[Avodah] Egel Zahav

[Zev Sero]

The Malbim says that they wanted only a replacement for Moshe, not a
god to worship ch"v but only "elohim asher yelchu lefoneinu", a
representative of Hashem that would lead them on their travels.  The
pillar of cloud/fire was now on top of the mountain and they assumed
 that it had gone home and was going to stay there.  And Moshe, who
 could have replaced it, was, they thought, no longer a physical person.

He says they believed that Moshe was telling the truth when he said he'd
come back, but since he'd gone 40 days without food or water they thought
it was impossible for his body to still exist, so he must have meant that
he'd be back as a mal'ach, like Eliyohu Hanovi.  And they said that was
all very well, but they needed "zeh Moshe haIsh", the physical Moshe,
whom they could see and talk to, and who could tell them where to go.
In his absence, they would need some object where the shechinah would
rest and they could treat as a proxy for Hashem.

Further, the Malbim says, they weren't really wrong about that; they had
in fact been promised just such an object, i.e. the Kruvim!  And they'd
been told that it must be made of gold and not silver.  So they just
wanted to jump the gun and make the kruvim now instead of after the
luchos came down and the aron had been made.

But the fatal mistake was that while Aharon and the Zekenim had seen
the kruvim at Har Sinai ("vayir'u es Elokei Yisroel"), the nobles and
the rest of the people, and certainly the Erev Rav, had only seen the
merkovo and the Chayos Hakodesh ("vayir'u es hoElokim").  And so they
made an image of the Pnei Shor that they had seen.  The Chayos, Malbim
says, represent the way the world conducts itself according to nature;
they are animals, and they move about on their feet which are on the
ground.  But the kruvim, who have wings and fly about, represent the
way Hashem deals with Am Yisroel, with Hashgocho Protis and sechar
ve'onesh, not according to blind nature.  Thus by building a calf
instead of a kruv they were rejecting this Hashgocho and identifying
with the way the world works for the Umos Ho'olom.

And thus they removed their earrings, which according to a posuk in
Mishli are a symbol for wise words that are heard and accepted; this
was "edyom meHar Chorev", the adornment of having heard and accepted
Hashem's laws.  By making the egel they forfeited that, so it was
appropriate that they also removed their physical earrings.







-- 
Zev Sero
zev at sero.name