The Golden Calf
To be sure, humility is a virtue. Following G-d’s command, even if not done egoless, is the ultimate virtue.
How can a People Stoop so Low?
Can you imagine hearing G-d telling you not to make and worship other gods and only forty days later you would actually have the temerity to do just that?
This is precisely what had occurred at Sinai, when the entire Jewish nation heard G-d personally tell them that there was to be no other gods. Yet, only forty days later, the Jewish people participated in a most despicable orgiastic rite, of dancing around the Golden Calf that emerged from the fire into which they had thrown their gold and precious jewelry! How could this have happened?
Some commentators refer to the fact that among the Jews that had left Egypt was a mixture of peoples known as the “Eirev rav” who joined the Jewish people when they saw the great miracles that had occurred in Egypt. Despite their willingness to become part of the Jewish nation, they did not abandon their idolatrous ways. With the absence of Moses— who had not returned from his forty-day sojourn on Mount Sinai—they found an opportunity to introduce their old pagan ways into the Jewish community.
Other commentators explain that the Golden calf was not intended to be a replacement for G-d, but a replacement for Moses whom they feared was not going to return.
According to the Midrash, the Satan created a mirage, of Moses’ coffin floating in the air, leaving the impression that Moses had died. And now that they were bereft of a leader they had to create their own leader—the golden calf.
The Three Questions
There are several obvious questions that beg to be asked.
Firstly, how could they imagine that a golden calf could take the place of a human Moses?
Secondly, why didn’t they appoint other capable individuals as their leader, such as Aaron and Chur?
Thirdly, if, for some reason, they were deluded into thinking that a golden calf can take Moses’ place, why were they punished for its creation? Why was it considered to be idolatry?
The Uniqueness of Moses
The answer lies in a better understanding of Moses’ unique role and what set him apart from all other Jewish leaders and prophets.
When G-d wanted to communicate His ideas to the Jewish people, He chose Moses to be the conduit because Moses’ humility guaranteed that there would be no subjective reporting of what G-d had told him. Moses was like a funnel and not like a filter. Nothing is added to or subtracted from the fluid that flows through the funnel.
By contrast, all other people, whose egos were not as suppressed as Moses, would have filtered G-d’s words. Their transmission of G-d’s teachings would have been colored by their subjective feelings. Consequently, the Jewish people would not have had access to G-d’s pure and original message.
To “remedy” this situation, the creators of the Golden Calf reasoned, that the most ideal replacement for Moses’ selflessness would be an inanimate object. Without an ego or identity of its own it could serve as non-obstructive and unobtrusive conduit for G-d’s ideas. Any other representative, as great as he may be, would have compromised the integrity of G-d’s message.
Only G-d can Appoint Conduits
The mistake of the Jewish people was that only G-d could designate someone to be His messenger. And it was G-d who designated Moses and his human successors until Moshiach, to be the conduits of G-d’s teachings to the world. No physical object that we will designate—without G-d’s approval—could represent Him.
To be sure, no other leader can be compared to Moses. But, it was G-d’s will that his leadership be continued by his human successors. When the Jewish sages and leaders of every generation put aside their egos and faithfully attempt to transmit the teachings of the Torah, their words assume the authority of G-d’s teachings to the world.
Man-made creations, good intentions notwithstanding, cannot replace G-d’s direct communication to us through the Torah and its teachers. Moses in his day, and all the true Jewish transmitters of Torah since, are the only legitimate conduits of G-d’s directives.
“Humble Ones: the Time for Your Redemption has rrived
This unbroken chain of selfless Torah communicators in each generation will culminate with the generation of Redemption (which, the Rebbe informed us, will occur in our generation), headed by the ultimate representative of G-d, a leader so selfless that he will even teach Torah to Moses—our righteous Moshiach.
One of Moshiach’s salient characteristics is his humility. As Moses before him, Moshiach will not impose his own subjective and ego tainted feelings on G-d’s message. Moshiach’s task further is to instill some of this humility to the entire Jewish people. Indeed, the Midrash, when describing Moshiach’s announcement to the world that the Time of Redemption has arrived, will preface the declaration with the words “humble ones.”
From the book Light from the Future: Parshas Ki Sisa by Rabbi Heschel Greenberg, published by the Jewish Discovery Center.
