Musar su I Samuele 6:78

The first path is [that] when a man encounters troubles, he will consult his heart and say [that] it is only his ways and his plots that have caused this to him, and that his sins have caused [the pain] to his soul. So he repents to God; and He has mercy upon him, like the matter that is stated (Deuteronomy 31:17), "and many evils and troubles shall befall them; and they shall say on that day, 'Surely it is because our God is not in our midst that these evils have befallen us.'" But note that the custom among men is [that] if one sins to someone, and [later] at a time of trouble for him regrets it and submits to him because he needs him; such regret will be inferior in the eyes of his fellow - like the matter that Jephthah said (Judges 11:7), "How can you come to me now when you are in trouble?" However it is one of the kindnesses of God, may He be blessed, that He accepts repentance [motivated by] trouble and it is desirable in front of Him. And He will generously love the sinner when he returns to Him on the day of his rebuke and from amidst trouble, as it is stated (Hosea 14:2-5), "Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God, for you have fallen because of your sin. Take words with you, etc. I will heal their affliction, generously will I take them back in love." And it is stated (Proverbs 3:12), "For whom the Lord loves, He rebukes, as a father the son whom he favors." But if the man does not repent from his evil on the day of evil, and the rebuked does not repent to the Rebuker, his iniquity grows and his punishment will be doubled. Do you not see that if a king rebukes someone who has sinned to him and he has not become chastised, [the king] will make his punishment harsher and be very hard on him. And it is written (Leviticus 26:18), "And if, for all that, you do not obey Me, I will go on to discipline you." And it is [also] stated (Job 36:13), "But the impious in heart become enraged; they do not cry for help when He afflicts them." And if he does not know and does not contemplate that the events have found him because of sins, but rather says like the Philistines (I Samuel 6:9), "it was not His hand that struck us; it just happened to us by chance" - there will be fury in front of Him for this, and his iniquity will grow. And the iniquity of this group will be greater than the sin of the first group. Therefore it is written about the first group (Leviticus 26:18), "I will go on to discipline you." And it is written afterwards about the other group [we] mentioned (Leviticus 26:21), "And if you remain hostile toward Me and refuse to obey Me, etc." For every group that is later in the section is more problematic than the one [above it]. So it is written afterwards (Leviticus 26:23-24), "And if these things fail to discipline you for Me, and you remain hostile to Me, I too will remain hostile to you." And afterwards, it is written (Leviticus 26:27-28), "But if, despite this, you disobey Me and remain hostile to Me, I will act against you in wrathful hostility." Its explanation is "you remain hostile to Me," because you will say, "It was just chance that [it] happened to us." But when a man does not recognize his deeds and does not know that he has the iniquity in his hands from his sinning, he must examine his actions and search his ways, as the matter is stated (Lamentations 3:40), "Let us search and examine our ways." But if he surely ignores his eyes and his ideas become foolish and deluded (from the expression in Scripture [Isaiah 19:13], "The nobles of Tanis have been foolish, the nobles of Memphis deluded"), and he does not investigate his ways and does not know the acts of his hands and that which his fingers have done and says, "I have not sinned" - his sin is very weighty, as it is stated (Jeremiah 2:35), "lo, I will bring you to judgment for saying, 'I have not sinned.'" And it is stated (Isaiah 42:25), "it blazed upon them all about, but they heeded not; it burned among them, but they gave it no thought." And it is stated (Proverbs 19:3), "A man’s folly subverts his way, and his heart rages against the Lord."

And if a man does not repent in the time of his trouble, his punishment will be doubled. It is just as in the case of a king of flesh and blood : if a man has sinned against him, and the king punishes him, and the man does not want to receive his punishment, the king will continue to punish him and will increase the weight of his yoke. And such is the character of the Holy One, Blessed be He, as it is written, "And if, for all that, you do not obey Me, I will go on to discipline you" (Lev. 26:18). And if he does not understand that the evils which come upon him are because of his sins, but he says, "It was chance that happened to us" (see I Samuel 6:9), there will be great wrath against this man, for he does not believe that because of his sins the troubles came upon him. Therefore you must know, and you must intelligently consider, that when God punishes a man, it is for the man's good, to favor him with two benefits : one, to atone for his sins, as it is said, "See mine affliction and my travail; and forgive all my sins" (Ps. 25:18); and the second, to rebuke him, and to cause him to return from his evil ways, as it is said, "Surely thou wilt fear Me, thou wilt receive correction" (Zeph. 3:7). And if a man does not repent because of his troubles, then woe to him who has borne troubles and has not yet atoned for his sins! And even then, his punishment will be doubled, because he does not believe that it is because of his sins that he was punished.

At the time the Jewish people accepted the Torah they were freed from the need to die, i.e. from the influence of Satan. They had become totally free from the influence of other nations as alluded to in Psalms 82,6: "I had taken you for divine beings, sons of the Most High, all of you; but you shall die as men do, fall like any prince." This is an allusion to death and exile. This sin of the golden calf is the reason that even when we experienced redemptions at a later stage, such redemption is always characterised as being feminine, incomplete. When we give thanks for such a redemption we sing שירה חדשה, a new song (feminine gender) as distinct from when we received the Torah where the Torah was referred to as masculine. An example for the dual function of the פרה is found in Samuel 16,12 where the cows are described as וישרנה, "they walked straight (masculine form). Kimchi points out that the grammar here is a combination of the masculine and the feminine gender, i.e. the ending is feminine, whereas the first half of the word is masculine. This is an allusion to the שיר, song, which is sometimes masculine and sometimes feminine as the situation requires. We have written more about this both in our treatise on פרשת פרה, on פרשת ויקהל-פקודי, as well as on פרשת חוקת.