When God revealed Himself upon Mount Sinai, all Israel sang a song of
jubilation to the Lord, for their faith in God was on this occasion
without bounds and unexampled, except possibly at the time of the
Messiah, when they likewise will cherish this firm faith. The angels,
too, rejoiced with Israel, only God was down-cast on this day and sent
His voice "out of thickest darkness," in token of His sorrow. The
angels hereupon said to God: "Is not the joy that Thou hast created
Thine?" But God replied: "You do not know what the future will bring."
He knew that forty days later Israel would give the lie to the words of
God: "Thou shalt have no other gods before Me," and would adore the
Golden Calf. [261] And truly, God had sufficient cause to grow sad at
this thought, for the worship of the Golden Calf had more disastrous
consequences for Israel than any other of their sins. God had resolved
to give life everlasting to the nation that would accept the Torah,
hence Israel upon accepting the Torah gained supremacy over the Angel
of Death. But they lost this power when they worshipped the Golden
Calf. As a punishment for this, their sin, they were doomed to study
the Torah in suffering and bondage, in exile and unrest, amid cares of
life and burdens, until, in the Messianic time and in the future world,
God will compensate them for all their sufferings. [262] But until that
time there is no sorrow that falls to Israel's lot that is not in part
a punishment for their worship of the Golden Calf. [263]
Strange as it may seem that Israel should set out to worship this idol
at the very time when God was busied with the preparation of the two
tables of the law, still the following circumstances are to be
considered. When Moses departed from the people to hasten to God to
receive the Torah, he said to them: "Forty days from to-day I will
bring you the Torah." But at noon on the fortieth day Satan came, and
with a wizard's trick conjured up for the people a vision of Moses
lying stretched out dead on a bier that floated midway between earth
and heaven. Pointing to it with their fingers, they cried: "This is the
man Moses that bought us up out of the land of Egypt." [264] Under the
leadership of the magicians Jannes and Jambres, they appeared before
Aaron, saying: "The Egyptians were wont to carry their gods about with
them, to dance and play before them, that each might be able to behold
his gods; and now we desire that thou shouldst make us a god such as
the Egyptians had." When Hur, the son of Miriam, whom Moses during his
absence had appointed joint leader of the people with Aaron, owing to
his birth which placed him among the notables of highest rank, beheld
this, he said to them: "O ye frivolous ones, you are no longer mindful
of the many miracles God wrought for you." In their wrath, the people
slew this pious and noble man; and, pointing out his dead body to
Aaron, they said to him threateningly: "If thou wilt make us a god, it
is well, if not we will dispose of thee as of him." Aaron had no fear
for his life, but he thought: "If Israel were to commit so terrible a
sin as to slay their priest and prophet, God would never forgive them."
He was willing rather to take a sin upon himself than to cast the
burden of so wicked a deed upon the people. He therefore granted them
their wish to make them a god, but he did it in such a way that he
still cherished the hope that this thing might not come to pass. Hence
he demanded from them not their own ornaments for the fashioning of the
idol, but the ornaments of their wives, their sons, and their
daughters, thinking: "If I were to tell them to bring me gold and
silver, they would immediately do so, hence I will demand the earrings
of their wives, their sons, and their daughters, that through their
refusal to give up their ornaments, the matter might come to nought."
But Aaron's assumption was only in part true; the women indeed did
firmly refuse to give up their jewels for the making of a monster that
is of no assistance to his worshippers. As a reward for this, God gave
the new moons as holidays to women, and in the future world too they
will be rewarded for their firm faith in God, in that, like the new
moons, they too, may monthly be rejuvenated. But when the men saw that
no gold or silver for the idol was forthcoming from the women, they
drew off their own earrings that they wore in Arab fashion, and brought
these to Aaron. [265]
No living calf would have shaped itself out of the gold of these
earrings, if a disaster had not occurred through an oversight of Aaron.
For when Moses at the exodus of Israel from Egypt set himself to
lifting the coffin of Joseph out of the depths of the Nile, he employed
the following means: He took four leaves of silver, and engraved on
each the image of one of the beings represented at the Celestial
Throne, - the lion, the man, the eagle, and the bull. He then cast on
the river the leaf with the image of the lion, and the waters of the
river became tumultuous, and roared like a lion. He then threw down the
leaf with the image of man, and the scattered bones of Joseph united
themselves into an entire body; and when he cast in the third leaf with
the image of the eagle, the coffin floated up to the top. As he had no
use for the fourth leaf of silver with the image of the bull, he asked
a woman to store it away for him, while he was occupied with the
transportation of the coffin, and later forgot to reclaim the leaf of
silver. This was now among the ornaments that the people brought to
Aaron, and it was exclusively owing to this bull's image of magical
virtues, that a golden bull arose out of the fire into which Aaron put
the gold and silver. [266]
When the mixed multitude that had joined Israel in their exodus from
Egypt saw this idol conducting itself like a living being, they said to
Israel: "This is thy God, O Israel." [267] The people then betook
themselves to the seventy members of the Sanhedrin and demanded that
they worship the bull that had led Israel out of Egypt. "God," said
they, "had not delivered us out of Egypt, but only Himself, who had in
Egypt been in captivity." The members of the Sanhedrin remained loyal
to their God, and were hence cut down by the rabble. [268] The twelve
heads of the tribes did not answer the summons of the people any more
than the members of the Sanhedrin, and were therefore rewarded by being
found worthy of beholding the Divine vision. [269]
But the people worshipped not only the Golden Calf, they made thirteen
such idols, one each for the twelve tribes, and one for all Israel.
More than this, they employed manna, which God in His kindness did not
deny them even on this day, as an offering to their idols. [270] The
devotion of Israel to this worship of the bull is in part explained by
the circumstance that while passing through the Red Sea, they beheld
the Celestial Throne, and most distinctly of the four creatures about
the Throne, they saw the ox. It was for this reason that they hit upon
the notion that the ox had helped God in the exodus from Egypt, and for
this reason did they wish to worship the ox beside God. [271]
The people then wanted to erect an altar for their idol, but Aaron
tried to prevent this by saying to the people: "It will be more
reverential to your god if I build the altar in person," for he hoped
that Moses might appear in the meantime. His expectation, however, was
disappointed, for on the morning of the following day, when Aaron had
at length completed the altar, Moses was not yet at hand, and the
people began to offer sacrifices to their idol, and to indulge in
lewdness. [272]