MARCH 9 • 2023 | 43
T
he poet Yehuda Amichai writes:
“I don’t want an invisible god. I want
a god who is seen
but doesn’t see, so I can lead him
around
and tell him what he doesn’t see…
”
(“God Changes, Prayers are Here
to Stay” in The Poetry of Yehuda
Amichai, ed. Robert Alter, pp. 409-
10)
Back in Parashat Mishpatim, the Torah
tells us that Moses was
called up to the mountain
to work on the stone tablets
and remained there for 40
days (Exodus 24:12-18). In
this week’s portion, Ki Tisa,
we reconnect with this unfin-
ished storyline at the begin-
ning of Exodus 32. While
Moses tarries atop Mount Sinai, the people
down below are losing their patience:
“When the people saw that Moses was so
long in coming down from the mountain,
the people gathered against Aaron and said
to him, ‘Come, make us a god who shall go
before us, for that man Moses, who brought
us from the land of Egypt — we do not
know what happened to him.
’”( Exodus 32:1)
What happens next is one of the most
well-known biblical stories. Aaron, Moses’
brother and the priest, produces a golden
calf for the scared and frustrated Israelites
(Exodus, 32:4), proclaims for them a festival
to the Eternal (Exodus 32:5) and offers the
appropriate sacrifices for a festival (Exodus
32:6). From his ground-level view, Aaron
communicates in word and action that he
thinks he is doing right by the people.
From God’s point of view, however, this
behavior has crossed an irrevocable cove-
nantal line, deserving of the ultimate capital
punishment (Exodus 32:7-11). The people
are saved due to Moses’ pleading (Exodus
11-14): God refrains from wiping out this
“stiff-necked people” (Exodus 32:9). From a
lofty distance, Moses is compassionate. But
when he rejoins the people below and actu-
ally sees what is going on, he is overcome
with anger — he smashes the tablets and
burns the calf to the ground (Exodus 32:19-
20).
DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES
Close and nuanced readings of the Golden
Calf episode reveal seam lines of multiple
perspectives about its meaning. From a
source-critical perspective, Exodus 32 seems
to be a story written as a polemic against
later historical events — the post-Solomon
splitting off of the Northern tribes into
their own kingdom, and how its first king,
Jeroboam, set up new centers of cultic wor-
ship with calves (or bulls) as their symbol (I
Kings 12:25-33; see Israel Knohl, The Divine
Symphony: The Bible’s Many Voices, p. 80).
In this political-theological dispute, we
have a clash of symbols. Our Bible presents
the viewpoint of the Davidic line in the
southern kingdom of Judah with Jerusalem
as its capital, where winged lions (cherubim)
were the symbols adorning the sacred altar
(Exodus 25:18-20; I Kings 6).
Another lesson in perspective-taking
comes from a literary analysis of the unfold-
ing of the Exodus 32 story. In between
Moses’ compassionate pleading on behalf
of the people from above and his enraged
response down below, a curious exchange
of perspective happens at mid-level. On his
way back down the mountain, Moses meets
up with Joshua, his second-in-command
and military leader, who was halfway down
the mountainside (see Exodus 24:13).
Unlike Moses, who had been stationed at
the mountaintop, Joshua was positioned in a
place where he could hear something of the
A Matter of Perspective
continued on page 44
Rabbi
Reuven
Greenvald
SPIRIT
A WORD OF TORAH