The First Selfie

 

This week’s Torah portion has one of the more perplexing episodes in Jewish history. Forty days after the Jewish people heard God proclaim that we must not have any gods other than Him, the Israelites made a Golden Calf and then had the audacity to proclaim, “These are your gods that took you out of Egypt.”

 

Seriously? For real? 

 

Commentators throughout the ages have grappled with the obvious difficulty of how they could so rapidly descend into such a gross absurdity and commit such a grievous sin.

 

A possible way of trying to understand this is based on the placement of where this story appears in the Torah. The details of building the Tabernacle couch this incident, coming both before and after the narration of the Golden Calf. However, the construction of the Tabernacle was told to Moshe after the Jews sinned.

 

A recap: They left Egypt and went to Sinai and hang there at the base of the mountain. Moshe goes up Mt. Sinai for forty days and nights to get the Torah, while they all heard the 10 Commandments at the beginning of that time period. Moshe comes down the mountain, smashes the tablets when he sees this abomination and then goes back up there the next day to pray that God not wipe them out and to re-establish their earlier relationship with God to what it was. He succeeds in doing that and returns with the second tablets on the 10^th of Tishrei, which we have been commemorating ever since as Yom Kippur – the Day of Atonement.

 

And, after all of this, then and only then do they get the commandments to build a Tabernacle. So clearly this affair is way out of chronological sequence. 

 

Based on this anomaly, the Talmud points out the connection between the two events and says that the Tabernacle was built in response to the Golden Calf. Yes indeed, the holiest and most sacred articles in the Tabernacle were a reaction to one of the lowest spiritual points of Jewish history.

 

The link between the two is even more pronounced given the fact that the holiest spot in the Tabernacle is occupied with, you guessed it, golden figurines. The keruvim, cherubim, is the center-piece in the Holy of Holies atop the Ark and from between these golden statues, God Himself spoke to Moshe.

 

So here we have it, the holiest place on earth is not that much different than the most heinous spiritual crime committed in all of Jewish history. A very fine line indeed separates these two diametrically opposed extremes: direct communication with God on the one hand and abject idol worship on the other. Two sides of one golden coin.

 

To get some sort of understanding of this we have to try to imagine the aftermath and impact the Jewish people must have felt right after having just met God face-to-face at Mount Sinai. One can only imagine that when it was over they must have felt that they wanted and needed some physical manifestation to express this lofty spiritual experience. They knew they could not walk away from Sinai without some tangible token of this great moment in their lives. It was a glorious moment that would never be repeated again and they couldn’t just depart from there empty-handed.

 

When you reach such a zenith of greatness, you need something … anything, as a symbol. Such events in life may be relived in the mind, but it is so much more meaningful if there is some sort of tangible expression to touch or feel or see that brings one back to that monumental occasion.

 

Indeed we do this all the time when we go to any sporting event or concert and take a selfie or buy a t-shirt with the team/band logo, an autographed ball or the like. And the greater the event, the more selfies will appear on facebook and the more likely we will purchase the souvenir. Stanley Cup Finals pucks far outsell pucks with just a team emblem.

 

And this is precisely what the Jewish people made for themselves. The Golden Calf was their “I Was at Sinai” tchotchke, selfie.

 

The only problem however was this token was not officially licensed but a counterfeit that they created themselves. When you have a life changing experience, a one-time achievement and you wish for it to be awarded or recognized, it must come from without and not from within. You cannot reward yourself a degree or gold medal; it must come from an outside party or judge. Creating your own gold medal is an absurdity as silly as reaching behind your back and patting yourself on it. It is a self-serving false god that expresses nothing but your own satisfaction of ego – and nothing could be more fake than that.

 

To have a direct communication with God is a high like no other and one would do anything to have something to recall that experience for the future. It was a golden moment that demanded a golden commemoration to be cherished for the rest of time. For the Jewish people to make their own golden tribute and not wait for one from God turns the whole event on its head. It makes it into a self-serving momentary spiritual high instead of a nationally defining moment signifying the eternal service of God.

 

Gold medals and commemorations cannot be bought nor made in your image in your garage. They must be conferred upon by and from an outside, impartial Judge. The Tabernacle and its golden figures were the real medals that allowed Israel to stand high on the podium and relive the Sinai experience. Anything else was fool’s gold … foolish and dumb as a cow.

 

He came from somewhere, back in her long ago

The sentimental fool don’t see

Tryin’ hard to recreate

What had yet to be created…

 

But what a fool believes

he sees

No wise man has the power

to reason away

What seems to be

is always better than nothing

-Doobie Brothers