Thirty days outta Egypt, forty days after G-d summoned Moses up the mountain after giving the Children of Israel the Decalogue, the kids got restless.
From the Jewish Publication Society translation of The Torah: Exodus 32:1-6
1 And when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mount, the people gathered themselves together unto Aaron, and said unto him: ‘Up, make us a god who shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we know not what is become of him.’ 2And Aaron said unto them: ‘Break off the golden rings, which are in the ears of your wives, of your sons, and of your daughters, and bring them unto me.’ 3And all the people broke off the golden rings which were in their ears, and brought them unto Aaron. 4And he received it at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, and made it a molten calf; and they said: ‘This is thy god, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.’ 5And when Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation, and said: ‘To-morrow shall be a feast to the LORD.’ 6And they rose up early on the morrow, and offered burnt-offerings, and brought peace-offerings; and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to make merry.
There is so much written about this string of bad choices that one can spend a lifetime trying to sort it out, and still not be done. There were two questions that I have always wondered about. The first is why a calf ? The second is Aaron, what were you thinking?
My favorite explanation about why a calf comes out of left field and has to do with the retrieval of Joseph's casket as Moses prepared to lead the Hebrews out of Egypt:
Micah, a member of the erev rav whose life had been saved by Moses, created the calf. When the Jewish people were leaving Egypt, Moses went to collect Joseph’s coffin to fulfill his request that his remains be redeemed together with the Jews. However, in an attempt to stop the Jews from leaving, the Egyptians had sunk Joseph’s coffin in the Nile. Moses took a plaque, wrote on it the words “alei shor” (“rise ox”), and threw it in the river, causing the coffin of Joseph (who is compared to an ox) to rise to the surface. Micah had stolen this plaque and now used it to create the calf by throwing it into the blaze.
Ah, magic. There's always gotta be some inexplicable event in there, just for good measure. Regardless, Aaron is supervising the event, so why are the rabbis reluctant to assign blame to him? Is it because he's Moses' brother? Is it because he's the head-priest designate? Why not just give it to him in full? Or maybe blame Micah because he's part of the erev rav, one of the Egyptian idolators who decided to split the scene with the Jews? IF that's the reason, then doesn't Moses own this problem since he was the one who brought the erev rav out with the Children of Israel?
Just as there are two versions of the Creation in the book of Genesis, there are two versions of how the calf came to be in Exodus: the version in the narrative and the version in Aaron's explanation to Moses; there are differences between the two.
In the second version, Aaron's retelling of the story to his little brother:
From the Jewish Publication Society translation of The Torah: Exodus 32:22-24
22And Aaron said: ‘Let not the anger of my lord wax hot; thou knowest the people, that they are set on evil. 23So they said unto me: Make us a god, which shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we know not what is become of him. 24And I said unto them: Whosoever hath any gold, let them break it off; so they gave it to me; and I cast it into the fire, and there came out this calf.’
I know these guys are supposed to be old guys, but I hear a little kid in this one. Sure, Aaron is older, but clearly Moses has this G-d thing over him. The adjustment is pretty obvious to everyone who reads the text. So what was Aaron thinking when he did this? Maybe, as according to some sages, he was trying to protect the people from themselves by buying time until Moses could return? Regardless of the reasoning, it was not a great idea from the inception forward.
The story of the golden calf is not without merit. Like everything else in Torah, it's got a point or two hidden in there. And over the three+ millennia we've been reading Torah, the story has become a metaphor in many ways: worshipping idols, inappropriate avenues of prayer, the art and craft of blame, all sorts of stuff like that. If you get nothing else out of this story, you can bank on the idea that calves, golden or otherwise, are without power. Worshipping idols is not an approved activity in all three Abrahamic religions. In fact, it is to be reviled.
Seriously, when the right wing purveyors of selective truth claimed liberal Democrats believed evangelicals were praying to the statue, I damn near fell over. Now, I don't know how stupid FOX thinks America is, but clearly they never heard of cut'n'paste or photoshop. Regardless, of the two images, I think the original photo on top is scarier. Just look at his face.
Whether or not anyone was praying to Feckless Loser, a lot of the GOP is praying for him. Which might have almost been okay, had they not then put the statue up for sale at $100,000. Seriously, they did. One might surmise that all these faith folk have read their Bibles, but clearly, that's not been the case. How did they miss 1) how totally weird that statue is, and 2) how totally golden calf that statue is?
It's a cult of personality. Long ago it stopped being about the good of the nation when it came to his supporters. Now, it's coronation, if not as close as we ever wanna come to deification. These people are looking to another kind of messiah to lead them into their lily white promised land.
Which brings me to my closing argument about how dangerous this stuff is getting to be. The New York Times published an article this weekend, American Evangelicals, Israeli Settlers and a Skeptical Filmmaker, about the film ’Til Kingdom Come. Finally someone is writing about the real motivation for evangelical support for the existence of Israel. To those of us who have been "witnessed," have read the literature, or have listened to testimony, this is not news. In fact, this is very old. There is no doubt in any of our minds that we are to be the sacrificial lamb on their messianic altar. When I see them posing for pictures beside the Golden Trump, I have to wonder what bible they are reading, and if they remember what their guy originally taught.
If they can stand there and cheer the insurrection as their Feckless Loser repeats the same lies over and over, what god are they serving? Are they really the inheritors of their testament, or are they all Micahs, having come along for the ride only to bring their alien ways into the congregation of all faithful? They certainly cannot claim to be the philosophical descendants of Aaron, hoping to buy time until the wrongs can be fixed by a new Moses.
There is no new Moses to fix this.
The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week
Do not believe Johnson&Johnson is a second class vaccine because its one dose.
If one dose means they can get it out to underserved populations faster, great.
Any of the vaccines will do the job, so stop making this a ridiculous issue.
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