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It's no small thing to repeat a story year after year for thousands of years. A certain public or people has a need for a story if they ask for it again and again. With time, it becomes imprinted in the national memory and shapes the ethos – the collected values – of that collective. I went back and looked for foundation legends similar to the story about the golden calf and Moses breaking the tablets, which we read this Shabbat, in other cultures. I didn't find any.
This is an amazing story, especially when it appears in the Bible – a mortal is given a gift from God to present to human beings, tidings for the human spirit, but instead of doing so, he opts to throw away. Who gave him permission? Did he think they were an unworthy present that should be given back!
We'll go back to the beginning. Moses went up to Mount Sinai to bring the Torah to the people after everyone was present when the Ten Commandments were handed down by God (or at least the first two, until they were put off and asked Moses to act as a go-between.) Forty days went by and Moses was gone.
"When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him: 'Up, make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him'" (Exodus 32:1). An enslaved people left Egypt. For hundreds of years, they had grown accustomed to masters who determined every moment of their days. They chose to follow the man who would be their father and redeemer, but now, in the desert, he had been missing for 40 days. They felt orphaned: "We do not know what has become of him."
Then Aaron takes their jewelry. "And he received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made a golden calf. And they said: 'These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!'" (Exodus 32:4).
Oh, the shame. A moment after they had heard from God, "You shall not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above. … You shall not bow down to them or serve them" (Exodus 20:4-5). Talmudic sages compared the event to "a bride who commits adultery beneath the wedding canopy." What could be worse?
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Meanwhile, on the Mount, God sends Moses back. "Go down, for your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves" (Exodus 32:7). And he goes down with the tablets. What was he thinking? He knew them and their complaints – an argumentative people who spoke harshly and then took back what they said a moment later. But what he saw was beyond anything he could have imagined, and so was his response. They thought he had disappeared and here he was before them, carrying the greatest gift any nation had ever received. Maybe the crowds were stunned into silence, and thanks to the quiet that remained, Moses took action.
"Then Moses turned and went down from the mountain with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand, tablets that were written on both sides. … The tablets were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, engraved on the tablets. … And as soon as he came near the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, Moses' anger burned hot and he threw the tablets out of his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain. He took the calf that they had made and burned it with fire and ground it to powder and scattered it on the water and made the people of Israel drink it" (Exodus 32:15-20).
Moses didn't sit down and weep for the people. He also didn't hurl accusations or insults at them. He took action and was revealed in his full glory not only as a lawmaker and a man of spirit but also as a leader and educator. He did what we would call today "shock therapy." But instead of slapping those who created hysteria over the golden calf, he threw the tablets down and broke them before their very eyes.
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The main message of the whole book of Moses, more than all the other ideas and commandments, is one of an unceasing war against idolatry. It is no coincidence that our sages hinge Abraham becoming the father of our nation on the story of him breaking his father Terah's idols. The first words said to him are: "Go forth from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you" (Genesis 12:1). Abraham "went from there" not only in the physical sense but also turned away from the spiritual and cultural conventions of his time in preparation for the founding of a new nation, which would have different ideas from any humanity had known thus far. Following in Abraham's path means dynamic spiritual movement – the total opposite of the idol, which represents spiritual fixation.
In the familiar senses, the second commandment the people heard at Mount Sinai was an Abrahamic one. And it's not only idols made of wood and stone that we must not bow to: "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image" can be understood as "don't idolize yourself, don't idolize your ideas and don't worship yourself." Because the commandment to the first Hebrew has been handed down to every one of his descendants: "Go forth." Going will generate a movement (!), which will establish a family and a tribe and a people who will give the world revolutionary ideas. When Moses broke the tablets, he was carrying out the second commandment, the Abrahamic commandment, and in doing so sealed for eternity the people's spirit as breakers of idols – iconoclasts – destroying gods of stone and gods of ideas.
That's not all. In light of the golden calf, Moses might have realized that an enslaved people, who for hundreds of years had been surrounded by the culture of the Egyptian gods, would have difficulty making an immediate move to a new culture of belief in one invisible God. If he were to take away the calf and give them the tablets in its place, they would worship the tablets. Especially since they knew they were God's work. Our sages and commentators discussed the fear that people could assign holiness to objects and worship them.
So Moses broke the tablets and showed the people that what was holy was not the tablets themselves but what was written on them. Parchment burns and letters fly in the air. The ideas are what matter, whereas the material on which they are written, or which is used, is just a conduit and must not be worshipped. Breaking the tablets was an act of completing the receipt of the Torah. If he broke the tablets, it must be even more vital for them to break their own "tablets," the ideological and conceptual molds they had grown used to. And what is the calf our forefathers worshipped if not the "sacred cow" that Moses slaughtered?
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The drama doesn't end there. Moses goes back up the mount and asks for God's mercy. Earlier, prior to breaking the tablets, God had offered to give him a new righteous, enlightened people. Who needs a people like that, who a moment after reaching a spiritual zenith falls into such a deep abyss? But Moses teaches us the role of the spiritual man. (Today, we would call him or her an intellectual.) He doesn't despair for the people. He doesn't vent his frustration on them. He doesn't hold the masses in contempt or mock them for their mistakes. He loves the people, believes in them and their strength. So he asks: "Alas, this people has sinned a great sin. They have made for themselves gods of gold" (Exodus 32:31). It's true, I'm not denying it. And nevertheless: "But now, if you will forgive their sin – and if not, blot me, I pray, out of your book that you have written" (Exodus 32:31). If you forgive their sin, I'm willing to continue the mission you assigned me and bear the burden of leadership; but if you don't forgive – blot me out of your book.
Moses isn't giving up on the people. He believes that a fall – even the biggest one – is not part of their essential nature. He doesn't want a different people, he doesn't seek a boycott or international pressure or to slander or scold the people. They are his people; he is part of them, not part of the United Nations. He believes in them. From the perspective of over 3,000 years, we can testify that despite the difficulties and the stumbles, this people, whom Moses vouched for in its infancy, hasn't disappointed.
