Dvar Torah on Parshat Ki Tisa

In this week's portion, we are told that Moshe, up on Mount Sinai for forty days receiving the Torah, is delayed in returning to the people of Israel, who are waiting for him at the foot of the mountain. The Israelites get nervous, and fear that he is gone for good, so they ask his brother Aharon, the high priest, to supply them with a new leader. Aharon responds to their demand and says to them: "Remove the golden rings which are in the ears of your women, sons, and daughters, and bring them to me." We are told that immediately after he makes this request, "the entire nation removed the golden rings which were in their ears, and brought them to Aharon." The rest is history: Aharon takes the earrings, melts them down, and fashions a golden calf, which the people worship.

Rashi, the 11th century commentator on the Torah, obviously wondering what Aharon thought he was doing, tells us the following: "Aharon thought to himself: 'the women and children care about their jewelry, perhaps this will delay things, and Moshe will arrive in time'. However, they did not delay, and voluntarily removed them themselves".

Rashi is clearly trying to defend Aharon, and therefore understands the earring thing as a ploy, a delaying tactic, which, unfortunately, didn't work - rather than dithering about their jewelry, the Israelites rose to the challenge and unhesitatingly coughed up all their bling, the calf was made, and the people worshiped it just before Moshe arrived. 

According to this story, Aharon was counting on the Israelites to behave in a certain way, which, had they done so, would have saved them from the sin of the Golden Calf. He assumed that the Israelites, though apparently desperate for religious leadership, and demanding, in Moshe's absence, a God or God-like figure to take them through the desert, would still have enough self-interest to pause, at least for a few moments, before parting with their gold earrings. Had they done so, and behaved normally, with a bit of vanity and selfishness, all would have been well, as Moshe would have returned in time to prevent the calamity. Instead, they went along with Aharon's demand, and didn't give a second thought to donating their gold jewelry to the cause.

I would like to suggest that this self-interested behavior which Aharon was counting on to delay and ultimately prevent the sin of the Golden Calf is good behavior - after all, it would have prevented idol worship - and, as such, I'd like to think about it with you for a bit. It would seem that the ability to stop and consider one's personal good, one's self-interest, one's self - how I look, what I wear, what belongs to me - even when one is swept up in a religious fervor, perhaps especially when one is swept up in a religious fervor,  is a good thing.  The sin of the Golden Calf, seen through the lens of the earring story, can be understood precisely as a loss of that normal self-regard, of that natural self-interest. It would have been healthier for the Israelites to retain, as Aharon thought and hoped they would, a degree of distance, a measure of concern for their personal needs and wishes, and not so readily lose their sense of self,  even in the name of a larger, all-consuming, religious passion.  Forgetting, erasing, losing your self, is not the way to commit yourself to a value, or a belief system; you are meant to come to it with your self - as who you really are, along with your sensibilities, interests, and concerns - earrings and all.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Shimon Felix