Friday, March 17th
A superficial reading of the story of the sin of the golden calf inevitably yields some very good questions. Perhaps chief among these is what was motivating Aharon, Moshe’s brother who was a prophet of Hashem, who knew very well the severity of the sin of idolatry, and yet who nonetheless collaborated and acquiesced to the people’s demands to make an idol for them to worship.
Another question is, given his behavior, even taking what appears to be a leadership role in the incident, why is Aharon seemingly spared all punishment when others are killed for their role in the event? More than that, after all this, how is it Aharon merits becoming the high priest, and the father of the entire priestly caste? How could the same hands that once forged an idol be chosen to offer sacrifices on the altar in God’s sanctuary?
Rashi offers an account of Aharon’s motivations and actions that address these questions by explaining that Aharon at each step sought to delay and redirect the people’s idolatrous impulses without openly confronting them. He told the men who were demanding an idol to bring him the gold jewelry belonging to their wives and children, thinking, perhaps they would be hesitant to part with this jewelry and there would be a delay; however the men didn’t hesitate and gave him their own gold jewelry. He insisted on making the altar himself without allowing others to help, so the process would take longer, hoping Moshe might show up in the meantime. Moreover, though the people were explicitly intent on worshipping the golden calf, Aharon said, “tomorrow will be a festival to Hashem,” both seeking a delay by saying “tomorrow” and presumably hoping to influence them to redirect their spiritual impulses to Hashem. Needless to say, none of Aharon’s efforts at compromise and stalling succeed in stopping the sin of the golden calf from happening.
In contrast to Aharon, the Midrash tells us that Hur, the son of Miriam and Kalev, tried to stop the would-be idolaters through direct confrontation. He didn’t try to compromise, delay them or trick them as Aharon did; he simply tried to stand in their way, so they could not commit an act of idolatry. In response, the idolaters simply killed him and went on and worshipped the golden calf anyway, making a martyr of Hur.
Aharon and Hur seem to represent opposite approaches to how to respond to evil in the world. The Aharons of the world try to befriend the evildoers of the world, and win them over subtly. The Hurs of the world would rather fight evil head-on and name it for what it is. From that day until now, there is an eternal machloket (debate) about which is the proper response to wrongdoing. What’s interesting and tragic, in the case of the golden calf is that neither approach worked. In spite of Aharon and Hur both exerting their best efforts, the people went ahead and worshipped the Golden Calf. Acquiescence and redirection failed to stop them. Confrontation failed to stop them.
Perhaps the tragedy of the Golden Calf in fact was a tragedy in the classic sense, something terrible and inevitable. Perhaps no matter how Aharon, Hur, or anyone else had responded, the people were going to wind up worship an idol. If so, one lesson we can take from this is to remember that we can’t control other people. Though we have a responsibility to try to influence others for the better and try to prevent them from doing wrong, sometimes, no matter what strategy we adopt, no matter how hard we work to stop them, people are going to make terrible choices that are destructive to themselves and to others around them.
The other lesson I can see, is that in the face of evil in the world, people of good will can adopt contradictory strategies to try to stop it. Sometimes the Aharon strategy will work (we are told that Aharon inspired many evildoers to do teshuvah simply by being nice to them). At other times, the strategy of Hur will meet with more success. Sometimes neither strategy can help. In any case, we would do well to remember that good people can reach opposite conclusions about the appropriate response to a situation of evil, and we would also do well to give our friends and neighbors the benefit of the doubt when they respond to evil differently than we do.
Moshe, when he confronted Aharon about the Golden Calf, said, “what did this people do to you?” correctly surmising that Aharon wasn’t a willing and eager participant in the idolatry. May we all have the wisdom and the patience to give one another the benefit of the doubt in that manner, whenever we witness behavior that, like Aharon’s, might strike us at first glance as inexplicable.
Shabbat Shalom!
Rabbi Garth Silberstein