The Sin of the Golden Calf: The Whole Story Doesn't Make Sense - until now

it's not something that happened a long time ago and we might as well forget it no it's telling us that when god offered us a minor angel accompaniment we were not interested uh we've spoken about this many times that uh every story in the torah every story in the bible is a divine revelation not an ordinary story not a common story not a predictable story it's a revelation of some divine wisdom not certainly of pop psychology so when a story seems to be a little too ordinary we got to think twice we got to re-examine dig deeper find some commentary because this needs to be explained we also have to pay attention to the grammar to the tenses because everything in the torah is perfect and purposeful so present past future we they us we're going to pay attention to these things because there is so much more to the words when we understand them properly than at first glance so let's talk about one of the most famous stories in the in the torah and that is the making of the golden calf the jews are standing at the foot of mount sinai god comes down to the mountain and proclaims ten commandments and then gives moses moshe who's up on the mountain the commandments in writing engraved in a precious stone or two stones where did this golden calf come from how is it possible that they hear from god himself you shall make no graven images and then 40 days later they're worshiping a golden calf how is that possible and the ordinary conventional explanations don't hold water because it shouldn't be possible so let's take a look at the wording of the story moshe says to the people i'm going up to the mountain i'm going to be there for 40 days and on the 40th day before noon i will return on the 39th day the people expected moshe to show up because they assumed that the day that moshe told them that it's going to be 40 days was day number one but it wasn't because part of that day had already passed and when moshe said 40 days he meant 40 complete days so the 40 days began the night because the night precedes the day so the 40 days began the night after moshe told them that he would be back in 40 days so they misunderstood they miscalculated and they said this man moshe we don't know what happened to him looks like he's not coming back so we need a replacement a substitute a substitute for motion some leader some indicator as to how we should travel when we should travel how do we get to israel which is where they were headed now the people approach aaron moshe's brother and they say we need a substitute for motion aaron says you got gold and they immediately handed all their gold over to aaron aaron throws it into the fire and out comes a golden calf nobody carved it nobody created it they threw the gold into the fire and a calf shows up and then the people said this is your god o israel who took you out of egypt so there are few things we need to understand here they started off saying we need a substitute for motion so whatever they were going to create was going to be a leader a compass that will guide them in their journey but then the golden calf comes out and all of a sudden they're saying ah this is your god who took you out of egypt that was not the plan the plan was not to find the substitute god the plan was to find a substitute for motion so what happened number two who's talking who is saying to whom this is your god israel who took you out of egypt your god if all the people were doing this then who is speaking to whom it should be this is our god we also find that after moshe comes down off the mountain and he breaks the tablets throws them down and he says whoever is still loyal to god follow me and the entire tribe of levy the levite all joined him which means at least one entire tribe did not partake or participate in this in this plan so it wasn't the entire people but who said to whom this is your god and what does it mean that they threw the gold into the fire and out came a golden calf how did that happen what was aaron's thinking certainly aaron was not about to participate in anything idolatrous in any way at all not even peripherally so what is he saying give me the gold and i'll make a i'll make an idol for you so the entire story begs for commentary background illumination what in the world is going on so if we read carefully moshe is on the mountain and god suddenly says to moshe go down you have to descend not only off the mountain but from the exalted position you're in you've lost that position because you represented a great people now the people are not so great so neither are you a great leader gets his greatness from the people he's not greater than the people so when the people go down the leader goes down so god says you have just descended you've just lost your lofty position because because the your people who you brought out of egypt have messed up and they've created a graven image it's kind of strange for god to say your people who you took out of egypt when it was god who performed the plagues who brought the plagues and all the miracles and it's god's people how many times did moshe say to pharaoh so says the god of israel let my people go but now they mess up and all of a sudden it's not his people it's moshe's people and moshe brought them out of egypt so we find out that when the jews left egypt a great multitude of egyptians joined them what was this great multitude that's a little redundant isn't it multitude means great and great means multitude the people who joined the jews were the sorcerers the advisors the magicians the elite among pharaoh's people so it was many of them and they were great in stature in egypt moshe did not ask god whether they were welcome to join or not he assumed it's a good thing somebody wants to get closer to god why not problem is that it turned out that they were not sincere about god they wanted to join the jewish people because the jewish people were the victors you always go with the winner egypt was down egypt was destroyed so they figured why go down with the ship let's join the victorious jews and share in their success they were not interested in the god of israel so god says to moshe the people you brought he wasn't talking about the jewish people he was talking about the multitude the riffraff which is really a hebrew term erev the riffraff that you brought without asking me you invited them to join well they messed up and they made a graven image how did they do it they were sorcerers they used their magic and they turned the gold into a calf that's what it means their original feeling that the people had the jewish people was we need to substitute for motion but that's not what the riffraff were thinking they were thinking we can we can become heroes now and we can become leaders and advisers to the jewish people if we show them what we can do and we can give them other gods which is another interesting thing if you look at the words carefully after the golden calf came out of the fire somebody said to somebody these are your gods plural there's only one calf and yet they said these gods because that was just the beginning of their plan their plan was to introduce many gods just as it was in egypt there's an interesting comment commentary why a calf they could have made anything out of that gold magically naturally manually why a calf in the blessings that that jacob yaakov gives his children he refers to many of them as having the qualities of a certain animal yehuda was a lion joseph who was the hero of egypt is described as an ox the strength of an ox so it was in their mind that if they want to introduce a god to the jewish people they should use a jewish theme a popular jewish theme and so they turned it into a calf because it was reminiscent of joseph so every word every detail of the story is is meaningful so what happens the riffraff decide to change the agenda from a substitute for moshe to a substitute for god and that's why they said to the jewish people these are your gods who took you out of egypt they had to convince the jews because that was not what the jews originally were asking for they were looking for a substitute for motion now what happened to aaron aaron's thinking was this is not idolatry they're looking for a substitute for motion so all i have to do is delay them a little bit moshe is coming tomorrow morning and it all be over the problem will be gone so the first thing he says was do you have any gold figuring they won't part with their gold so quickly to his surprise and dismay they immediately offered the gold so he said i need the gold of your wives and children's jewelry thinking they won't let their gold be taken and that will delay things and so on then he said to them let me do this let me create whatever it is we need to create it sounded like he was volunteering to do the work what he was really saying was if we all chip in it'll happen too quickly let me do it as a special project that'll take me a while and in the meantime moshe will show up but if the agenda was idolatry aaron wouldn't touch it with a 10-foot pole and the fact that people were were violent and threatening would not have intimidated him because the one sin you should not commit even if it's going to save your life is idolatry and murder and adultery so aaron was afraid that if he resisted and simply refused they would kill him what made him think that his nephew miriam's son the son of khalid he stood up against them and said no way this is not going to happen and they killed him so there was no doubt that they would kill aaron too so aaron decided that he's going to play along but he was playing along because it wasn't idolatry when it became idolatry it was too late there was nothing aaron could do so when moshe comes down off the mountain and he sees that there's a golden calf he says to aaron what did they do to you how did they get you to cooperate idolatry so aaron defends himself and says no they were confused about you not about god there was no need to sacrifice my life for that but then it turned and all of a sudden it was about idols another interesting thing was moshe comes down off the mountain with the ten commandments with with the tablets actually let me let me clarify this also what does tablets mean i think a tablet is a flat piece of wood or stone with some writings on it these were not flat pieces of stone first of all it was sapphire secondly there were cubes not tablets so they were very heavy how do we know this well because the ark that contained the stones was built to perfect measurement so if you look at the measurements of the arc it wasn't built for tablets it was built for cubes i'm not sure what the measurements are in english so i'm not even going to guess that but they must have been very heavy so moshe carries the stones the cubes down from heaven down from the top of the mountain and when he sees the golden calf he throws them to the foot of the mountain and they break why did he carry them down the mountain while he was at the top of the mountain god said your people blew it they made a graven image so moshe should have abandoned the stones right there don't even bring them down why bring them down and break them just don't bring them at all the purpose in breaking the stones was that the stones were like the contract the formal agreement god said orally thou shalt have no other gods and make no graven images but that was not necessarily binding but when it came in writing and etched in stone that would be a binding commitment and then jews would be unforgivable so moshe says no i'm not delivering this contract we're not signing it the the deal is off because um if he gave them the ten com if he gave them the the written word then there would be no forgiving them for the idolatry so to save them he broke the contract but then the question is he could have left it up at the top of the mountain and not deliver it at all the sages who receive this tradition from moshe tell us that when moshe heard god say the jews made a golden calf or a graven image he didn't believe it he heard it from god and he didn't believe it because that's what a devoted leader does he always argues in favor of the people so even when god said they made a graven image most of moshe said that that can't be maybe something like a graven image but nah not literally a graven image people would never do that that was his greatness but when he saw the golden calf with his own eyes then he had no choice but to cancel the contract god actually appreciated and thanked him for doing that that's the kind of leadership god wants for his people so now the final question is that the end of the story they made a golden calf it was terrible god was very angry moshe got god to forgive them that's it overdone why do we need to know this something happened as a result that we do need to know after they make they make the golden calf god said i forgive them i will not wipe them out but we're not the same anymore from now on i will send an angel to guide you along your way but i am not personally going to accompany you the people could not accept this after they repented and paid the price for their sin they couldn't accept this and moshe comes back up the mountain and says to god if you're coming with us then let us go if you're not coming with us then what's the point of going so an angel we're not interested in angels we want you to come with us we want to go with you if you're not going then we won't go either so god said okay i'm coming with you that we needed to know and we need to know it today once god promised i will be your personal guide no substitute will ever come up again so what we're being told actually is not that it once happened that the jewish people looked for a substitute for a minor god it's not something that happened a long time ago and we might as well forget it no it's telling us that when god offered us a minor angel accompaniment we were not interested and so god said oh so you do have a little devotion in you so you do really want to be connected to me in that case i will be your personal guide forever and since then it has never happened in the worst times and we've had some pretty harsh times a golden calf has never happened again we have become immune it's god himself who sees us through the most difficult of times and sometimes it's not obvious like in the miracle of purim but there was no question in the minds of the jews of that time that this was god being there for us yet again so the message the lesson for us today from that story so many beautiful messages aaron's good intentions to just delay motion not believing that the jews would ever do something like that god being moved by the people's devotion saying if that's how you feel about me then that's how i will treat you i will personally accompany you until the end when we're settled into the promised land forever that's the rest of the story we have a sunday night program for vips that you might be interested in it's informal it's questions and answers it's conversation it's really relaxed it's really pleasant enjoyable informative and kind of community-like it's a sunday night program there's a wednesday morning program for the vips and there's a wednesday night program all of it just conversation casual laid back unscripted so join us take a look click the link below and see which which of the three suits you best and join us for some enjoyable conversation you

Channel: Rabbi Manis Friedman

Views: 222,726

Keywords: education, educational, training, torah, judaism, chabad, religion, which religion in china, judaism beliefs, judaism definition, manis friedman, rabbi manis friedman, life, start online college today, apply for online college classes, Insurance, Loans, Mortgage, Attorney, Credit, Lawyer, Donate, Degree, Hosting, Claim, donate car, charity, life advice, self help, better life, happiness, wellness, Conference Call, Trading, Software, Recovery, Transfer, Gas/Electricity, Classes, Rehab, Treatment, Cord Blood

Id: _Wbf5KmoumY

Length: 32min 23sec (1943 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 04 2021