at this point begs the question of "what has happened to him?" Clearly he had been murdered. This matter is alluded to more forcefully in Jeremiah 2,34: גם בכנפיך נמצאו דם נפשות, אביונים נקיים, "also on your garments is found the life-blood of the innocent poor, etc." as pointed out in Vayikra Rabbah 10,3. According to that Midrash, the people killed Chur because he was unwilling to make an idol for them. The people may have interpreted Chur's unwillingness to comply with their request to make a substitute for Moses as proof that he himself had aspirations to take the place of Moses, i.e. to be the people's intermediary between them and G'd. It is quite possible that Jeremiah 2,35 supports the view that the people who killed Chur considered him guilty of the sin of wanting to take the place of Moses, something that made him guilty of a capital offence in their view. They actually considered a human being as an intermediary between them and G'd as a geater threat to monotheism than the appointment of a symbol such as a golden calf which lacked any faculties and any will of its own.

אשר ילכו לפנינו, "who shall walk before us, etc." The word לפנינו was chosen very carefully. They reasoned as follows: Seeing that G'd Himself who has taken us out of Egypt is invisible and dwells in the Celestial Regions, they were afraid that if they would encounter some evil force in the desert without some visible symbol which reassured them that G'd did indeed watch over them they might lose faith. They wished to construct some symbol of a celestial force which would remind them of G'd in Heaven. The people who initiated the golden calf did not deny for a single moment either the primacy of G'd or the fact that He had made heaven and earth. They merely wanted a go-between them and G'd [similar to when all the people had asked Moses to be their go-between during the revelation at Mount Sinai. Ed.] They may well have thought that the prohibition in the second commandment to having an intermediary between man and G'd was valid only while there was a Moses who was the ideal go-between. This is why they emphasised כי זה האיש משה, "for this man Moses, etc." Possibly, they became victims of a serious sin when they described Moses as the Power which had taken them out of Egypt, i.e. אשר העלנו מארץ מצרים. They meant to say that even when they came out of Egypt G'd had employed a go-between and that this proved that there was nothing inherently wrong in having a go-between themselves and G'd. The fact that they referred to the go-between as אלהים, a deity, may be understood in the same sense as when G'd had told Moses in Exodus 7,1: "here I have made you אלהים (i.e. in G'd's stead) for Pharaoh. Obviously, the people committed a grave error as I have explained on Exodus 20,4.

ויאמר, "He said, etc." This means that what Aaron said was not what he meant in his heart.

פרקו!, "remove!" Aaron referred to the males, i.e. it was an imperative.

נזמי הזהב, golden rings; no other gold.

אשר באזני נשיכם, "which are in the ears of your wives." They were only to bring the golden earrings actually being worn by their wives at the time, not any rings lying in a box, etc. They were not even to put on these rings in order for their husbands to remove them. Aaron spoke of both "your wives, your sons and your daughters;" Aaron did not want the men to leave their family members while the latter were wearing any golden jewelry at all. He intended to delay the menfolk bringing him all that gold as he expected the wearers to put up resistance. When Aaron said: והביאו, "and bring it," he meant that they should bring him the gold personally, not by means of messengers. He added: אלי, "to me," i.e. not to anyone else. Aaron's reasoning in all this was to prevent a collection of these gold rings which could be accomplished more rapidly than if everybody had to personally bring all the gold rings of his family members to Aaron personally. The people complied with all that Aaron had told them except that they did not bring the earrings of their wives as the latter refused to part with them. The men brought Aaron their own earrings instead as they did not want to hold up the construction of the golden calf (Tanchuma).

ויעשהו עגל, "he made it into a calf." The calf is described as the work of Aaron not because he meant to make it but because he was the instrument which caused the calf to emerge. We hear about this clearly in verse 24 where Aaron describes what happened with the words: "this calf emerged (from the crucible)." It is also possible that the making of the calf was attributed to Aaron because he accepted the gold from the contributors in his hands without first depositing it on the ground which would have deprived it of the magical quality which resulted in it emerging in the shape of a calf (Zohar volume 2 page 192).

ויאמרו אלה אלוהיך ישראל אשר העלוך מארץ מצרים, They said: "these are your gods Israel which brought you up from the land of Egypt." At first glance the foolishness of this statement is so colossal that one cannot perceive of anyone taking it seriously. How can our sages who characterised this generation of Israelites as the דור דעה, "the generation endowed with superior knowledge," reconcile such a characterisation with the statement in front of us? Even if we accept a comment in Tanchuma according to which the calf was perceived as able to speak through some magic formula employed by the sorcerers amongst the mixed multitude, how could anyone fall for such a blatant lie as "these are the gods which have brought you up out of Egypt?"

We are therefore forced to conclude that the makers (initiators) of this golden calf did not mean for the Israelites to worship and prostrate themselves to anyone but the one who had truly taken them out of Egypt; the statement reported here only prepared the ground for making a deity out of the calf. The initiators indicated that they worshiped an all-embracing G'd and that the calf was merely part of that greater "whole." It was the part which would "walk in front of them," i.e. be the visible reminder of the Power which had delivered them from bondage. They did not consider making an inert golden calf into such a symbol as anything strange at all. On the contrary, inasmuch as even the "ideal" intermediary Moses had proved to be transient, mortal (according to their perception at the time), they decided to use the most precious and enduring symbol in the future, i.e. the golden calf. According to their reasoning every human being is composed of both matter and spirit, the spirit returning to its Maker at some time or other. In order not to risk losing such a go-between once more, they thought that the golden calf was a superior intermediary between them and their G'd. They actually believed that by means of the enduring nature of gold they could attract G'd's Presence on a permanent and enduring basis. The last thing they had on their minds was to uproot the first of the Ten Commandments in which the G'd in Heaven proclaimed Himself as their G'd and Redeemer. When they spoke about אלה, "These," they made sure that they did not exclude G'd in Heaven. Possibly, they used the expression העלוך "they brought you up," to hint that there was a Power on earth which equals the Power in the Heavens, G'd forbid; by making such a statement they insulted G'd in many different ways and this is why G'd reacted so violently. Please examine my comment on verse eight: "they have departed quickly from the path I have commanded them, etc."

I am convinced that not all of the Jewish people committed this error and that is why they did not all die. Among those who did not agree with the philosphy espoused by the enthusiastic followers of the golden calf some protested whereas some were powerless to counter the new philosophy. From the fact that the leaders of the new cult addressed the people saying: "these are your gods," instead of saying: "these are our gods," it is clear that they were in a minority. They also did not say "who have brought us out of Egypt," but they said "who have brought you up from Egypt;" all of this proves that the people who said this were a small minority at that time. Some of the people accepted this line of reasoning, others did not. Our sages in Shemot Rabbah 42,6 state that the whole episode of the golden calf was initiated by members of the mixed multitude, and that the Israelites did not agree with them at all. Had they agreed with the mixed multitude they would all have been guilty of the death penalty as G'd holds one responsible even for idolatrous thoughts not merely for idolatrous actions. The Israelites' sin consisted in their failure to protest what was going on and that is why the people were punished en masse except for a few whose hearts were tested by G'd and the Levites who had remained opposed and whom G'd charged with the task of executing Jews who actively worshiped the golden calf. Once the calf had been made, at least some of the natural-born Israelites erred and believed it possessed some divine powers, and that is why the Torah reported in verse 28 that about "three thousand of the people 'fell' on that day." Seeing that in verse 27 the Levites had been instructed not to spare family members when executing these idol worshipers, we must accept that natural-born Jews were amongst those who worshiped the calf and who were executed, seeing they did not desist in spite of warnings and witnesses.

וירא אהרון, And Aaron saw, etc. He "saw" something amazing; although he had only thrown gold into the fire, a calf emerged.

ויבן מזבח לפניו, he erected an altar in front of it, etc. It is noteworthy that the Torah did not write: ויבן לפניו מזבח. Had the Torah used the sequence of words we just mentioned this would have indicated that Aaron built the altar in the golden calf's honour. As it is the proximity of the golden calf to the altar Aaron built was purely incidental. Aaron's intention was totally Heaven-oriented. According to the Zohar volume 2 page 193, Aaron erected the altar in order to hold on to it so that the people should not be able to drag him away from there and execute him. The Torah legislated that [normally, when the crime of the accused had not been murder, Ed] the altar serves as a refuge for someone who is guilty of legal execution. While the guilty person holds on to it the messengers of the court cannot violate the sanctity of the altar in order to carry out the court's verdict.

חג לה׳ מחר, "To-morrow shall be a feast for the Lord." Aaron's intention was simply to stall the people and to gain time until Moses would return and control the situation. By using the Ineffable Name, Aaron had made it plain that he meant for the feast to be in honour of the One and Only G'd. He did not expect the Israelites to disagree as we pointed out already that no one had dared to deny the primacy of the G'd who had introduced Himself at the revelation at Mount Sinai as "I am the Lord Who has has taken you out of Egypt." All the people wanted was to take "part" of that G'd and look at it as a symbol of the invisible Lord in Heaven.

וישכימו ממחרת, They rose up early on the morrow, etc. It is difficult to understand why G'd did not tell Moses to descend from the Mountain as soon as the golden calf emerged from the crucible instead of waiting until the following morning after the people began to worship it by offering sacrifices in its honour. If G'd had told Moses to descend as soon as the calf emerged the people would not have had a chance commit the sin of offering sacrifices to a man-made idol. We cannot assume that the Torah did not report this in chronological order and that G'd did indeed tell Moses to descend at once but that Moses delayed his descent in order to try and diminish G'd's anger at His people. The report of the Torah spoke first about the people offering sacrificing to the calf before it mentions G'd as having become angry and telling Moses to descend. [Verse seven only supplies the reason for what is written in verses eight and nine. It does not represent the order in which things happened. Ed.] While we are aware of the statement by Rabbi Joshua ben Levi in Avodah Zarah 4 that "the children of Israel were not on a low enough spiritual level at the time to make the golden calf, and that the only reason this was allowed to occur was to teach future generations of Jews the power of repentance," this statement would not have lost any of its validity if G'd had interfered before it came to the point when the people actually offered sacrifices to that calf. G'd could have told Moses to descend as soon as some of the people had said: "these are your gods, O Israel, who have brought you up from Egypt." All this occurred on the day before they offered the sacrifices. The people's passive attitude to the idolatrous provocation by the mixed multitude had already made them sufficiently culpable. In fact we can be certain that there were only a few dissidents amongst the natural-born Israelites for if they had indeed been the majority their passive acceptance of such a provocation to sin is totally beyond imagination! If a majority who were physically able to prevent this sin had stood by idly, they would have become guilty as accessories. Why did G'd have to wait until after offerings had been made to the golden calf?

We may have to look for the answer to our question in Exodus 24, 12-18 when G'd had invited Moses to come up on the Mountain and to remain there (for 40 days) until G'd would give him the Torah, the commandments which He had written down in order for Moses to teach to the people. After the 40 days Moses was to give the people the Tablets (compare Shabbat 89 on this sequence). The word בשש which alluded to the time of Moses' return made it difficult for G'd to have Moses return earlier. I will explain the expression רד which the Torah uses in verse seven when we deal with that verse. Even though G'd was aware of what was going to occur already from the demands made by the people on Aaron, He would not go back on His instruction to Moses to remain on the Mountain for forty days and nights.

You may well ask that seeing G'd is omniscient, why did He not consider future events at the time He invited Moses for forty days? I have already referred to this problem in my commentary on Genesis 6,5. As far as the situation facing us here is concerned we do not even need to trouble ourselves to find an answer as the Torah has already provided it. There are some reasons which only G'd knows about, but He has revealed to us the significance of the number forty regarding the days it takes for the development of a human embryo. Whereas the entire universe was created in six days, it required forty days to "create" the Tablets. We may be better able to understand this by recalling a lesson taught by Rabbi Yochanan to Rabbi Chiya bar Abba quoted in Shemot Rabbah 47,5. Rabbi Yochanan and Rabbi Chiya walked from Tiberias to Tzippori. Rabbi Yochanan saw a certain vineyard and told Rabbi Chiya that the vineyard used to be his, but that he had sold it for a certain sum of money. Upon hearing this Rabbi Chiya started to cry and said to Rabbi Yochanan: "have you not left yourself anything to provide for your old age?" Rabbi Yochanan replied: "Do you consider the fact that I sold something which it took six days to create and traded it for something that it took G'd forty days to create as 'nothing?' G'd created the entire universe in six days and yet it took Him forty days before He could give the Torah to Moses? Moses ate neither bread nor drank water but he was able to subsist on the waters of Torah, etc."

Another reason that G'd could not tell Moses to descend before the Israelites had already offered sacrifices to the golden calf is connected to the four levels of Torah exegesis, commonly known as Pardess, an acronym for Peshat, Remez, Drush, and Sod. These four methods of exegesis actually reflect four different functions of "light" in the universe. It is the function of the פשט to illuminate the עולם העשיה, the lowest world, the physical universe as we know it. The function of the רמז is to provide insights into the world known in Kabbalah as the עולם היצירה. The function of the דרוש is to provide illumination of the world known as עולם הבריאה. Finally, it is the function of the exegesis known as סוד, to help us gain some enlightenment about the world known as עולם האצילות, a world in which tangible phenomena are totally non- existent. We have explained on several occasions that every one of these "worlds" contains ten levels known as ספירות, emanations. G'd is perceived as having "created" one such level of Torah per day and to have taught it to Moses. Thus you have the number forty as the number of days which were required in order for Moses to gain a full understanding of the Torah. Had Moses descended from the Mountain even a single day earlier, he (and we) would have been deprived of some of the insights the Torah provides. Expressed differently, the Torah would then have remained defective. At any rate, the ways of G'd are sometimes inscrutable but always fair and just. When you will read what we have written on the following verse you will see that we have pursued a different approach there.

לך רד כי שחת עמך, "go and descend for your people have become corrupt, etc." G'd repeated Himself, saying both "go," and "descend!" He first told Moses that the time had come for him to leave the Mountain; He added that his departure would be in the nature of a "descent" from the lofty spiritual heights he had so recently attained. If G'd had only said to Moses: "Descend," we would have understood this as nothing out of the ordinary, seeing he had been on the Mountain and there was no way to go but down, just as when the Torah described Moses' previous descent from the Mountain in Exodus 19,14. G'd wanted Moses to understand that his "descent" had a metaphysical dimension. Perhaps G'd used this method to inform Moses that his entire spiritual progress had been due to the nature of the people of whom he was in charge. Now that the people of Israel had sinned, Moses, their leader, could no longer attain the level of prophetic insights he had achieved formerly. It is also possible that what G'd meant was that inasmuch as the Jewish people were Moses' "helper" and that helper had now become deficient, he, Moses could no longer maintain himself on the lofty plateau he had reached. This is what is implied by the words רד כי שחת עמך, "do not remain on this level seeing you attained it only with the help of your people."

The difficulty with this approach is that G'd should have told Moses this as soon as the calf had emerged and the people had said: "these are your gods Israel, etc." Moses should have lost some of his spiritual stature the moment the people had become guilty of idol worship. We must assume that there was a good reason for G'd to delay informing Moses about the sin his people had committed. The Talmud Sanhedrin 43 raises the question why G'd did not inform Joshua of Achan's theft of valuables from the city of Jericho before the defeat of the Israelites at the hands of the people of Ai which prompted Joshua to ask G'd why they had suffered such a humiliating defeat (Joshua 7,6). The Talmud answers that G'd did not want to become known as an "informer," a "snitcher." If that argument were applicable here, G'd should not have told Moses about the people's sin until the latter had found out by himself a few hours later. After all, Moses' time on the Mountain was just about completed. Actually, the situation of Achan and the sin of the golden calf cannot be compared. Achan's sin was unknown except to a few people who kept it as their secret. The Jewish people's dancing around the golden calf and offering sacrifices to it was already public knowledge and Moses would have found out about it within hours even if G'd had not told him. Nonetheless, seeing G'd is the epitome of piety why did He tell Moses before the latter commenced his descent?

G'd's reasoning must therefore have been the very reverse of that applied by an informer. The informer delights in implicating people in sin, whereas G'd delights in justifying Himself if per chance He is forced to pronounce sentence over the sinners. Seeing G'd had told Moses to descend from his lofty spiritual niveau, He had to tell him the reason for this, and once having told him that the people had become corrupted, G'd had to add particulars about the form this corruption had taken. G'd listed three sins: 1) "they made a golden calf for themselves;" 2) "they prostrated themselves before it and they offered sacrifices to it;" 3) they proclaimed: "these are your gods O Israel, who have brought you out of Egypt." Israel had therefore sinned in (1) thought, (2) in speech and (3) in deed. G'd first told Moses about Israel having sinned in thought when He said: "they have made for themselves, etc." This was a sin in thought as long as they had not hailed the calf or sacrificed to it. The critical word is להם, "for themselves." Please compare what I have written on Exodus 20,3 on the meaning of the second of the Ten Commandments: לא יהיה לך אלהים אחרים. Concerning the Israelites' sin in deed, G'd told Moses that the people had "offered sacrifices to it." There is no greater act of idol worship than the offering of sacrifices to an idol. Concerning the Israelites having sinned in speech, G'd cited their having said: "these are your gods O Israel, etc." In view of all this Moses suffered a threefold weakening of his spiritual powers. Moses suffered a weakening of both נפש, רוח, and נשמה, and as a result he could not remain in the domain he had previously attained. This proves that unless the people had committed all three parts of this sin, Moses could have maintained his lofty posture. Had this not been so G'd would have already had to command him to descend after the Israelites had committed the first or second stage of that sin. G'd would then have had to reveal to Moses the reason He had asked him to descend at an earlier stage of these developments. At any rate, our question of why G'd did not tell Moses to descend sooner is answered satisfactorily.

סרו מהר מן הדרך, "they have quickly departed from the path, etc." The meaning of these words is clear in view of the statement in Chulin 4 that if someone acknowledges even passively that there is some substance to idolatry he is considered as having denied the entire Torah. This is why G'd said: "which I have commanded them," i.e. "all that I have commanded them."

It is also possible that the wording reflects- as I have written previously- that the Israelites retained their full faith in G'd and only saw in the golden calf one of His many manifestations. In view of all this G'd had to make clear that He had not ever commanded something of this nature, i.e. Israel was not allowed to employ intermediaries in their worship of Him and that what happened represented a complete departure from the way G'd had instructed them to relate to Him. This explains why G'd did not speak of Israel in terms of their having rebelled against Him or having denied Him. He was well aware that the Israelites had retained their belief in Him.

עשו להם עגל מסכה, "they made a molten calf for them(selves)." The words עשו להם mean that "others made for them." They had only handed over the gold whereas the calf appeared to have emerged of its own power. G'd informed Moses that the calf did not emerge by itself as we could have concluded from Aaron's words in verse 24, but that an action preceded its emergence as we have learned from Tanchuma that Yanus and Yambrus (legendary Egyptian sorcerers) made the calf.

ויאמרו אלה אלהיך ישראל, they said: "these are your gods O Israel." Why did G'd tell Moses about the Israelites sinning by speech, i.e. by acknowledging the deity of the calf with their lips, only after He had already told Moses that they had worshiped it by offering sacrifices to it? The order should have been the reverse! According to Shemot Rabbah 42,6 that it was the mixed multitude who made tha calf and that the Israelites had no share in this, the verse has to be interpreted as describing different stages of the sin committed by the Israelites, not by the mixed multitude. As to the first stage of what the Israelites themselves were guilty of G'd said: "the mixed multitude made the golden calf for themselves, but the Israelites did not protest. Next, the mixed multitude prostrated themselves before the calf and offered sacrifices to it, and the Israelites again did not protest. Failure to protest this time was already a sin of a much graver dimension than not having protested the mere making of the calf. When the mixed multitude declared (addressing Israel this time) "these are your gods O Israel," and the Israelites even now did not protest, this was the culmination of their sins.

According to the plain meaning of the verse there is a different reason. G'd did not tell Moses earlier about the Israelites having said: "these are your gods, etc," although sin by speech is not generally as severe as sin by deed because in this case the sin committed by their lips was exceptionally severe. It was reinforced by the words: "who have brought you out of Egypt." Crediting the inert calf with what G'd had done for Israel made the sin absolutely intolerable. The perversion of history for all future generations implied in this utterance made it worse than sacrificing to the calf and prostrating oneself in front of it.

Furthermore, inasmuch as the words were addressed by the mixed multitude to the Israelites and not by the Israelites themselves, they were relatively harmless as long as the Israelites did not respond to the invitation to worship the calf which was contained within these words. It had become clear only after the Israelites participated in the sacrifices to the calf that their active participation must have started already at an earlier stage, namely when they were invited to pay obeisance to the calf as their redeemer. G'd therefore told Moses that participation of the Israelites in the worshiping of the calf was the result of their agreeing with the people who had said: "these are your gods O Israel, etc."

ויאמר ה׳ אל משה, G'd said to Moses, etc. The reason this is reported as a separate address by G'd to Moses (seing there had been no interruption since G'd commenced to speak in verse 7) is that the first address was only an explanation of why Moses had to descend from his lofty spiritual niveau. Now G'd speaks to Moses concerning the repercussions Israel's conduct will have on their own standing. Had the Torah not inserted the words ויאמר ה׳ at this point, we would have thought that the previous sentence "they have quickly departed, etc." was meant as an introduction to why the people would be punished.

ועתה הניחה לי, "And now, let Me be, etc." The reason G'd said: "and now," was because He had already tried to put Moses in a good mood by offering to make an entire new Jewish nation with Moses as its founding patriarch when He said to him: "and I shall make you a great nation." This promise was designed to silence Moses into not protesting G'd's intention to destroy the present Jewish people. Moses thought to himself that G'd's promise was hardly any reassurance seeing that what happened to Abraham's descendants was liable to happen to his own descendants with similarly terrible results. This is why G'd said to Moses that he should leave Him be only "for now;" G'd implied that if Moses would leave Him alone now He would promise Moses that history would not repeat itself with any of Moses' descendants if he were to become the founding father of a new Jewish nation. There could be either one of two reasons why history would not repeat itself. 1) Moses' descendants would be more virtuous than the present generation of Jews and they would not succumb to the kind of provocation by Satan that the present Jewish people had succumbed to. 2) Even assuming that the "new" Jewish people would succumb to a situation similar to that facing the present one, G'd would not again ask Moses or their leader at that time not to intercede on their behalf. There would always be a chance to nullify any decree of G'd to destroy the new Jewish people.

A moral-ethical approach to the words הניחה לי would be that it was G'd's way of hinting that if Moses were to allow G'd a brief moment of anger, i.e. ועתה הניחה לי, there was a chance that his subsequent intercession would prove successful. As soon as the present moment had passed Moses was invited, so to speak, to intercede on behalf of "his" people. This brief moment had passed while G'd uttered the word ועתה. This is why Moses immediately began to intercede with prayer.

According to our sages in Bereshit Rabbah 21,6 who say that the word ועתה in Genesis 3,22 as well as elsewhere always contains an allusion to the need to do תשובה, repentance, G'd hinted to Moses that it was up to him to do תשובה. Seeing that the entire debacle was due to Moses' having told the people he would return at the end of forty days he had misled them. He had failed to inform the people that he referred to a return on the forty-first day.

Alternatively, Moses needed to do תשובה for having accepted the mixed multitude as proselytes at the time without having first consulted G'd. This is why G'd referred to the perpetrators of the golden calf as Moses' people, i.e. שחת עמך. When G'd said: ועתה, He meant that the time had come for Moses to become a penitent seeing he had a considerable share in the circumstances which made the golden calf episode possible. Not only this, the episode was to teach the Jewish people not to accept proselytes at the time when the Messiah would come (Yevamot 24). At that time it would be reserved for Moses to accept the proselytes and thus to make up for the time he had accepted them without authority from G'd.

הניחה לי ויחר אפי, "leave Me alone so I can become angry, etc." Why did G'd have to ask Moses to "leave Him alone?" Had Moses done anything to prevent G'd from venting His anger? On the contrary! Moses had not even commenced to pray on behalf of the Israelites until later! Besides, the future tense "so that I may vent My anger" suggests that up until that moment G'd had not even become angry as yet and that He was looking for a pretext to become angry! Since when is it one of G'd's characteristics to want to become angry? We know that it is G'd's virtue to squash His anger whenever possible! We have it on the authority of Rabbi Yishmael the High Priest that G'd was pleased with his prayer asking Him to suppress His anger! (Berachot 7). Perhaps this was precisely Moses' argument when he remonstrated with G'd saying: למה יחרה אפך, "why do you want to become angry?" Moses uses the future tense in this question, suggesting that up until that point G'd had not shown signs of being angry. At any rate we are faced here with a difficulty in understanding the ways of our Lord!

The whole matter may become clearer when we recall that the source of anger is an insult felt by one's heart. The degree of insult one experiences is in direct relation to the prominence and high position of the one who is guilty of the insult and the nature of the insult itself. There are two possible remedies which help one overcome the feeling of having been insulted. 1) One may take revenge on the person or persons who have insulted him. 2) One may respond to words of conciliation which puts the insult into its proper perspective.

Inasmuch as the guilty party in this case was Israel, the insult could not have been greater seeing that Israel was G'd's chosen people. G'd Himself had indicated this by saying: "they have departed quickly from the path, etc." i.e. while Israel was still My most recently wed bride it has already abandoned Me, its groom, by whoring around. Initially, G'd felt so strongly about this that He did not think that any of the conventional ways of putting the insult into perspective would be effective and He had to take punitive action to get the feeling out of His system, so to speak. According to our sages in Shemot Rabbah 2,1 it is one of G'd's virtues that He cannot tolerate seeing His righteous people, His "friends," suffer pain. Accordingly, how could G'd inflict the pain of destroying His people on Moses? Had He not waited with the onset of the deluge so that Methuselah, a righteous man and others like him should not witness it (compare Bereshit Rabbah 32,7)? Moreover, according to the Zohar volume 1 page 206 the use of the term נשמה in Genesis 7,22 indicates that all the few good people, those possessed not only of a נפש, but even of a נשמה (a superior kind of soul), had died prior to the onset of the deluge. We also find in Isaiah 57,2 that the righteous person dies on account of the evil (which is to come). The prophet means that G'd spares the righteous the need to witness the disaster. Surely G'd was perfectly aware of how Moses would grieve over the destruction of his people! How could He even contemplate this type of revenge (retribution) for the insult He had suffered at the hands of the Jewish people? Had there ever been someone closer to G'd than Moses that he should have to witness such a disaster? When G'd considered all this and concluded that it would be better for Him to suffer the insult than to allow Moses to suffer the anguish of seeing his people destroyed, He begged Moses to allow Him to at least become angry for a moment. He asked Moses not to be upset at what He asked of him. If Moses agreed, this would give G'd an opportunity to first become angry and then regain His composure. He suggested that He would make out of Moses (his offspring in the future) לגוי גדול; He did not say He would make Moses himself into גוי גדול. This meant that though Moses was not at that moment a "great nation," He, G'd, would see to it that Moses' soul would possess the additional qualities needed to ensure that his descendants would be greater than the present Jewish people. The word אעשה also implied that G'd had to undertake a new process in order for future children of Moses to have the potential implied here.

G'd also wanted to ward off Moses's argument (not yet voiced) "where is Your promise to the patriarch Abraham, i.e. the גוי גדול, the great nation that You promised he would become?" He used the expression לגוי גדול to paraphrase His promise to Abraham in Genesis 12,2 suggesting that this very promise would be fulfilled via the descendants of Moses.

Moses' answer indicated that he could not allow G'd to do as He had suggested and that he could not conquer his own anguish even for a moment at what G'd planned to let him witness. Moses expressed all this succinctly in the words ויחל משה in verse 11. The Talmud Berachot 32 gives a variety of explanations of the word ויחל, the common denominator of all these explanations being that it is an expression of profound anguish. [The word ויחל is variously connected to חלה to be sick, as connected to חלל, to desecrate, i.e. to violate one's promise; another meaning is the aramaic אחילו, fever or trembling. There are still other interpretations. Ed.] In response to G'd saying: ויחר אפי, "so that My anger will be hot against them," an argument used by G'd to explain that He had no alternative if He wanted to get over the insult heaped upon Him, Moses countered: למה יחרה אפך, "why should You become angry instead of looking for a different method of assuaging Your hurt feelings?" By referring to the Jewish people as בעמך, "against Your people," Moses suggested that killing the Jewish people would "boomerang," that G'd would hurt Himself more than He would hurt the Israelites. After all, You have taken them out of Egypt and thereby made a great name for Yourself amongst mankind. Are You going to let all this go to waste? Why would You give the Egyptians such satisfaction? Moreover, why do You not remember Your promises to the Patriarchs? When You think about the Patriarchs surely You have reason to be well pleased? Moses succeeded in his plea as we know from the line וינחם ה׳ על הרעה, "G'd reconsidered the evil, etc."

למה ה׳ יחרה אפך, "To what purpose, O G'd, will Your anger burn?" If we go back for a moment to the statement in Shemot Rabbah 42 that only the mixed multitude were involved in the making and worshiping of the golden calf, we had to conclude that G'd's anger was directed at the Israelites for not having protested what the mixed multitude were doing. In that case, Moses' question "Why be mad at Your people?" simply meant that G'd's anger should have been restricted to the mixed multitude. This suggests that Moses had made peace with the idea that G'd would destroy the mixed multitude. Perhaps we can find support for this even in Moses' words: "whom You have taken out of Egypt?" Seeing that G'd had not taken the mixed multitude out of Egypt but they had come of their own volition, G'd's image would not be tarnished if this mixed multitude were to perish! According to the Midrash then we may assume that all the members of the mixed multitude died at that time seeing that even their patron did not speak up on their behalf. Inasmuch as the mixed multitude were seducers, Moses would have been totally out of order if he had asked for mercy on their behalf especially seeing that he himself was being punished for having accepted them as converts to begin with.

According to the plain meaning of the verse i.e. that the Israelites themselves made the golden calf and worshiped it, Moses' argument applied to the part of the people who did not have a direct share in that sin. After all, the Torah reports that all those who had actively participated died. There were three such groups. 1) The Israelites who did not desist from worshiping the golden calf in spite of witnesses and proper warnings of the consequences were executed by the Levites. 2) The people whose sin had been witnessed but who had not been warned died at the hands of G'd, 3) those who had been warned but whose deed had not been witnessed. They too died at the hands of G'd. When G'd said to Moses that He wanted to destroy the people, He referred to those who were not included in either of the three groups we just mentioned. Moses' outcry: "Why will Your anger burn against Your people, etc.," was on behalf of the people who did not belong to any of the three groups who had been active participants in the sin. His argument was simply that the sin of omission of not protesting the involvement of the others surely did not warrant extinction! Should they cease to be called "Your people" though they had not rebelled against You?

אשר הוצאת "whom You have taken out of Egypt! He used this argument to refute G'd's suggestion to make out of his descendants a great nation. Moses meant that any nation descended from him will not have the experience of the Exodus. If a nation which had this experience nonetheless succumbed to the temptation of the golden calf, surely a nation which lacked that experience cannot be expected to resist such a temptation! You will find that at the beginning of the Decalogue G'd emphasised the experience of the Exodus as the basis of the Israelites accepting Him as their G'd (Exodus 20,2). This shows clearly how pivotal that experience was for the faith in G'd displayed by the Jewish people, and their willingness to obey His commands. This theme occurs again and again throughout the Torah in connection with G'd's commandments. One gains the impression that the Torah keeps reminding us that the justification of G'd demanding fulfilment of His commandments is due almost entirely to the experience of the Exodus. Please refer to what I have written on that verse. When Moses mentioned G'd as having taken the Israelites out of Egypt בכח גדול, "by expending a great deal of energy," he implied that G'd could not afford to let all of this energy go to waste by destroying the Jewish people.

Seeing that G'd had refused to associate His name with the people and had referred to them as Moses' people, i.e. שחת עמך, how could Moses dare say to G'd "why would You become angry at Your people?" We must therefore understand that when Moses referred to the Exodus by saying אשר הוצאת, that at that time He had still called them His people, i.e. אשר.

למה יאמרו הגוים, "Why should the nations be able to say, etc.?" Moses suggested that it would be a public desecration of G'd's name to wipe out the Jewish people whom G'd had referred to in Exodus 4,22 as "My first-born son Israel" less than six months previously? It would appear in retrospect that G'd had orchestrated the Exodus only in order to kill this people in the desert? Once all the nations which served idols realised that serving the one and only G'd led to disaster they would be confirmed in preferring the various deities which they were in the habit of worshiping. They would conclude that the fact that the G'd of the Israelites had not killed them (the Gentiles) for worshiping idols proved that it was an extremely dangerous thing to convert to Judaism and to acknowledge the G'd in Heaven.

The reason Moses added the word לאמור was that the Gentiles might not phrase this in these exact words; nonetheless it was clear that they would draw inferences of that nature when they heard what had befallen the Jewish people in the desert. Alternatively, Moses may have added the word לאמור to show that he knew that this would merely be talk and would not describe the truth; still it was an argument the Gentiles were going to use which it would be difficult to disprove. This misrepresentation of the truth would not be confined to Egypt but would be echoed -לאמור- by all the other nations on earth. There could not be a greater desecration of G'd's name.

זכור לאברהם, "Remember Abraham, etc." Here Moses did not refer to G'd's oath to Abraham to make him into a great nation, etc., a comment G'd had already replied to earlier. Moses referred to the sadness which would engulf people when they would hear about what happened. Moses also argued the merit of the Patriarchs based on G'd's promise in the Ten Commandments (20,6) that He considered such merits for thousands of generations to those who "loved Him and observed His commandments." Moses added the words "Your servants, and "You have sworn," in order to give still greater meaning to what G'd had stated in the Ten Commandments.

וכל הארץ הזאת, "and this whole land, etc." There are many ways of interpreting these words. Some say that they are part of Moses' words who quotes what G'd had said to the Patriarchs. It is equally possible that they are words spoken by G'd. The meaning of אמרתי would then have to be understood in a sense similar to Isaiah 3,10: "declare that the צדיק is good!" Here G'd would be proclaiming the superiority of the land of Israel by saying: "I declare that I have elevated the patriarchs by swearing to give such a superior land to their descendants, etc." We can find a parallel to this in Deut. 11,11-12, where the land of Israel is described in terms of being a superior land.

וינחם ה׳ על הרעה, "G'd reconsidered the evil He had said He would do, etc." The meaning of the verse is that there were two reasons why G'd reconsidered. 1) The decree was evil objectively speaking. 2) It would have resulted in evil for His people.

We may understand this statement also as emphasising the דבר aspect, i.e. what G'd had merely said He would do. If He had sworn to do this, He would not have been able to reconsider an oath.

A further dimension of this statement is that G'd only reconsidered the evil He had said to do, i.e. to wipe out the Jewish people; there were other evil parts which He had not reconsidered, parts involving the sin of the golden calf.

Furthermore, G'd may only have reconsidered the evil he had said He would do to the people not directly involved in worshiping the calf, those who still were considered His people; those who had worshiped the calf be it with or without witnesses but who believed in it in their hearts would be subject to G'd's original decision and G'd punished them by death. Moses examined some of the people by making them drink of the waters containing the gold dust of the calf, others were executed by the Levites.

ויפן וירד משה מן ההר, "Moses turned around and descended from the Mountain." What is the significance of the Torah reporting Moses as "turning around," i.e. turning His back on G'd's presence? Is this not something which reflects a lack of respect? Perhaps the fact that the Torah added the superfluous words "from the Mountain" were added to prevent the misconception that Moses "turned his back on G'd", as it were. He only turned his back on the Mountain. If that were the meaning of the words "from the Mountain," the Torah should have written "Moses turned away from the Mountain" instead of writing "Moses turned and descended from the Mountain." Furthermore, why did the Torah have to mention Moses as "turning around" altogether?

Perhaps the expression "he turned around" signified Moses' reduced spiritual niveau which made it impossible for him to confront the angels. He therefore moved sideways on the Mountain, much like someone who tries to hide.

We may also understand the word as similar to what we learned in Devarim Rabbah 1, where the Midrash contrasts Moses' mode of speaking directly to the Israelites, i.e. "you have sinned," with his speaking to G'd in the third person "למה יחרה?" The meaning of ויפן, he turned around, then may refer to Moses' change in attitude as he prepared to face his people.

לוחות העדות, "the Tablets containing the testimony." The word ה־עדות, indicating a unique kind of testimony may be an allusion to the way G'd Himself had inscribed the Tablets so that the writing could be read from either side, something impossible if they had been inscribed by human hands. Such writing would appear as if it had been written backwards had it been inscribed on one side by a human scribe. The letter ה before the word עדות may also hint at the miraculous way the final letters ס and ם appeared with their respective centers suspended in the air miraculously (Megillah 3). Perhaps these two letters were "proof" i.e. "testimony" that the Tablets had indeed been inscribed by G'd Himself.

וישמע יהושע, "Joshua heard, etc." The expression ברעה needs clarification. What precisely was the "sound" that Joshua heard which he interpreted as the sound of war? In order to understand Moses' response to Joshua one has to have prophetic insight.

All of this may be understood in light of a statement in the Talmud Yerushalmi Taanit 4,5 that the righteous are able to distinguish certain sounds as implying either something positive or something negative. This power of aural perception is something G'd has granted to outstanding individuals. When Joshua heard the sound which indicated something negative happening, ברעה, he interpreted it as the sound of fighting amongst the people. Alternatively, Joshua did not refer to a civil war when he mentioned that he identified the sound as the sound of battle; rather he referred to the struggle between the evil urge and the urge to be good which he perceived as being waged inside the Israelites at that time. Moses answered him that this was not how he perceived what he heard. When Moses said that he did not hear קול ענות גבורה, he meant that he did not perceive the good urge being victorious over the evil urge; when he added that he did not hear the קול ענות חלושה either, he meant that the reason was not merely an inherent weakness amongst the Israelites; what he heard was קול ענות, a sound of affliction, i.e. that he heard the breaking of the staff of glory which used to be theirs and which had now been broken. The meaning of this is that as opposed to violating one or another of the commandments, something that is apt to occur in the life of every Jew from time to time and which weakens a person spiritually, this time they had uprooted all the commandments by becoming guilty of idolatry. This is because according to Chulin 5 the sin of idolatry is equal to violating the entire Torah.

Perhaps the word אנכי which follows the word ענות here is an allusion to the שכינה; it is reminiscent of Deut. 32,18 צור ילדך תשי, that the commission of a sin such a idolatry "weakens" the שכינה. The word שומע refers back to Joshua who had said that he heard the sound of battle within the camp. Moses told Joshua that what he heard was the mystical dimension of the breaking apart of the שכינה, so to speak. Solomon alludes to something like this in Proverbs 10,1 ובן כסיל תוגת אמו, "a foolish son is his mother's sorrow." Having written this, I have found the following statement in the Zohar second volume page 195: "What is the meaning of the word 'ברעה'? It refers to a voice (sound) from the סיטרא אחרא, the "negative part of the emanations." [This is based on the spelling of ברע with the letter ה at the end. Joshua is perceived as like the "moon" compared to Moses, the latter being like the "sun" in our aggadic literature. The "negative emanations" are similarly perceived by kabbalists as being like the "moon" when compared to the positive emanations which are like the "sun." These negative emanations are perceived as having "stolen" the light of the moon which was equal in strength to that of the sun prior to its having had to diminish itself. Joshua was therefore especially attuned to these negative emanations. This is why he "beheld" this "voice." Moses had not heard this voice as he was attuned primarily to the positive emanations, the ones perceived as akin to the "sun." Ed.] Joshua reported to Moses on what he heard immediately.

ויהי כאשר קרב אל המחנה, It was, when he came close to the camp, etc. Our sages have already told us in Megillah 10 that whenever the word ויהי introduces a paragraph this is an allusion to a painful experience. In this instance Shemot Rabbah 46,1 describes that Moses noted the letters on the Tablets "flying away." This caused us all the subsequent grief our forefathers and we ourselves have experienced ever since, including the experience of death itself. Had the original Tablets survived, every sorrow and calamity would have disappeared from the earth, and the world would have experienced freedom from the angel of death (compare section 41 in that Midrash.) The word ויהי also refers to the anguish experienced by Moses personally when he saw with his own eyes what was taking place. The word also alludes to the feelings of shame experienced by the Israelites who felt like a thief who is caught in the act of stealing when they saw Moses approaching. The word even alludes to the קליפה, the spiritually negative radiations which now bombarded the camp of the Israelites and which presaged death and destruction. These negative emanations had been called forth by the words: "these are your gods O Israel, etc."

כאשר קרב אל המחנה, as he approached the camp. Perhaps the Torah wished to tell us that Moses espied the calf even before he actually entered the camp. This had to be so in order for the sacred Tablets not to have to share the same domain with the epitome of impurity, the golden calf. When the Torah writes: "and it was as he approached the camp he saw the calf and the dances (or the musical instruments used during dances)," our attention is drawn to the immediacy of Moses seeing the calf and the activities surrounding it.

וירא את העגל ומחלות, he saw the calf and the musical instruments, etc. Perhaps the Torah describes that with the approach of Moses the spirit of impurity took fright and flew away so that the calf became inert and lost its ability to utter the words "these are your gods, etc." Even the spirit of impurity which had fashioned the calf unassisted by any artisan or goldsmith departed out of fear of Moses. The words עגל ומחלות side by side conjure up an image of the calf becoming as inert as the מחלות, the musical instruments, once the spirit which had misled the Jewish people into believing that the calf possessed powers of its own had departed from it.

Alternatively, the Torah uses the wording וירא את העגל instead of וירא העגל, to draw our attention to the fact that Moses did not only behold the calf but also the spirit of impurity it contained, i.e. את. The righteous have the ability to recognise evil; a person of the stature of Moses was certainly able to recognise evil when he faced it. According to our rabbis in Tikkunim 142, Moses asked the calf who had made it to which the calf responded that it had been made by the mixed multitude. Seeing that inert things cannot speak, the meaning of that statement is that Moses realised that the calf contained the spirit of impurity. When the Torah describes Moses as seeing the dances, the word את in front of the word מחלות is absent. This lends credence to the statement that Moses perceived the spirit of impurity as being within the calf.

It is also possible that the Torah wished to inform us that at the time Moses approached the camp he did not encounter a single person as they were all too ashamed to face him. All Moses was able to see therefore were the calf and the musical instruments used to accompany the dances.

ויחר אף משה וישלך מידיו את הלוחות, Moses became very angry and he threw the Tablets from his hands, etc. We need to understand why Moses took it upon himself to smash the Tablets ignoring the immeasurable damage this would cause to the Jewish people. Clearly he would not have destroyed something unless he was convinced that by the destruction of whatever it was he would perform something infinitely more useful than that which he destroyed. We are told in Avot de Rabbi Natan chapter 2 that Moses did not shatter the Tablets until told to do so by G'd. This view is confirmed by Rabbi Meir who cites Deut. 10,5 as support for this view. He derives this from Moses saying "they remained therein as G'd had commanded me." If so, we must understand why G'd withheld the good contained in the Tablets from His people. [the question is appropriate in view of the Torah having told us that G'd decided not to carry out His plan to destroy the people. Ed.]

We must remember that at the time of the revelation at Mount Sinai any residual pollutant of the original serpent had been expunged from the people as we know from Shabbat 146. This is the reason G'd prepared for them legislation engraved i.e. charut on the Tablets. The word חרות which we read in the Torah with the vowel kametz under the first letter may also be read with the vowel tzeyreh instead; as a result of this change it means "freedom." The alternate spelling is an allusion to the freedom from the angel of death which the Jewish people had attained as a result of their ready acceptance of G'd's Torah. Mortality, after all, had only been due to the pollutants with which the original serpent had injected Eve through her eating of the tree of knowledge. The golden calf episode reversed this process and the Israelites became infected with something like the original pollutant once more, though not to the same degree as previously. As a result of their idolatry they became mortal once more and a set of laws designed for immortal people was no longer appropriate for them. This is why those Tablets had to be smashed. All of this is based on the opinions that Moses had not acted of his own accord when he smashed the Tablets.

ויקח את העגל אשר עשו, He took the calf which they had made, etc. The words "which they had made" appear quite superfluous; perhaps the Torah had to mention this according to the view that the golden calf looked like a calf from the front and like a donkey when viewed from the rear as we find in the Zohar volume 2 page 192. If the Torah had written only "he took the calf," I could have understood this as a reference only to the front section of the calf and that Moses burned only that section of the image. By adding the words: "which they had made," the Torah makes it clear that Moses burned the entire inert creature.

Perhaps the lesson in these words is similar to the message of the prophet Jeremiah in Jeremiah, 2,19: "your wickedness itself has become your affliction;" i.e. the sin itself becomes the bane of the person who perpetrated it. By embracing evil, the sin itself destroys those who love it and who hate sanctity. When the Torah speaks of אשר עשו, it refers to the consequences of the act of making the calf. וישק את בני ישראל, he made the Israelites drink of it. This was designed to open the eyes of the blind and to teach them to hate evil and to love sanctity which implies a love for the good for goodness' own sake.

Furthermore, the Torah may have wanted to inform us about the nature of the evil the two sorcerers had perpetrated. The first evil was that they formed the golden calf, the second that the calf invited the people to worship it when it said: "these are your gods O Israel, etc." The Torah tells us that Moses "took" i.e. seized both these aspects of wickedness the sorcerers had created. The expression לקח as a description of sanctity gaining control over spiritually negative forces, קליפה, is used by the Talmud in Yuma 69 where the members of the Great Assembly are described as seizing the spirit which seduces men into worshiping idols and other sins, and their trying to eliminate it. Moses did something similar here when he "seized" the spirit of impurity within the golden calf, and burned it. The words וישרוף באש, "he burned it in fire," are far more appropriate when applied to the spirit within the calf than to the calf itself seeing that one cannot "burn" gold. Perhaps this is the mystical dimension of Isaiah 11,4 where the prophet describes the Messiah as "killing the wicked with the breath of his lips."

מה עשה לך העם הזה? "What did this people do to you?" Moses recognised that the making of a cast idol for others is not one of the commandments for which one has to sacrifice one's life rather than to do so under duress. Compare Maimonides' treatise on the laws of idolatry chapter three in which he rules that a person who commits such a sin is punishable only by 39 lashes. If a person performs such a deed under duress he is not punishable at all. If he had not been forced to do what he did under threat of death he is punishable by 39 lashes even if he had not been warned of the consequences of his deed by witnesses acceptable in Jewish law (Makkot 6). Moses therefore wanted to know the circumstances which caused Aaron to make the calf.

Aaron replied: אתה ידעת את העם הזה כי בדע הוא, "you know from observing the people that they are bent on doing something corrupt." He added that as far as Moses' assumption that he, Aaron, had made the calf with his own hands was concerned, this was not so. All he had done was to throw the gold into the crucible. The calf emerged totally unassisted. This follows the description in the Tanchuma which we quoted earlier according to which the Egyptian sorcerers Yanus and Yambrus made the calf. Aaron explained that if not for this factor which was beyond his control, there would not have been a sin at all as he had made neither a form nor an image.

Another meaning of Moses asking: "what have the people done to you?" could be this: "Did they put you under sufficient pressure so that you could legally have agreed to comply?" Moses asked whether Aaron had correctly contrasted the enormity, חטאה גדולה, of the sin involved before deciding that he did not have to make a martyr of himself by agreeing to do whatever he did. Aaron replied by outlining the circumstances of what had transpired.

כי פרוע הוא, for it was out of control, etc. The Torah means that the people had forfeited the protective cover of the שכינה which had hovered over them since the revelation at Mount Sinai.

כי פרעה אהרון, "for Aaron had let them loose." Perhaps the Torah means that having heard Aaron's answer Moses was now certain that the fault was entirely the people's seeing that Aaron's part in the debacle had been quite incidental. The real fault lay with the people who had contributed their gold, and the sorcery which had subsequently been performed with that gold. The literal meaning of these words then would be that by his explanation Aaron had let loose an accusation at the people.

לשמצה בקמיהם for a derision among their enemies. Any small measure of an abomination is called שמץ. Our sages in Sanhedrin 102 state that ever since the episode of the golden calf any punishment the Israelites face for any sin committed since, contains some small part of the punishment which had not been administered at the time they committed that sin. It may also mean that whenever the nations display hostility against the Jews one of their arguments of our unworthiness includes a reminder of the sin of the golden calf this nation had become guilty of.

איש את אחיו…ואיש את קרובו. "every man his brother …or his relative." We need to explore why the Torah had to add the words "and each man his relative," seeing the Torah had already authorised the Levites to kill even brothers who are the closest relatives. We have to remember that there are different categories of "brothers" whose outlook on life and whose lifestyles may be drastically different from one another although they are the sons of the same parents. On the other hand, there are people who are not at all related to each other by blood-ties and yet share the same outlook on life and the same lifestyle. All of this is due to the origin of the respective souls of these people rather than to the origin of their bodies. There are souls whose roots are very close to each other and who become separated from one another by being assigned to bodies which are far apart from one another. The reverse is true also. This is why Moses' instructions to the Levites had to include both such possibilities.

בני לוי, the members of the tribe of Levi, etc. The Torah did not say that all the Levites displayed this loyalty by rallying to Moses' call. We need to understand why this part of the verse had to be written at all and the Torah was not content with reporting the Levites' response to Moses' call in verse 26 when all of them are reported as rallying around their leader. Perhaps the Torah wanted to stress that no one except the Levites acted as executioners at the behest of Moses. Verse 26 in which all the Levites are reported as rallying around Moses would not have made it plain that Moses had charged only the Levites with the task of being executioners. That verse only told us that all the Levites responded to Moses' original call. We could have thought that some Israelites responded in addition to all of the Levites. The Torah had to make clear that only Levites actually carried out Moses' instructions. The emphasis in "the Levites did what Moses said" is not so much on the Levites who did not do so but on the absence of any of the members of other tribes being prepared to kill idolators.

כדבר משה, in accordance with the word of Moses. The Torah emphasises that Moses' word alone sufficed to prompt those Levites to take such drastic action against the active idolators. It could also mean that they did so without delay as soon as Moses had finished giving them their instructions.

מלאו ידכם היום, "consecrate yourselves this day, etc." It is not clear what the word "consecrate" is supposed to mean in this context. If it referred to the matter of killing one's relatives, this had already occurred. It should have been reported prior to the Levites carrying out Moses' orders.

I believe we can explain this verse as being in its proper place. The Torah felt that inasmuch as these Levites had carried out executions with their own hands, something that certainly is not characteristic of righteous people, their image had to be restored. We have learned in Makkot 7 that any court which carries out a death sentence once in seven years (according to some even once in seventy years) is labelled as "a murderous court." In this instance the Levites killed about 3,000 people in a single day. There was a fear that their souls could have been tarnished by the experience seeing that though what they had done was perfectly legal it might leave a residue of mercilessness or a streak of cruelty in their character. In order to reassure both them and the people, Moses the man of G'd, told them to "consecrate their hands." This was not a commandment but a reassurance that by the very act of carrying out the task allocated to them they had consecrated themselves to the service of the Lord. Not only did their action not hint at a character deficiency in them, but, on the contrary, it reflected that they were spiritually very enlightened. The proof was that they did not protest having to sacrifice their own sons or close relatives which put them in a category similar to that of Abraham at the time he was willing to offer up Isaac. G'd testified that Abraham had reached the pinnacle of perfection after he had demonstrated that he had not withheld Isaac (Genesis 22,12). G'd had given Abraham a double blessing at that time (Genesis 22,17). Moses assured the Levites that they too were recipients of a similar blessing by G'd as a reward for what they had done, i.e. ולתת עליכם היום ברכה.

Moses was very precise in describing this blessing as עליכם, which implied something additional, instead of saying לכם. He told the Levites that not only was G'd's blessing not required to restore a character defect which had been revealed when they acted as mass executioners, but there had not been a character defect in the first place, and He now added a further positive dimension to their respective characters by granting them this blessing. We may view the whole episode as similar to an orchard in which the trees have to be pruned in order to assure that the remaining branches develop more successfully. The house of Israel has frequently been compared to a vineyard (Psalms, 80,9 et al). When Moses spoke of the blessing that G'd would bestow עליכם, "upon you," the meaning of עליכם is "thanks to you," thanks to what you have done, the entire Jewish people will experience such a blessing. It was not the Levites who had been deficient but the people. By removing the superfluous members of the Jewish people, the Levites had assured the successful development of the remaining branches of the trees in that orchard. When we had previously quoted the Talmud which characterised a court that carried out death-sentences as "murderous," the circumstances described in the Talmud do not match what happened here at all, for two reasons. 1) The Levites (read court) executed their beloved ones. This demonstrated that their love for G'd was greater than their love for their errant family members. 2) Failure to carry out these sentences would have condemned the whole nation to destruction at the hands of G'd. The executioners therefore were the life savers of the people, not "murderous." G'd's anger abated only as a result of their action.

חטא העם הזה, "This nation has committed a very grave sin, etc." It is possible that with these words Moses alluded to something we have learned in Sotah 3, that no one commits a sin unless his brain had first malfunctioned, i.e. that he was out of his mind. This represents a defect in his spiritual life-force, his נפש. By saying חטא, Moses meant that the people's spiritual makeup had lacked an essential ingredient. This was the reason that they made a molten image for themselves. This is one of the arguments man will use after death when he faces His Maker and has to account for his sins in this life. He will claim that when he committed a sin he was not of sound mind. Although he will be punished, seeing he himself was the cause of being of unsound mind, his punishment will not be as severe as if he had been of perfectly sound mind at the time he comitted the sin.

Another thought Moses may have had in mind when he formulated these words is connected to the tradition (Kidushin 40) that when man is punished for idolatry he is punished for his idolatrous thoughts alone. When Moses spoke of the people having committed a grave sin without specifying the nature of that sin, he referred to the idolatrous thoughts the people had entertained. As far as their sin in deed was concerned, Moses spelled this out by adding: "they have made golden deities for themselves."

ועתה אם תשא חטאתם "And now, if You are prepared to forgive their sin, etc." We have to understand this wording as corresponding to a statement in Bereshit Rabbah 21,6 according to which the word עתה is always used as related to repentance. Moses argued that seeing the Israelites had already repented, they qualified for forgiveness.

אם תשא חטאתם "if You forgive their sin, etc." Why did Moses leave the second half of the sentence unfinished? Perhaps we must understand Moses as saying: "and now," seeing that the Israelites have already done תשובה, i.e. they have done their part, it is up to You G'd to do Your part. Moses did not know if G'd would accept repentance seeing the sin was so grave. This is why he did not complete the verse, waiting for G'd to complete the other half of the sentence.

ואם אין מתני נא מספרן אשר כתבת "and if not, please erase me from the book You have written." A broker is entitled to a commission for all the deals he is instrumental in concluding between two parties. Inasmuch as Moses had "brokered" many deals between G'd and Israel of which the Israelites' acceptance of G'd's Torah was not the least, he was certain that his part in all this had been duly recorded in G'd's Book of records. He argued that if G'd were not to forgive the people He would have to erase all the merits Moses had acquired thus far and which had been recorded in that Book. His own merits, after all, had only been achieved through his association with the Jewish people. G'd answered him that his reasoning was faulty; He would erase only the previously recorded merits of the sinner from His Book. The merits which had been acquired through someone's association with someone else would certainly not be negatively affected through sins committed subsequently by that third party.

Moses' argument can also be understood in light of the Zohar volume 3, page 273 that all the souls of the generation of Israelites travelling through the desert were "branches" of Moses' soul. If G'd were not to forgive the sins of the Israelites, the effect on Moses' own soul would be devastating. This is why he urged G'd to "wipe me out from Your Book." G'd answered him that only the branches of his soul would be damaged by the sins their bodies committed, not the "trunk (i.e. root) of their souls."

Another meaning of Moses' words may be that he told G'd that he himself had been guilty of many errors such as recorded in Exodus 5,22 when he had accused G'd of dealing harshly with the Jewish people. Apparently, G'd had forgiven him his errors else He would have to erase him too from His Book as his sin too was unforgivable. G'd answered Moses that it was the nature of the sin of the Israelites,- "they sinned against Me," -which made it impossible to accept repentance without decreeing punishment. Idolatry is a sin against G'd's Essence. It cannot go unpunished even when the guilty have been truly penitent.

The entire dialogue between Moses and G'd concerned only the timing of the forgiveness. Moses wanted G'd to display forgiveness at once so that the generation of Israelites who had committed this sin could still remain inscribed in the Book of the Righteous. As far as G'd eventually forgiving the Jewish people was concerned, he had no doubts about that. It would certainly occur not later than the Day of Atonement. Moses chose his words very carefully when he spoke about מספרך אשר כתבת, "from the Book which You have written." G'd in the Heavens has three Books. One contains the names of the righteous, another contains the names of the wicked people on earth; the third contains names of people who are considered "borderline" cases. The three Books are open in front of G'd on New Year's Day. G'd personally inscribes the names of the "righteous," the deserving people in the first Book. This is why Moses referred to that Book as "Your Book." He had to add the words "which you have inscribed," as the suffix "your" Book would not make clear whether G'd ever reviews anything written in that Book. After all, seeing the whole universe belongs to G'd, each Book in Heaven would certainly also be described as "Your Book."

Rosh Hashanah 16 explains the words מספרך as referring to the Book in which the righteous are listed; the words אשר כתבת refer to the Book in which the borderline cases are recorded; according to the Talmud (Kidushin 40) one must always view oneself as being a borderline case, as if the next act one performs could tilt the scales of the world either towards "guilty" or towards "innocent." Berachot 61 tenders similar advice. In view of the foregoing, Moses considered himself as a בינוני, "a borderline case" just like every other Jew. If G'd were not to forgive the Jewish people, which would result in a diminution of his own merits, Moses himself would automatically lose his place in the Book of the בינונים and would become part of the Book in which the names of the wicked appear.

Still another way of understanding this verse is that Moses argued that his own standing would become that of a righteous person if G'd were to find the Israelites as righteous, seeing most of his own merits derived from them. If G'd were to fail to forgive the Israelites, Moses would himself carry the burden of the sins of the Israelites as any merits he had acquired due to his efforts on their behalf would be considered as null and void or even worse. He would have been better off if he had never accepted the task of leading the Jewish people.

Another aspect of Moses' argument is that it is part of his response to G'd's offer to make a new Jewish nation out of him after G'd had destroyed the present generation of Jews. Moses simply told G'd that if He were not willing to forgive the Jewish people now, he for his part would prefer to be wiped out of G'd's Book rather than become the founder of what would in effect be a substitute Jewish nation. The underlying thought here is that a) a threat by G'd not accompanied by an oath remains reversible, whereas an oath announcing retribution is irreversible. b) By the same token a promise by G'd that He will do something perceived as good, as desirable, is irreversible even if it was a conditional promise (compare Makkot 11). Accordingly, when G'd had promised to make a new nation out of Moses, this had been recorded in G'd's "Book," a book known as the Sefer Hayashar. Moses' prayer then was that G'd should cancel the entry which contained the promise to make a new nation out of his offspring. G'd told Moses that He would indeed not abrogate the promise to the Patriarachs concerning the future of their offspring while at the same time He would not retract the promise He had made to Moses. We find that He fulfilled His promise to make a nation out of Moses in Chronicles I 23, 14-18 which concludes with the statement: "the descendants of Rechaviah kept multiplying." Berachot 7 claims this means that there were more than 600,000 of Moses' descendants.

אשר עשה אהרן which Aaron had made. What was the Torah's purpose in making this statement at this point? Perhaps G'd wanted us to know that the Israelites were punished for causing Aaron to become the innocent maker of the golden calf. G'd deals severely with anyone who causes a great and holy man such as Aaron to become involved in the performance of a sin.

Alternatively, the Torah wanted to ward off any accusation anyone had levelled against Aaron who was only technically the maker of the golden calf, and to place the blame where it belonged. The fact that G'd smote the people for a calf which Aaron had made, is evidence that G'd considered the people as having made the calf.

לך עלה מזה, "go and ascend from this place, etc." The mention of an "ascent" is significant. Perhaps the Torah alludes to Shabbat 88 where we are told that Moses appropriated for himself the jewelry the Israelites stripped off themselves. [That "jewelry" was always perceived as being spiritual, such as the phylacteries. Ed.] This is alluded to here by the use of the word עלה in addition to לך. The apparently superfluous word אתה, "you," further supports the idea that the Torah speaks about an ascent by Moses which signified a spiritual dimension. The spiritual ascent was limited to Moses, i.e. אתה, as distinct from the people. As far as the people were concerned, G'd's instruction was only: לך, "go on."

לאמור, "to say, etc." When the Torah reported communications from G'd to the Patriarchs, such communications did not usually involve לאמור, i.e. that they were to be passed on to others. The Torah wishes to remind us that whenever G'd had spoken to the Patriarchs promising to give the Holy Land to their descendants, such promises were לאמור, i.e. they were meant to be relayed by the Patriarchs to their children, etc.

ושלחתי לפניך מלאך, "and I will send an angel ahead of you, etc." It is clear from this verse that up until now G'd had meant for Moses personally to lead the children of Israel into the Holy Land and to distribute it to them. We have a line in Exodus 6,1 where G'd told Moses: עתה תראה "now you will see," and many commentators understood this to mean that Moses would be a witness only to the Exodus from Egypt but not to the conquest of the land of Canaan. Perhaps G'd had cancelled that decree in consideration of how Moses had interceded on behalf of the Jewish people, putting his own future on the line.

פן אכלך בדרך, "lest I consume you on the way." There is no comparison between someone who angers his teacher while in his teacher's presence to someone who takes advantage of the teacher's absence to anger him. בדרך, "on the way." This is a hint that the announcement that "only" an angel will accompany the Jewish people would not apply at all times and in all circumstances. When Israel would be in a city, i.e. in a relatively safe environment, G'd Himself would be near them (compare Isaiah 26,1).

According to the Kabbalists the desert is the home of Samael who succeeded on several occasions to overpower and kill Jews who lacked G'd's protection due to their share in the sin. The Zohar volume 2 page 157 expands on that theme when commenting on the words המדבר הגדול והנורא in Deut. 1,17. It uses that verse as proof of how dangerous it is to be בדרך, "on the way."

ודבר ה׳ אל משה פנים אל פנים, "and G'd spoke with Moses face to face." The message of this verse is that the intimacy between Moses and G'd was in direct proportion to the preparation Moses made to welcome G'd's presence. This teaches each of us that the attainment of sanctity is in direct proportion to the efforts we make to attain it.

כאשר ידבר איש אל רעהו, "as a man speaks to his friend." We understand this simile as emphasising the word רעהו, "his friend." We find a similar thought in Proverbs 27,19: "as face to face [is reflected] in water, so man's heart [will be reflected by his counterpart]." Solomon speaks of a mental telepathy between the hearts of people who do not even see each other but perceive whether their counterpart loves them or hates them. The relationship between man and invisible G'd is based on something deeper than the exterior sense of sight. The heart senses the attitude of its opposite number. If someone prepares to love his fellow man the heart of his fellow man responds to such invisible feelings. Alternatively, the meaning is that just as his "friend" will not love him unless he has reciprocated the feeling of love, so is G'd's attitude to us. If one wishes to gauge one's standing in the eyes of G'd one needs only to examine one's own attitude towards G'd and His service. If one feels the urge to serve the Lord and delights in doing so, this is proof that G'd relates to such a person with love.