The story of the Golden Calf represents an enormous trauma in Israelite and later Jewish history, so enormous that ”the Sin of the Calf” is referred to many times in later texts. It is worth looking a little at what (or so it is reported) happened.
The Hebrews have just been liberated – itself a melodramatic and traumatising experience; They are disoriented and insecure in their new situation. What does it mean to be both free and wholly dependent at the same time? Dislocated. They have witnessed (but not themselves all directly experienced) the several supernatural blows against Egypt and its water supply, its economy and its priesthood and then its military. They have walked, terrified, through a sea. They have survived (with casualties) an unexpected attack by a marauding tribe. They have had to cope with issues of finding food and water in an hostile environment. One can be sure it was not easy. Probably by now already the kids are asking ”Are we there yet? How long will it be still?” and of course they have no answer. Their new self-appointed leader is a fellow who appeared out of the desert one day and does not even properly speak their language, though he can speak Egyptian with a stutter. He is neither a full-Israelite nor a full-Egyptian. His very name is not really a Hebrew one. His life story does not hold up to investigation. Is he a lost Israelite baby, an Egyptian prince or a Midianite shepherd? Is he really one of them? His brother acts as his spokesman and has just been made (together with his nephews) into the main priests to regulate the worship of a new strange God who has neither a name nor a face. What on earth or in heaven are they meant to believe? Whom are they meant to trust?
After some days of what probably seems like stumbling aimlessly along, for they have no real information as to their destination. Moses tells them to stop and make camp; He is going to have to go up a mountain to talk to his superior, this anonymous invisible deity. He leaves Aharon in charge during his absence. But the absence is extended longer and longer and Aharon too has no idea how long it will continue, or what has happened to his reappeared and now disappeared brother….There is no communication.
Of course up at the summit meeting much information is being exchanged, but this does not apply down below. They have become distracted in the minutiae of the Revelation, in details of the conditions for slaves, of how to deal with conflicts, of the calendar and feasts, of furnishings for the mobile shrine and the observance of the Sabbath and much more besides – Moses is effectively receiving a six-semester course in Law and Theology in a concentrated manner. In 23:24 Moses is told not to bow down or accept any of the local gods of the lands they will go to and in 23:32f even the natives must be expelled so as to ensure there is now corruption of the pure monotheism.
In Chapter 24:1-8 Moses comes down and informs the people of what he has been told, and he writes the matters down (in what script or language?) and builds a simple altar and makes a ”covenant of blood” with the people who all swear collectively ”We will do and we will obey”. But then God summons him to come up again, tells him to bring some of the leaders with him for the first part (only) of the way, and he will receive the tablets which God has been busily writing. We can see here how the concepts of an Oral and a Written Law formed in parallel can arise. In 24:13 Moses sets off back up the mountain again, with Joshua, telling the leaders to wait, and after a week of waiting he is summoned into the cloud and remains there for forty days. That’s a long time….
What does God talk about now? It’s not the big sweeping ethical stuff. Look through Chapters 25, 26 and 27 and we see a detailed inspection of an interior furnishings catalogue; look at Chapter 28 and we are deeply into priestly fashions. Chapter 29 is about anointing the priests, Chapter 30 is about how to make an altar and all sorts of cultic implements and lamps and bowls for the shrine and then in Chapter 31 God has even chosen the craftsmen to make all this. It is obsessive. The God of the universe is fussing about the dimensions of the curtains?
Belatedly, God becomes aware (how?) of what is happening in the Base Camp down below. The delay has gone on too long this time. The people have become – legitimately – impatient. Suddenly God has to react. ”Lech, Red!” he tells Moses. ”Get on down there!”
But it is already too late. In Exodus Chapter 32 the people have come – and here it is interesting to consider whether they come as individuals or as a single unit – and demand of Aharon that he ”make for us a god to lead us – because we do not know what has happened to this fellow who led us out of Egypt.”
This last phrase is a key one and will be repeated several times in different ways. Note it well. How had God first been introduced in Chapter 20:2? ”I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the Land of Egypt….” God does not use a description as the Creator of the World (except in verse 11) or as the God of the Patriarchs; Until now this is the only thing which is clear, visible, unarguable proof of what God has done for these people. God continues in 20:3-6 (and repeating in verse 20, though the sequence of events is hard to reconcile) with a prohibition on following other gods or of making any images of such deities. But – do the people really know this? Have they truly absorbed the idea?
Aharon is of course totally out of his depth. He asks them first to offer the gold from their jewellery and ornaments (possibly thinking to buy time) and then somehow, the text is unclear exactly how, he fashions a calf from the gold. (Does he make a mould and heat the gold fragments until they melt and flow together and pour it into the mould to create a casting? This would take time and tools and skills and a very hot fire….) Then he tells them to celebrate the next day. Also buying time. In 32:4 he tells them (perhaps sarcastically??) that ”THIS is the god who brought them out of Egypt….”
Why a Calf? An ”Eigel”? Perhaps because the Egyptian god Apis, who acted as a messenger between the people and the main gods, appeared as a calf; the goddess Hathor likewise, so these could be precedents, examples of deities with which this people would be familiar.
God seems in 32:8 to be as angry at the fact that they have declared this god to have been their liberator, as at the mere fact of making another god at all. This is indeed ”a jealous God”, jealous also of the title and the monopoly of power and loyalty and allegiance. Moses picks up on this and in his attempt to soothe God’s very ruffled feelings reminds that it was in fact God who had ”brought them out of the land of Egypt” (verse 11) and cleverly turns this into a reason NOT to destroy the people in divine wrath…. It is now Moses who reminds God of the Patriarchs and the promises made to them!
Having calmed God down – for now – Moses sets off back down the mountain, with the written tablets, meets up again with Joshua who has apparently been waiting patiently somewhere, together they approach the camp – and the depth of the disaster becomes apparent. Moses is furious also with Aharon, who tries vainly to defend himself, and furious at those who have been somehow the ringleaders of the return, if not to Egypt, then to Egyptian culture. There is bloodshed. Much bloodshed.
In Chapter 33 God tells Moses to move on with the people whom HE has ”led out of the land of Egypt”! God will NOT go with the people as they have not deserved it! But later, as we know, God changes again and decides after all to use the portable Sanctuary established in the middle of the camp, and always taken forwards with them as they continue their journey to the still-unknown future. Moses will have to come up again and make more tablets.
The incident is over, but it is not forgotten; It remains as a reminder of an ultimate betrayal and of how the story nearly ended almost before it had begun. But somehow, I do not blame the Hebrews as much as the rabbis traditionally did. I can empathise with their feelings of being disoriented, leaderless, I can understand their desire to have a God who is somehow definitely ”there”. Abstract monotheism has always been very much a minority concept amongst world religions and belief systems. But however tasty a golden-crumbed veal schnitzel looks, I would still counsel: ”Be careful! Enjoy it, but don’t worship it!”
- Rabbi Dr Walter Rothschild. Berlin, Germany.