Pensée juive sur L’Exode 3:13

Even angels, though in some ways superior to man, inasmuch as G-d employs them to convey messages to man to protect him or execute retribution on G-d’s behalf, are clearly defined as servants of the Lord whose function it is to assure the well being of man. It is similar to the sheep being more important than the shepherd, since the latter owes his existence or vocation to the existence of the former. This line of reasoning has its limitations, as it would reduce the value of the teacher vis a vis the student and that of the prophet vis a vis the nation. Clearly then the subordinate position of the shepherd stems from his allotted task. The same applies to the position of the teacher or prophet. From the point of view of personal characteristics, the shepherd, being a human being, clearly possesses superior faculties to those of the sheep entrusted to his care. Similarly, the teacher possesses faculties superior to those of his students, and the prophet possesses faculties not shared by the other members of his nation. Angels do possess faculties which man is not privy to, and in that respect they are superior to man. On the other hand, all statements denigrating the worth of man refer only to his inferior physical shell, not to his comprehensive potential. We must also never lose sight of the fact that the entire universe was created primarily for the greater glory of G-d, and in this respect the angels, of course, possess tremendous worth, quite independent of their function in connection with man.

It is in this context that we must understand the repeated references Moses made to the Jewish people at the burning bush, when he said to G-d that the Jewish people would not believe in him or his mission. Moses expected the same reaction from his own people that he had expected from Pharaoh. This is why he said "when they ask me for Your name, what shall I say?" (Exodus 3, 13) The miracle had been needed to demonstrate the existence of such a G-d. Whenever things went well, the people believed in G-d, Moses and his mission. Whenever difficulties arose, they saw in this proof that there was no free G-d, no Personal Providence, only superior showmanship by Moses, presently revealed as inadequate. Proof of all this lies in the fact that whenever they refer to the Exodus from Egypt, they ascribe it to Moses the man, not to G-d. (compare Exodus 14, 12; 16,3; Numbers 16, 12) Their admiration of Moses was based on Moses being an outstanding man rather than Moses as an instrument of G-d. (1) As soon as Moses was out of sight, not having announced when he would return, (possibly he had not known when he would return) the people wanted to see if they themselves could do what Moses had been doing all the time. Therefore, they had lots of time at their disposal to urge Aaron. The fortieth day was in fact only the last of many days that Aaron had been under pressure. (2) These people believed that the configuration of the ox might hold the secret of Moses’s power. Therefore they traded their own horoscope (that of the lamb) for that of the ox. This is the meaning of Psalms 106,20 "they themselves chose this trade, exchange." It was not Aaron's doing. No doubt, during those forty days the pressure on Aaron had been increasing steadily, the murder of Chur being part of that pressure. Had the Torah reported all this in detail, the impression that Aaron co-operated reluctantly would have been created, and the golden calf would have been viewed as the triumph of the belief in witchcraft over those who believed in G-d and His leadership. Now, that the text seems to suggest Aaron's enthusiastic co-operation, the whole episode can be seen as the creation of a symbol representing the ultimate that human art was capable of. (3+4) In this way, once the impotence of that symbol would become evident to one and all, the illusion that man could fashion a deity would be debunked once and for all. This was Aaron's reasoning when he decided to co-operate. He had no way of knowing that as soon as the calf would emerge, some Jewish lowbrows would commence dancing around it and proclaiming it as their new deity. When that happened, Aaron quickly built an altar for G-d, and tried to allow reason to prevail by postponing the celebration until the morrow, and by dedicating the altar to the Lord. He hoped all the time, of course, that in the interval remaining, G-d would tell Moses to return to the people in order to forestall tragic consequences. Even so, only three thousand people were enthusiastic enough to actually worship this idol before it had demonstrated powers equal or superior to those demonstrated by Moses. (This is why the rest of the nation was not punished by death) We see from all this, that far from precipitating or even participating in the sin, Aaron had used his best efforts to teach the people a lesson of faith in the Lord. This is why, at a later stage, G-d was able to say to Moses "You shall cause your brother Aaron to come close to Me, to be My priest" (Exodus 28, 1) (5) G-d indicated to Moses that if the latter were to pray, He would not then become angry, since the action of a fool acting out of foolishness does not warrant his master's anger. Nonetheless, even fools must repent and confess their errors. Psalms 25,8, and Hoseah 14,2 are some of the sources in scripture for the need to expiate. Sieverity of a sin is measured by three criteria. 1) The manner in which the Torah describes a sin, is a good indication of the view the Torah holds concerning such sin. Expressions such as "abomination, immorality" are used for acts which are especially serious. 2) Any kind of misdemeanour when committed by a person of high rank, becomes more serious, since the sinner's stature should have precluded such conduct on his part. 3) When the disobedience is directed against a supreme lawgiver, it is more serious than disobedience against a man made law. (10) Moses, admits in his confession, that "this nation" had come closer to G-d than any of its predecessors, and should therefore have known better. When he refers to "this great sin," he confesses that due to the people's elevated stature their sin had assumed an added degree of severity. He confesses the heinous nature of the sin when viewed objectively, when he refers to "the golden deity" that this nation had made. While confessing all this, Moses manages to inject powerful arguments about the extenuating circumstances surrounding this crime. Shemot Rabbah 28, clothes Moses’s arguments in the following words: (6) Moses to G-d "Your children have made an assistant for You, and You are angry? Did You not Yourself make the sun shine, and the latter bestows some of its light on the moon? (making it an assistant) Did You not make rain, which in turn promotes the growth of plants etc?" To this G-d replied: "You too are in error, since the golden calf is not capable of doing anything." To this, Moses replied: "in that case why do You get angry over a mere nothing?" Philosophically speaking, Moses presents the golden calf as incapable of offering competition to G-d, and therefore not deserving His concern. Concerning the second criterion for measuring the severity of a sin which we have mentioned, Moses refers to "this people." He refers to their having come out of Egypt. He implies that it is unreasonable to expect high standards of faith from a nation that had just left a country in which it had absorbed a totally wrong way of looking at the world for several hundred years. The Midrash describes it in this way. A father put his son in charge of a perfumery situated in a red light district. Naturally, both the location of the store and the type of customers he dealt with, combined with the son's personal character weakness to corrupt him. When the father finds out and is enraged and threatens to kill his son, the father's friend has to intervene. This friend berates the father, saying: "you have lost him because you have failed to teach him a trade that would bring him into contact with the upper classes of society. Not only that, but you have made him reside amongst harlots. How can you be surprised at the outcome?" Finally, since it was G-d’s declared purpose to use the Jewish people to aggrandize His name, and to make Egypt aware of this, (Exodus 9, 16) what would the Egyptians say when they hear that You have wiped out this nation?" We read in Joshua 7, 10 that G-d told Joshua that Israel's defeat at Ai was due to the nation having sinned, having transgressed the injunction not to appropriate any of the loot of Jericho etc. Actually, only one man, Achan ben Karmi, had committed those acts. (7) When G-d told Moses that the Jewish people had made themselves a cast calf, worshipped it etc, Moses may have thought that this could have been the act of a single individual, and that G-d had referred to the collective responsibility every Jew bears for the actions of another Jew. It had not occurred to Moses that the nation as a whole had been involved in this act.

BEFORE approaching the subject of this chapter, we will first consider the words of Moses, “And they shall say unto me, What is His name? what shall I say unto them” (Exod. 3:13). How far was this question, anticipated by Moses, appropriate, and how far was he justified in seeking to be prepared with the answer? Moses was correct in declaring, “But, behold, they will not believe me, for they will say, The Lord hath not appeared unto thee” (ib. 4:1); for any man claiming the authority of a prophet must expect to meet with such an objection so long as he has not given a proof of his mission. Again, if the question, as appears at first sight, referred only to the name, as a mere utterance of the lips, the following dilemma would present itself: either the Israelites knew the name, or they had never heard it: if the name was known to them, they would perceive in it no argument in favour of the mission of Moses, his knowledge and their knowledge of the divine name being the same. If, on the other hand, they had never heard it mentioned, and if the knowledge of it was to prove the mission of Moses, what evidence would they have that this was really the name of God? Moreover, after God had made known that name to Moses, and had told him, “Go and gather the elders of Israel. . . . and they shall hearken to thy voice” (ib. 16:18), he replied, “Behold, they will not believe me nor hearken unto my voice,” although God had told him, “And they will hearken to thy voice”; whereupon God answered, “What is that in thine hand?” and he said, “A rod” (ib. 4:2).