Commentary for Exodus 32:6

וישכימו AND THEY ROSE UP EARLY [IN THE MORNING] — Satan made them zealous in order that they might sin, for later on in the forenoon Moses actually came down from the mountain.

AND THE PEOPLE SAT DOWN TO EAT AND TO DRINK. This means that they all sat down together to eat and drink inordinately, as they would do at feasts and on festivals, and afterwards they rose up to make merry with their idols and indulge in revelry. Scripture tells us this on account of what Moses [later] said, the noise of them that sing do I hear,³⁰²Verse 18. for Moses found them acting riotously in front of him and his heart was lifted up in the ways of the Eternal,³⁰³II Chronicles 17:6. to take it from before them and to burn it in their presence [and scatter its powder upon the water] and make them drink of it.
Now Scripture first completed the account of everything they had done with the calf, and afterwards told of what the Holy One, blessed be He, said to Moses, Go, get thee down.³⁰⁴Verse 7. This communication, however, was given to Moses early that morning, when they worshipped the calf and sacrificed to it. When Moses came down from the mountain they had sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to make merry,³⁰⁰Verse 6. and he found them in revelry. This also is proof to what I have explained [that at first their intent was not to worship idols], since it was not said to Moses, Go, get thee down, for thy people have dealt corruptly³⁰⁴Verse 7. on the day that Aaron made the [golden] calf and the altar, [for had they been made for the purpose of idolatry, Moses] would have come down immediately. Instead, it was only when the people sacrificed to it and worshipped it that He told Moses to go down.

וישכימו ממחרת, They rose up early on the morrow, etc. It is difficult to understand why G'd did not tell Moses to descend from the Mountain as soon as the golden calf emerged from the crucible instead of waiting until the following morning after the people began to worship it by offering sacrifices in its honour. If G'd had told Moses to descend as soon as the calf emerged the people would not have had a chance commit the sin of offering sacrifices to a man-made idol. We cannot assume that the Torah did not report this in chronological order and that G'd did indeed tell Moses to descend at once but that Moses delayed his descent in order to try and diminish G'd's anger at His people. The report of the Torah spoke first about the people offering sacrificing to the calf before it mentions G'd as having become angry and telling Moses to descend. [Verse seven only supplies the reason for what is written in verses eight and nine. It does not represent the order in which things happened. Ed.] While we are aware of the statement by Rabbi Joshua ben Levi in Avodah Zarah 4 that "the children of Israel were not on a low enough spiritual level at the time to make the golden calf, and that the only reason this was allowed to occur was to teach future generations of Jews the power of repentance," this statement would not have lost any of its validity if G'd had interfered before it came to the point when the people actually offered sacrifices to that calf. G'd could have told Moses to descend as soon as some of the people had said: "these are your gods, O Israel, who have brought you up from Egypt." All this occurred on the day before they offered the sacrifices. The people's passive attitude to the idolatrous provocation by the mixed multitude had already made them sufficiently culpable. In fact we can be certain that there were only a few dissidents amongst the natural-born Israelites for if they had indeed been the majority their passive acceptance of such a provocation to sin is totally beyond imagination! If a majority who were physically able to prevent this sin had stood by idly, they would have become guilty as accessories. Why did G'd have to wait until after offerings had been made to the golden calf?

ויעלו עולות ויגישו שלמים, “they burned up burnt offerings, and they presented peace-offerings. It is noteworthy that the Torah does not mention in whose honour these offerings were presented, i.e. we would have expected the Torah to write ויעלו לו עולות, “they burned up burnt offerings in its honour.” The absence of the word לו, shows that some people did indeed offer their sacrifices to Hashem, whereas others meant to honour the golden calf when presenting their offerings. The offering of any sacrifice, which even though technically corresponding to halachah in all its visible details, would become פיגול, totally rejected, and the owner guilty of death at the hands of heaven, merely because it had not been addressed to Hashem.

V.6. Aus V. 8 ist ersichtlich, dass Aarons Absicht vereitelt, und die Opfer dem Kalbe gebracht wurden. Indem mit וישב das Volk als ein neues Subjekt eingeführt wird, so sieht man, dass an den Opfern nicht das Volk im ganzen sich beteiligte. Es waren die Wort- und Anführer, die bis zu diesem Extreme gingen, allein das Volk nahm an den Opfermahlen und ihren Folgen Teil. Charakteristisch heißen die Folgen:.צֵחֵק Inצחק liegt immer eine Verneinung des von צהוק betroffenen Gegenstandes (siehe zu Bereschit 17, 17), eine Überhebung über ein Schweres, Großes, Hohes, Edles. Das dem einen Einzigen und seinem Gesetze, in Folge seines Gesetzes, gebrachte Opfer lässt den Opfernden im Opfer sich selber Gott und dem Diktate seines heiligen und heiligenden Sittengesetzes unterordnen und hingeben. Es involviert die Huldigung des über dem Menschen stehenden, den Menschen zu sich empor ladenden Hohen, Großen, Edlen. Das heidnische, einem selbstgemachten Gotte dargebrachte Opfer, wie es aus der Tiefe des Subjektivismus entsprungen, weckt auch das Individuum zur kühnsten Subjektivität. Es hat ja nicht die Selbstaufopferung im Opfer gelobt. Es hat einen vermeintlichen Machthaber seiner Zukunft mit dem Opfer in den Dienst seines subjektiven Beliebens gebannt, hat mit dem Opfer dessen Zürnen, dessen Gleichgültigkeit überwunden, hat nicht seinem subjektiven Belieben, sondern seinem Gotte mit dem Opfer Fesseln angelegt, und wir begreifen, wie — ganz abgesehen von der entsittlichenden Idealisierung der sinnlichen Natur, die den Göttern des Heidentums und deren Opfern zu Grunde liegt — völlige Umkehrung des jüdischen Opferbegriffs, Ausschweifung und Zügellosigkeit, das ist ja Entfesselung des Individuums, unmittelbar im Gefolge heidnischer Opfer auftreten können. Auch צחֵק ist hier eine Entfesselung der Sinnlichkeit und zwar, wie das Wort lehrt, nicht eine Ausschweifung aus Leidenschaft, sondern ein sinnliches Ausschweifen, um die Nichtigkeit der sittlichen Fesseln zu demonstrieren, eine Ironisierung des Sittengesetzes durch Kanonisierung der Sinnlichkeit.

וישכימו ממחרת, “They arose prematurely early on the following day;” the date was the seventeenth of Tammuz.

לצחק TO PLAY — There is implied in this term besides idolatry also sexual immorality, — as we find the word used in, (Genesis 39:17) “to mock (לצחק) me” where unchastity is meant as is evident from the context — and blood-shed, as it is said, (II Samuel 2:14) “Let the young men arise and play (וישחקו) before me; [and they caught every one his fellow by the head and thrust his sword in his fellows side]”— here, too, Hur was assassinated (Midrash Tanchuma 3:9:20).

וישב העם לאכול ושתו, ”the people sat down in order to eat and drink, etc..” They all sat down to eat in order to still their hunger, and to drink in order to become inebriated as they were in the habit of doing on festivals. The reason that the Torah bothered to record these details is to show that although Moses, upon his return from the Mountain, found the people in such a state of mind that they danced around the image of the golden calf, he summoned the spiritual fortitude that enabled him even in such circumstances to act as a true servant of Hashem to seize this very calf in front of their eyes and to utterly destroy it by burning it. The Torah now completes recording the entire episode involving the golden calf, before resuming with recording what had transpired between G’d and Moses after G’d had informed him of what was going on down below, and Moses had descended hurriedly to rejoin his people. Chronologically speaking, we must presume that the conversation between G’d and Moses on the Mountain took place early in the morning, when he was told by G’d that the people had become corrupt and had even made for themselves a cast image in the shape of a golden calf, an image before which they had prostrated themselves. By the time Moses reached the camp the people had already sat down to eat and drink. G’d had waited with telling him to descend until after some people had already actively worshipped the calf as a deity.

We may have to look for the answer to our question in Exodus 24, 12-18 when G'd had invited Moses to come up on the Mountain and to remain there (for 40 days) until G'd would give him the Torah, the commandments which He had written down in order for Moses to teach to the people. After the 40 days Moses was to give the people the Tablets (compare Shabbat 89 on this sequence). The word בשש which alluded to the time of Moses' return made it difficult for G'd to have Moses return earlier. I will explain the expression רד which the Torah uses in verse seven when we deal with that verse. Even though G'd was aware of what was going to occur already from the demands made by the people on Aaron, He would not go back on His instruction to Moses to remain on the Mountain for forty days and nights.

So machte das jüdische Volk in demselben Augenblicke, in welchem das göttliche Sittengesetz als einziges Band und Unterpfand seiner Verbindung mit Gott in seine Mitte einziehen und ein Heiligtum auf Erden gewinnen sollte, an sich selber für sich und alle Zukunft die Erfahrung, dass die geringste Abweichung von der ausschließlichen Huldigung Gottes, des einen Einzigen, dass heidnischer Kult in jeglicher Gestalt, unabweisbar Verleugnung seines Sittengesetzes im Gefolge habe. Und es machte der designierte erste Hohepriester des jüdischen Volkes für sich und für alle Zeit in dem Momente seiner bevorstehenden Berufung die Erfahrung, dass der jüdische Priester nicht "klug" sein dürfe, dass die Gotteswahrheit nicht die seine sei, mit der und für die er konzedierend handeln, von welcher er einen Teil preisgeben dürfe, um das Übrige zu retten. Das Zeugnis Gottes ist auf Granit geschrieben. Man kann ihm huldigen, man kann es verleugnen, aber der Priester kann kein Titelchen daran ändern.

ויעלו עולות, “they offered burnt offerings.” These burnt offerings were offered quite innocently in honour of Hashem. [We find something similar in Samuel I 11,15, on the occasion of the first Jewish King, King Shaul being crowned at Gilgal, though at that time the offerings were meat offerings most of which could be eaten by the people present at the celebration. Ed.]

You may well ask that seeing G'd is omniscient, why did He not consider future events at the time He invited Moses for forty days? I have already referred to this problem in my commentary on Genesis 6,5. As far as the situation facing us here is concerned we do not even need to trouble ourselves to find an answer as the Torah has already provided it. There are some reasons which only G'd knows about, but He has revealed to us the significance of the number forty regarding the days it takes for the development of a human embryo. Whereas the entire universe was created in six days, it required forty days to "create" the Tablets. We may be better able to understand this by recalling a lesson taught by Rabbi Yochanan to Rabbi Chiya bar Abba quoted in Shemot Rabbah 47,5. Rabbi Yochanan and Rabbi Chiya walked from Tiberias to Tzippori. Rabbi Yochanan saw a certain vineyard and told Rabbi Chiya that the vineyard used to be his, but that he had sold it for a certain sum of money. Upon hearing this Rabbi Chiya started to cry and said to Rabbi Yochanan: "have you not left yourself anything to provide for your old age?" Rabbi Yochanan replied: "Do you consider the fact that I sold something which it took six days to create and traded it for something that it took G'd forty days to create as 'nothing?' G'd created the entire universe in six days and yet it took Him forty days before He could give the Torah to Moses? Moses ate neither bread nor drank water but he was able to subsist on the waters of Torah, etc."

Another reason that G'd could not tell Moses to descend before the Israelites had already offered sacrifices to the golden calf is connected to the four levels of Torah exegesis, commonly known as Pardess, an acronym for Peshat, Remez, Drush, and Sod. These four methods of exegesis actually reflect four different functions of "light" in the universe. It is the function of the פשט to illuminate the עולם העשיה, the lowest world, the physical universe as we know it. The function of the רמז is to provide insights into the world known in Kabbalah as the עולם היצירה. The function of the דרוש is to provide illumination of the world known as עולם הבריאה. Finally, it is the function of the exegesis known as סוד, to help us gain some enlightenment about the world known as עולם האצילות, a world in which tangible phenomena are totally non- existent. We have explained on several occasions that every one of these "worlds" contains ten levels known as ספירות, emanations. G'd is perceived as having "created" one such level of Torah per day and to have taught it to Moses. Thus you have the number forty as the number of days which were required in order for Moses to gain a full understanding of the Torah. Had Moses descended from the Mountain even a single day earlier, he (and we) would have been deprived of some of the insights the Torah provides. Expressed differently, the Torah would then have remained defective. At any rate, the ways of G'd are sometimes inscrutable but always fair and just. When you will read what we have written on the following verse you will see that we have pursued a different approach there.