Beware of golden - and molten - calves

One of the first times that my brother and I were left home alone, we decided we were in the mood for pancakes. When we couldn’t figure out how to turn on the stove, we retreated to the garage with a wastebasket, an old Sunday Boston Globe, a book of matches, a frying pan and a bowl of batter. There, crouched over an open flame, we hastily prepared a short stack of pancakes. The bad news was that they were raw in the middle. The good news was that we did not burn the house down.

One of the first times that Moses left the Israelites alone, they made an even worse choice. Afraid that Moses would never return from his forty days on Mount Sinai, they decided to make themselves a new god. The people took their gold jewelry, threw it into the fire and fashioned an idol in the shape of a calf. They built an altar for the idol, brought offerings to it and had a party with feasting and ecstatic dance. Meanwhile, Moses was on his way back to camp with the Ten Commandments, the first and second of which prohibit exactly this kind of thing. The Israelites were in big trouble.

This episode from Parashat Ki Tisa is commonly called the “sin of the golden calf.” The lesson seems straightforward enough: by worshipping an idol of gold, the Israelites value the material over the spiritual, the earthly over the transcendent. They fall into the same idolatrous trap that we so often fall into today, prioritizing riches over relationships, wealth over wisdom, fleeting pleasures over enduring values.

It is worth noting, however, that the phrase egel Zahav – “golden calf”– does not appear even once in the parashah. Instead, the idol is called an egel maseichah, a “molten calf.” This raises a question: Is it really the gold that the Israelites are worshipping? Would a people deranged by materialism so readily throw their jewelry into the fire? Perhaps the sin of the molten calf is a different kind of idolatry. Perhaps it is the worship of the human capacity—propensity, even—to melt down, to tear down, to destroy.

There is something intoxicating about the speed and efficiency of destruction. Any parent can attest to the delight toddlers take in knocking down a tower of blocks or grinding berries into their plate (or clothes, or hair…). That pleasure follows us through the pyromania of early adolescence (see above) and, I would argue, even into adulthood.

In our house, we are currently wrapping up a lengthy kitchen renovation. It has been a pleasure to see the new kitchen come together, piece by piece, over the last few months. However, there was one day that was far and away the most pleasurable: the day that a team of men with sledgehammers and crowbars demolished the old kitchen. It was thrilling to survey the damage. In the desolate space where our kitchen once was, we marveled at the bare wires and beams. As we complimented our very experienced contractor on a job well done, he was kind but even-keeled. He smiled and said, “everybody loves this part.”

Indeed. At some level, everybody loves destruction. It is quick. It is dramatic. It produces immediate results. It feels like change. So alluring is destruction that we might even be tempted to bow down before it, as the Israelites did at the foot of Mount Sinai. But the sin of the molten calf reminds us that, as Jews, we are called to resist that temptation. Our task is not to destroy, but to preserve – and better yet, to build.

This is a timely message. Like the Israelites waiting for Moses to descend from the mountain, we are living through a period of profound uncertainty. We worry, as they did, that we will not be shown the way forward. How will we respond? Will we place our faith in the blunt clarity of destruction, or in the long arc of redemption? Will we devote our energy to tearing down old institutions, or to renewing and strengthening them?

They say that good things come to those who wait: the return of a beloved teacher, a sign from G-d, a short stack of fully cooked pancakes. In our day, golden calves beckon. Molten calves do, too. May we have the patience, forbearance and discernment to resist them, stay the course set out for us, and live up to our high calling as stewards of a sacred tradition and builders of a brighter tomorrow.

RABBI SAM WEISS is the Senior Jewish Educator at Brown RISD Hillel.