The incident of the Golden Calf - the central event of our parsha - is a critical moment in Jewish history and carries eternal lessons. The fact that Moshe ground up the idol, mixed it with water and made the people drink the compound, is a metaphor indicating that at least a little bit of the taste of this sin will always stay in our mouths.
Whether this was "pure" Avoda Zara (idol worship) or not is a subject of much debate. But clearly, the episode signals a stunning decline in the character of Am Yisrael, a nation that had only just said ?Na'aseh v?nishma? and declared undying devotion to the one G-d. What happened?
We'll get to that. But first, a question: When Yehoshua hears the tumult of the revelry from afar, he says to Moshe, "I hear the voice of war in the camp." Moshe listens to the sound himself and mysteriously answers: "Ayn kol anot gevura, v'ayn kol anot chalusha; kol anot anochi shomea." Roughly translated, this means, "The voice is not the noise of triumph, nor is it the noise of defeat. It's just noise."
Moshe, our teacher and leader, knew us better than we knew ourselves. He knew there was something deep in our soul that needed expression, but we just didn't know how to express it. Having lived through so many cataclysmic events - from slavery to the Ten Plagues to the Splitting of the Sea to the Revelation at Mt. Sinai - we were experiencing sensory, or spiritual, overload. When Moshe's return was delayed, the people "lost it," and their souls let loose all this pent-up emotion in a kind of primal scream.
In this sense, the word anot is reminiscent of the phrase ?v?initem et nafshotechem?, the commandment to ?answer? our souls on the Day of Atonement. For those in spiritual overdrive, every day is a Yom Kippur. The challenge of trying to perpetually maintain such a high level of holiness and the enormous "G-force" it puts on our frail, mortal selves is a daunting one. Moshe understands this, and so he valiantly defends us before the Almighty.
Perhaps this is also why Moshe needs to spend another 40 days on Mt. Sinai, during which he receives the second set of luchot (tablets). Now he must learn to relate to a new kind of Jew - not the semi-angelic, super-charged Jew who was pure soul, but the human Jew, who must balance Heaven and Earth, and combine flesh, blood and neshama.
What Moshe hears from the camp of the Egel HaZahav is not the spirit of the battle, but the battle of the spirit.
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Rabbi Weiss is the director of the Jewish Outreach Center in Ra?anana.
Whether this was "pure" Avoda Zara (idol worship) or not is a subject of much debate. But clearly, the episode signals a stunning decline in the character of Am Yisrael, a nation that had only just said ?Na'aseh v?nishma? and declared undying devotion to the one G-d. What happened?
We'll get to that. But first, a question: When Yehoshua hears the tumult of the revelry from afar, he says to Moshe, "I hear the voice of war in the camp." Moshe listens to the sound himself and mysteriously answers: "Ayn kol anot gevura, v'ayn kol anot chalusha; kol anot anochi shomea." Roughly translated, this means, "The voice is not the noise of triumph, nor is it the noise of defeat. It's just noise."
Moshe, our teacher and leader, knew us better than we knew ourselves. He knew there was something deep in our soul that needed expression, but we just didn't know how to express it. Having lived through so many cataclysmic events - from slavery to the Ten Plagues to the Splitting of the Sea to the Revelation at Mt. Sinai - we were experiencing sensory, or spiritual, overload. When Moshe's return was delayed, the people "lost it," and their souls let loose all this pent-up emotion in a kind of primal scream.
In this sense, the word anot is reminiscent of the phrase ?v?initem et nafshotechem?, the commandment to ?answer? our souls on the Day of Atonement. For those in spiritual overdrive, every day is a Yom Kippur. The challenge of trying to perpetually maintain such a high level of holiness and the enormous "G-force" it puts on our frail, mortal selves is a daunting one. Moshe understands this, and so he valiantly defends us before the Almighty.
Perhaps this is also why Moshe needs to spend another 40 days on Mt. Sinai, during which he receives the second set of luchot (tablets). Now he must learn to relate to a new kind of Jew - not the semi-angelic, super-charged Jew who was pure soul, but the human Jew, who must balance Heaven and Earth, and combine flesh, blood and neshama.
What Moshe hears from the camp of the Egel HaZahav is not the spirit of the battle, but the battle of the spirit.
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Rabbi Weiss is the director of the Jewish Outreach Center in Ra?anana.