Sefer Shemot Chapter 32: The Story of the Egel

Context and Approach to Reading the Narrative

Today we’re learning Sefer Shemot, chapter 32. This is the chapter, or the beginning of the story of the Egel. Let’s try to remind ourselves in context a little bit what we’re up to, then try to read the story and understand the story.

It’s also one of the stories that go back and forth, repeat themselves—or not literal repetition, but it’s quite complex. The general narrative everyone knows, but if you actually try to read the text you see that it’s quite complex, comes back and forth, especially in the next chapter, the next two chapters really, 33 and 34, which consists of a dialogue between Hashem and Moshe which is quite hard to follow or to understand all the steps of it.

Again, my impression with all these things is that we don’t have to read it as if every step is a change. There’s more of some story that gets—has a light shining on it from different perspectives, and some things that are simultaneous get split up as if they’re in time. And these kinds of stories, that’s my general approach that I’m using in this version of learning the Chumash.

Connecting to the End of Chapter 31

Let’s start like this. The perek starts and I will start one pasuk before the perek starts. The last pasuk of chapter 31, which is that Hashem gave to Moshe as he finished speaking to him two Luchos written with the finger of God, or by the finger of God.

This, of course, takes us back all the way to the end of Parshas Mishpatim, where we discussed, or we read—I don’t think we had a shiur on that yet—how Hashem proposed the entire Torah, and the long version of the Torah, which is then all the laws of Parshas Mishpatim. And we’ll see later in the next chapter how also after there was a second kind of bris, there was also a version of Parshas Mishpatim. So that’s the longer version of the deal, of the covenant, of the contract which is being signed here in the whole longer version of the story of Sinai.

The Timeline: Moshe on the Mountain

And then in the end of Mishpatim we had Hashem calling Moshe to go up to the mountain to him in order to receive the Torah and the Luchos. And that’s where we ended off in the end of Mishpatim. It says we had also a time—it said that Moshe was in the mountain for 40 days and 40 nights.

I think that that’s looking forward—that like we saw for example in the story of the man, we have these summary numbers that the Torah gives us. It’s not to say that we’re already past those 40 days and 40 nights. It’s just to give us a concept of a timeline so we could figure out certain things, but really we’re still in there.

And then we had Parshas Terumah, Tetzaveh, and the beginning of Ki Tisa, which are a lot of laws, mostly the mitzvos of the Mishkan. And I’m not sure how the correct way to read this, but at least one proposal that many people think is that we should read it as if Moshe is in the mountain and that is when he’s receiving all these laws, all these mitzvos of the Mishkan.

So it’s very interesting. There’s the laws that are said, or proposed—as I read “v’eileh hamishpatim asher tasim lifneihem”—are proposed when Moshe is downstairs, down with the people, and he tells them all the halachos of Parshas Mishpatim. And here we have the next series of halachos, which are the mitzvos of the Mishkan, seem to be the mitzvos that are being given to Moshe when he’s on the mountain, so in these 40 days.

That’s one way to read it, and then we’ll see later after the story of the Egel, we go back to Moshe coming down to the mountain the second time or the third time, and there we have him telling the people the mitzvos of the Mishkan. So there seems to be—it’s said twice, right? We have the story of Moshe being commanded the mitzvos of the Mishkan and the story of him telling it to the people, which we don’t have for most mitzvos. And that seems to be specifically to show us how the Mishkan is something that starts up there.

But I don’t know if that’s for sure the way to read it. Like I said, I’m not sure that we should read all these timeline things as if they’re happening one after the other. It could be just the place where it’s put for various reasons. Maybe so we should have this impression, but not necessarily that the story is like this.

The Story Returns to the People Below

The important thing is that now the story returns to when Moshe is coming back down. So it says, “vayiten el Moshe k’chaloso l’daber ito”—I’m finished speaking to Moshe, everything he had to speak to him in Sinai. We can interpret this as meaning—or it could mean whatever else he spoke to him—and he gives him the Luchos, which he called him to get.

Now the story goes back down. So Moshe is still there, so he got the Luchos where ended the story of him going up to get the Luchos. But we’re going back—the eye of the story, so to speak, the lens the story is looking at, turns back down to what happened before that, really, or at the same time before that, with the people down here.

The People’s Request

And it says that the people saw that Moshe is taking his time coming back down from the mountain—”ki voshesh Moshe laredet min hahar.”

I think the most literal understanding with this is—and Rashi has entire calculations to explain this—but I think literally it doesn’t say ever that Moshe told them that he will be there for 40 days. That’s what the pasuk told us, as we explained. It’s a retrospective pasuk giving us the total amount of time that Moshe was in the mountain. But it’s possible for sure that the people had no idea how long he was supposed to be. And he was there for 40 days, which is always an amount of time which symbolizes a long time, like a serious period of time. So they were there for a long time and nobody knew what was going on.

So the people gathered to Aharon and they tell him: “Kum aseh lanu Elohim asher yelchu lefaneinu”—make us a god which will go before us, or gods. “Ki zeh Moshe ha’ish asher he’elanu mei’eretz Mitzrayim lo yadanu meh haya lo”—because this Moshe who took us out of Mitzrayim, we don’t know what happened to him.

Understanding “Elohim” in This Context

So this is the pasuk where the people ask for a god. And this is the pasuk that has caused the most trouble, or it’s the most—the pasuk that causes us the most questions to understand what this story is all about, because this is their demand.

I think that we have to read—and the Kuzari and the Ramban and others understood it this way—we have to read the word “Elohim” here not in the sense of we understand God as the kind of the thing, the abstract power that it represented by it, but “Elohim” as in the physical material thing that represents a god, like we see many times. Even before it says “lo ta’asun iti Elohei chesef”—don’t make for me gods of gold. And this of course literally they did that right away, so they did go against the command. Doesn’t mean that you believe that the gold created the world or the gold is the power itself. The gold god, or the word “Elohim,” often means what we would call the statue or the idol of the god, the icon of the god. It’s itself called a god.

That’s how the language in every pagan society—that’s what we call the god. The icon is called the god. And creating a god means creating an icon of something. Of course, it’s an icon of something. It might be of the same god, obviously of the one who took us out of Mitzrayim.

The Function: “Asher Yelchu Lefaneinu”

And they said we don’t know where Moshe is, and therefore what? And now it also tells us what the function of this god would be. It says “asher yelchu lefaneinu”—and we should read this in light of the story of them being in the desert. And we had in the beginning of Parshas Beshalach, the Amud He’anan and the Amud Ha’eish—they’re going before them is literally leading them, showing them the way in the desert, as if they don’t know where to go.

It might have a broader meaning of right, of like “yoreh lanu et haderech”—tell them how to act. But also has the limited meaning or the image, the literal sense of the image, which is telling them the way to go in the desert. They don’t know where to go. Moshe has been leading them until now, but now they need something to lead them.

And it seems to have been understood that they need some kind of icon, some kind of idol to lead them. Of course, that will be led by priests. As we see, they go to Aharon. Aharon is the priest. We know from all this time, Aharon was considered a Kohen already before. So they’re asking him to make this so that it should show them the way.

Aharon’s Response and the Creation of the Egel

And Aharon agrees. He says, “Parku nizmei hazahav asher b’oznei nisheichem b’neichem u’vnoseichem”—take off the rings, the gold rings that are in your wives and children’s ears and bring them to me. So in other words, there might be some symbolism in this also, but just a way of saying, okay, I’ll need some gold to make it with.

And that’s what they did. They took off their rings. Of course, there’s a difference. He told them to take the rings of their children. It doesn’t say they took their children’s—they took their own. We can think about this.

And he created it. It says “vayatzar oto bacheret”—it probably means something like he forms it with some kind of forming device, or he pushes it together or forms it into some kind of shape and makes it in the shape of an Egel. “Vaya’aseihu egel masecha”—Egel means a calf, and masecha, a poured one.

So cheret seems to have been some kind of—as Aharon later tells Moshe, that he threw it into the fire. So he forges it, right? And cheret is some kind of tool that he used to forge things out of gold. And it becomes an Egel, a calf, a golden calf, made from poured gold, right? From molten gold.

The Declaration and Festival

And so therefore, what did they say? “Vayomru eileh Elohecha Yisrael asher he’elucha mei’eretz Mitzrayim”—and this is a situation that people say whenever you make a new idol, you make a new god. What we call this in Masechet Avodah Zarah, you have to call it a god, you have to call the name of God. These are your gods, Israel, who have taken you up from Egypt.

Of course, again, this doesn’t mean that they think they’re changing the definition of a god. What it means is this is an icon of the god, and this will be this representation that takes you out of Israel.

And Aharon sees—when you have a god, especially when you have a new god, this is really like the Chanukas haBayis of this new god, this new icon that they made. So he builds a Mizbe’ach in front of it and he said tomorrow there will be a Chag. Chag means—we could translate it as a holiday, but really something like a time, a festival. But a time, a festival in the sense of a god means literally, like we see later in the Chagim also, a time to bring sacrifices to it. And that’s what they do. He calls a sacrifice, and he says officially, “LaHashem”—for Yud-Kei-Vav-Kei. So of course this Elohim was supposed to be a representative of Hashem.

And they come in the morning, they bring Olos, they bring Shelamim, they eat and they drink, they start to “l’tzachek”—this is a word with a connotation usually means something bad. But of course when it’s in a good connotation we would just probably say “l’sachek” or something else. And that’s what you do by a festival—at a festival you bring sacrifices and you do some—in ancient pagan festivals there were all kinds of dramas and shows and play games, things like that, and they probably mean something like that. Of course, in the kosher and the holy festivals there’s also things like that, although the word “l’tzachek” I don’t think is mentioned usually. That seems to connote something not so good.

The Scene Shifts Back to Moshe

So that’s the story that we have down here. Now the story flies back up to Moshe. So Moshe, who is still up in the mountain with Hashem getting the Luchos, gets a message, gets a statement from Hashem. “Vayedaber Hashem el Moshe”—and Hashem tells Moshe, go back down because…

The Festival and Letzachek

This is a word with a connotation. Usually it means something bad, but of course, when it’s in a good connotation, we’ll just probably say something else, and that’s what you do by a festival. At a festival, you bring sacrifices, and you do some—like in ancient pagan festivals, there were all kinds of dramas, and shows, and play games, things like that. And it probably means something like that, of course. And, you know, in the kosher, in the holy festivals, there’s also things like that. Although the word lezachak, I don’t think, is mentioned. Usually that seems to connote something not so good. So that’s the story that we have down here.

Hashem’s Message to Moshe

Now, the story flies back up to Moshe. So Moshe, who is still up in the mountain with Hashem, getting the luchas, gets a message, gets a statement from Hashem. That’s a dibber. And Hashem tells Moshe, go back down, because your nation, you take it out of Mitzrayim, has been corrupted—or they have corrupted—they have went away from the way I have commanded them. They created an egel and they bowed down to him and they sacrificed to him and they said—so he repeats to Moshe the exact narrative that we had in the story. And therefore he tells Moshe to go down.

What does go down mean? Do what?

Now he says we have another thing. He says, so Hashem says to Moshe, I see this nation and it’s a hard-necked nation. Therefore let me go and I will be angry at them and I will destroy them. I will make you into a great nation. So that really seems to be what Lech Red is. In other words, Moshe came up to get the luchas for them, and Hashem is kind of saying, let’s drop this because the whole plan was that we shouldn’t have a lezav, we should have me as being the god and this luchas was to represent that. Now they’ve already went away from this way, they’ve turned away from the way that I’ve commanded them, and therefore they’re going to be punished or destroyed and we’ll start fresh. Well, our plan is still a good plan. I’ll make you into a great nation.

So that’s the statement that Hashem tells Moshe—the two statements that he tells Moshe. And we should note here that it doesn’t say they’ve left me, right? It doesn’t say they’ve left my worship. It says they’ve left the way that I commanded them. The way that I commanded them is exactly what he commanded them: don’t make idols of me or before me. But it doesn’t say that they chose a different God. I don’t think that’s what it means.

Moshe’s Prayer

Now Moshe immediately prays. Vaychal Moshe—he prays or he, I don’t know how to translate Vaychal—and he says that, and his prayer is specifically relative to this. Hashem said, I will be mad and I will destroy them, and it says, you’ll remember that you have taken them out from Mitzrayim with your great power. Now the Mitzrayim will say that you’ve taken them out with evil purposes, to kill them in the mountains and to destroy them.

And you will notice the whole time, Hashem tells Moshe, this is your nation, you’ve taken them out of Mitzrayim, and it’s your project really. We’ll take you, you know, something will make you into a great nation. And Moshe keeps on turning it back, says, no, it’s your nation, you have taken them out of Mitzrayim. Of course, Moshe is remembering that he didn’t really want to go to Mitzrayim to take them out. It’s Hashem that sent them. And therefore he tells Hashem it’s your people, you have taken them out, and now it’s really your credibility, your reputation that’s on the line, not my reputation. And now Mitzrayim will say that you have taken them out with a bad purpose. You just take them out to kill them. In other words, you’re really a loser. Your plan of taking them out of Mitzrayim and making them into a great nation hasn’t worked.

And then he says, remember what you promised to Avraham Yitzchak and Yisrael. So this is another argument, really. The first argument is that the Mitzrayim will say that they won, or Mitzrayim will say that God has taken them out in order to kill them. And also there’s a promise. Of course, Hashem might think, okay, but I will fulfill the promise with you, but it seems like he’s saying, that’s not called fulfilling a promise. If you kill all of them and you start from one person, that’s not what it’s meant.

And Hashem listens to him. He regrets, he goes back on the bad thing, the evil that he spoke to say to them, to do to his nation. And he goes back on it and he’s not going to do that. So Moshe has saved, in the first moment, the first moment of God’s anger, Moshe has saved us from that.

Moshe Descends with the Luchas

But the first that he said, the first that Hashem said that Moshe should go down, that is still happening. So Moshe goes down. Of course it was sort of the time to go down if we read the story before that we started it from the previous chapter. So that might be something like—it’s interesting to understand, like if he’s finished, things are already on the way down, so why does he have to tell him to go down? It’s like telling him to go down is itself a problem. But the more important problem was his anger that he was going to destroy them. Now we’re sort of going back to the original plan, or maybe Moshe is still going down in some sense, going down in the bad way as we’ve said.

And Moshe goes down and he has two luchas in his hands and the Torah has a long description of the luchas. They’re written from both sides. They’re the work of God. Their writing of them is the writing of God. It’s inscribed on the luchas. This is a long discussion to have what this exactly means, and it’s in this place, but I’m going to skip it for now.

Yehoshua Hears the Noise

And now Yehoshua. And what happened with Yehoshua? We remember that Yehoshua was Moshe’s general. He was the one that fought for him in the war with Amalek. We remember that when Moshe went up to the mountain at the beginning of the story it says that he went with Yehoshua. It seems like Yehoshua was his servant or his mesharetz as it says. He went with him either up all the way to the mountain or at least somewhere there with him. And therefore Yehoshua hears the sound of the people as they are singing or making noise. This is the sound of the festival that they had. And it tells Moshe that he hears a war.

So Yehoshua was a warrior, he was always thinking of war. And Moshe says no, I do not hear war. I do not hear either the side of the stronger ones or the weaker ones, which is exactly the language that we had in the story of Amalek. But I hear a voice of answering. So Moshe is basically saying I hear something else. And Moshe, of course, already knows what’s going on because Hashem told him. Yehoshua probably doesn’t know, so he’s imagining that it’s a war.

Moshe Breaks the Luchas and Destroys the Egel

And he comes close to the camp, and he sees the egel, he sees the dances around it, which is, of course, the tzchoik that we discussed. He throws down the luchas and he breaks them under the mountain. He takes the egel and he destroys it, he burns it, he grinds it up and throws it into the water and makes them drink this water.

So that’s the first thing that Moshe does. He destroys the egel and destroys the luchas. That seems to have been what Hashem might have meant when he said red mehar. Of course, there’s other readings that say that breaking the luchas is Moshe’s idea. We’re going to read it this way.

Confrontation with Aharon

Now we have a discussion between Moshe and Aharon. Moshe goes to Aharon, asks him, what did you do that you’ve brought this great sin? What did the people do to you that you’ve brought this great sin on them?

So here suddenly, of course in the story with Aharon making the egel, there was not even one sign that there’s something wrong with this. It’s just like they asked for it and he did it. Here right away when Moshe comes, and of course when Hashem spoke to Moshe it was obvious that this was a bad thing. Moshe comes to Aharon—also he doesn’t like explain to him he did something wrong, he just says—he assumes that he did something, a great sin. And he asks him, and he also assumes that the people must have forced him to do this somehow. So he says, what did they do to you? What did they do to you to make you do this?

And Aharon responds like this: don’t be angry. So we have this—Hashem had haron, Moshe stopped it, but now Aharon is afraid of Moshe’s anger. He says, don’t be angry. He says, you know the people that they are bitter, they are bad, they are hard to deal with. In other words, you’re asking me what the people—we know these people. And he describes the exact story and he repeats the exact conversation that he had with them. They’ve told me, make us a god. And I told them, okay, who has gold? Let’s take off your gold. And they gave me and I threw it into the fire and this egel came out. Of course he minimizes the part that he—the activities that were described, the whole earlier word described that Aharon made it. He describes that he threw it into the fire, and somehow it came out. That was Aharon’s entire answer. It doesn’t really give an answer.

And it says, Moshe saw the people ki fro’ahu, ki fro’ah Aharon leshim tzabakamayim. It seems to be something like they are open, they are revealed, so Aharon didn’t cover up for them, basically. Aharon told Moshe exactly what had happened, and therefore Moshe saw that it’s really their fault. It’s not Aharon’s fault, it’s their fault.

The Punishment by the Leviim

And therefore Moshe goes to the people, or really he goes to the Sha’ar HaMachane, the gate of the camp. Now we know that there was a gate, first time we ever heard of a gate. And he says, whoever is for Hashem should come to me, and the B’nai Levi, his shevet, comes to him. And he tells them, in the name of Hashem—of course we didn’t hear Hashem saying anything like this, it’s very interesting—and he says, each one should put his sword on his thigh. In other words, strap on your sword, go about from one gate to the other gate of the camp and kill your brother, your friend, your relative. It seems like he’s just saying he should kill everyone.

And I think that—where did Hashem say this? He said, I will destroy them. And of course, Moshe has told Hashem to not destroy them. But here we see Moshe sort of trying to do exactly what Hashem said and what he prayed that shouldn’t happen. And that’s why I think that in some sense, these stories are simultaneous. And you can think of what I mean.

And they listened to him and 3,000 people died. So of course, we could assume that other people fought back, so maybe that’s why only—of course, they didn’t kill everyone.

And Moshe says, as another statement, that it’s not clear when it was said, maybe it also was said before, fill up your hands to Hashem. And this means something like—like we have the word miluim, earlier we had, right, but it’s already later in Parshas Tzav—means something like this action that you have done, that you have killed the people in the name of Hashem, because one killed his son and his brother, this will give you a blessing, as he says. So Moshe just seems to approve of what he did. And now really I should—

Moshe’s Return to Hashem and the Incomplete Forgiveness

I’m not sure what’s going on with this chapter, division of the chapter. I’m just going to go to the end of this chapter and tomorrow we’ll get back to this.

So this is all that happened in the camp. Now we have Moshe goes back to Hashem. So why does he go back? It seems like another version of the story or another step of the story because why does he go back?

Moshe goes back to Hashem and he tells—so it seems like in some sense, as long as Moshe was up there on the mountain, he didn’t really relate. He didn’t really deal with the actual sin, the actual problem. He dealt with God’s anger but he didn’t deal with the problem. He calms down and he sees it’s true, he really sees it and he deals with it, now he needs to go back and really deal with it up there too.

So he goes up and he says—in other words, first he tells the people: You’ve sinned a great sin, I will go back up to Hashem, maybe I will clean up after you, maybe I will cause God to forgive you. And that’s what he does.

He goes to Hashem and he tells Hashem—and what does he say? He doesn’t minimize the crime. He says the opposite. He says something like a video. He says, these people have sinned a great sin. They’ve created a God, Elohei Zahav. Remember, this was exactly what they told we’re not to do.

And therefore now, either you forgive them or delete me from your book. So what Moshe is really doing in simple reading is he’s offering himself in place of the people. He’s saying, I’m innocent, right? I was definitely not there. But I will not let you destroy them and leave me, which was exactly what God proposed. He said, you want to kill them? You’re going to kill me also. And Hashem says—and that’s said in the language of delete me from your book. It just means kill me.

Now Hashem says no, as he answers many times. Whoever sinned to me, I will delete. But he does seem to accept Moshe’s challenge. And he says, go, you lead the people to where I’ve spoken to you. I will send an angel in front for you to lead them, my messenger or my angel. And the day that I will remember, that I will remind myself to deal with it, I will deal with this sin too.

And then the last verse of this chapter is: And God does strike the people for doing the Egel that Aharon made. So this is not unclear what it’s talking about—besides for the people that Moshe killed, there were some more deaths happening directly from Hashem, or maybe it means that. That’s what I would think, but it’s not clear.

And the important thing is that here, Moshe explicitly asks for forgiveness for their crime and doesn’t entirely receive it. He receives something like it gets pushed off. He receives also something, command for him to go lead the people later, that it seems that this is only the beginning of a discussion about this. This doesn’t actually happen, so we’ll see about that. And we get part of the discussion was that Moshe wanted to sort of offer himself in the place of the people or like as the shield of people and God didn’t really accept that.

So that’s this chapter.