a calf of gold
safety, not freedom
“When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered around Aaron and said to him, ‘Come, make gods for us, 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.’ Aaron said to them, ‘Take off the gold rings that are on the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters and bring them to me.’
“So all the people took off the gold rings from their ears and brought them to Aaron. He took these from them, formed them in a mold, and cast an image of a calf, and they said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!’ When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it, and Aaron made a proclamation and said, ‘Tomorrow shall be a festival to the Lord.’ They rose early the next day and offered burnt offerings and brought sacrifices of well-being, and the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to revel.”
These are the first six verses of the story of the Golden Calf, as told in Exodus 32. A tiny bit of backstory: Moses has gone up the mountain to meet with God. Actually, he makes more than one trip. This time, he has brought Joshua along.
The question regarding the whereabouts of Moses seems genuine. What happened to him? Is he ever coming back? It looks like it might be honest concern. We see this note earlier in chapter 19: “The people all answered as one, ‘Everything that the Lord has spoken we will do.’ Moses reported the words of the people to the Lord” (v. 8).
Folks are getting antsy. They are getting anxious, and the anxiety is directed at Aaron, Moses’ older brother. He listens, and he acts. They will get their god. However, they need to bring their best. Bring your gold, not your pottery.
When Moses returns, here is Aaron’s explanation: “I said to them, ‘Whoever has gold, take it off’; so they gave it to me, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf!” (v. 24). Out came this calf. Poof!
Aaron’s motives have been explained in various ways. Last month, at her address in New York on the State of World Jewry, Bari Weiss included a meditation on this story. Why does Aaron submit to a people who had escaped slavery? Maybe he wanted to buy time. “Hold on, I promise Moses will be back soon.” Maybe he was afraid. Maybe he was confused.
Weiss makes another suggestion. It was safer to “accommodate their desires. He did it because he refused to accept — or perhaps could not cope with the fact — that the world was, in fact, changing.” Traveling into the wilderness was a bold step. In a strange way, slavery in Egypt provided security. This was freedom, with all of the choices it offers and requires.
She continues, “So when his flock yearned for the past, he allowed them to slip back into it. He allowed them to turn back down a dead end — to turn back toward a dead world — rather than push forward and insist on forging a new one.” Weiss added a comment concerning October 7, when we saw “how brittle the fence is that separates civilization from barbarism.”
Still, there is the question of freedom. Some of the existentialists spoke of freedom in stark terms, even saying we are condemned to freedom!
True freedom, raw freedom, can feel like a rug being pulled out from beneath our feet. It can feel like the wind blowing on a house of cards. It is a leap of faith, with all of its dizzying, disorienting nature.
How often do we yield to tyranny, believing the lie that it’s “for our own good”? We heed the siren-like call to security and fear the voice of freedom.
Weiss ended her speech on this note: “Fighting the lies against us, fighting the lies against history, living in truth — it feels good. It’s relaxing to tell the truth. You’ll laugh more.” Maybe we can laugh even while afraid!
(My mom would often tell me when I was young, “It’s better to tell the truth. If you tell a lie, you have to come up with other lies to cover that one.”)
She concludes, “What a blessing to be free to choose. I know what my choice will be. I am determined to be free.”
To borrow a tired old saying, “Today is the first day of the rest of your life.” Though tired, it is true! We might alter it, “Today is the first day of the rest of your life to serve the Lord.” When we’re called by the Lord (and it has to be the Lord’s voice) to jump into the abyss — however that appears in our lives — there is the promise we won’t fall.
The next time it seems Moses will never return, let’s dare to choose freedom and not to go back to our idols.
Leave it all behind.
