42 | AUGUST 4 • 2022 

T

he first verse of Devarim, the 
fifth and culminating book of the 
Torah, sounds prosaic. “These are 
the words that Moses spoke to all Israel 
beyond the Jordan — in the wilderness, on 
the plain opposite Suph, between Paran and 
Tophel, Laban, Hazeroth and 
Di-zahav.” There is no hint of 
drama in these words. But the 
Sages of the Talmud found 
one, and it is life-changing.
What is odd in the verse 
is the last place-name: 
Di-zahav. What and where 
is this place? It hasn’t been 
mentioned before, nor is it mentioned again 
anywhere else in the Tanach. But the name 
is tantalizing. It seems to mean, “Enough 
gold.
” Gold is certainly something we have 
heard about before. It was the metal of 
which the calf was made while Moses was 
on the mountain receiving the Torah from 
God. This was one of the great sins of the 
wilderness years. Might the enigmatic men-
tion of a place called “Enough gold” have 
something to do with it?
From these clues and cues, the Sages 
inferred a remarkable drama. This is what 
they said:
Moses spoke audaciously [hiti’ach 
devarim] toward Heaven . . . The school 
of R. Yannai learned this from the words 
Di-zahav. What do these words mean? They 
said in the school of R. Yannai: Thus spoke 
Moses before the Holy One, blessed be He: 
“Sovereign of the Universe, the silver and 
gold [zahav] which You showered on Israel 
until they said, ‘Enough’ [dai], was what 
caused them to make the calf . . . R. Hiyya 
bar Abba said: It is like the case of a man 
who had a son. He bathed him and anoint-
ed him and gave him plenty to eat and 
drink and hung a purse around his neck 
and set him down at the door of a house of 
ill-repute. How could he help sinning? 
Moses, in this dramatic re-reading, is 
portrayed as counsel for the defense of the 
Jewish people. Yes, he admits to God, the 
people did indeed commit a sin. But it was 
You who provided them with the opportu-
nity and the temptation. If the Israelites had 
not had gold in the wilderness, they could 
not have made a golden calf. Besides which, 

who needs gold in a wilderness? There was 
only one reason the Israelites had gold with 
them: because they were following Your 
instructions. You said: “Tell the people that 
every man is to ask his neighbor and every 
woman is to ask her neighbor for objects of 
silver and gold” (Ex. 11:2). Therefore, do not 
blame them. Please, instead, forgive them.
This is a wonderful passage in its own 
right. It represents what the Sages called 
chutzpah kelapei Shemaya, “audacity toward 
heaven.
” (We tend to think of chutzpah as a 
Yiddish word, but it is in fact Aramaic and 
comes to us from the Babylonian Talmud). 
The question, though, is: why did the Sages 
choose this passage to make the point?
After all, the episode of the Golden Calf 
is set out in full in Exodus 32-34. The Torah 
tells us explicitly how daring Moses was 
in prayer. First, when God tells him what 
the people have done, Moses immediately 
responds by saying, “Lord, why should Your 
anger burn against Your people? … Why 
should the Egyptians say, ‘It was with evil 
intent that He brought them out, to kill 
them in the mountains and to wipe them 
off the face of the earth’?” (Ex. 32:11-12). 

This is audacious. Moses tells God that, 
regardless of what the people have done, 
it will be His reputation that will suffer if 
it becomes known that He did not lead 
the Israelites to freedom, but instead killed 
them in the desert.
Then, descending the mountain and 
seeing what the people have done, he does 
his single most daring act. He smashes 
the tablets, engraved by God Himself. The 
audacity continues. Moses goes back up 
the mountain and says to God, “These 
people have indeed committed a great sin. 
They have made themselves an idol of 
gold. But now, please forgive their sin — 
but if not, then blot me out of the book 
You have written.
’ (Ex. 32:31-32). This is 
unprecedented language. This should be 
the passage to which the Sages attached 
an account of Moses’ boldness in defense 
of his people. Why then attach it here, to 
an obscure place-name in the first verse of 
Deuteronomy, where it is radically out of 
keeping with the plain sense of the verse.
I believe the answer is this. Throughout 
Devarim, Moses is relentless in his criticism 
of the people: “From the day you left Egypt 

The Effective Critic

Rabbi Lord 
Jonathan 
Sacks

RABBISACKS.ORG

SPIRIT
A WORD OF TORAH

