Parshas Ki Sisa (5776)
By Mordechai Dolinsky
The episode of the aigel hazahav is one of the most puzzling and perplexing in the Chumash. The great difficulty—Moshe is receiving the aseres hadibros and Hashem informs him that Bnei Yisroel has fallen to the greatest depths of the chait haaigel. Hashem can’t have Klal Yisroel; and is about to give them up as His Nation. Moshe used all his resources to have Klal Yisroel forgiven, to be allowed to survive and be reinstated as Hashem’s nation and his children. For this Moshe worked and fought and pushed until “Vayinochem Hashem al Haraah asher diber”. To this end Moshe’s mission was accomplished, having saved Klal Yisroel. This episode was followed by the greatest difficulty. Moshe Rabeinu himself comes down the mountain and upon arriving at the scene of Klal Yisroel worshipping the aigel explodes in anger from the shock of the sight. He then imposes harsh punishments on the Klal seemingly very much against the very thing that he tried so hard for and was so successful in accomplishing—the forgiveness of Klal Yisroel.
What poses an additional difficulty is that Rashi, who deals with every difficult issue, doesn’t even give a clue that there is a problem, which means that he is declaring that there is no problem, no question and as difficult as it seems the answer must lie in the simplicity.
Now that we have a Klal Yisroel, alive and accepted by Hashem, come the issues that must be dealt with. The aigel itself must be crushed out of existence. The guilty must be punished and due to the condition and situation Klal Yisroel was in the luchos could not be given to them and couldn’t exist in their complete form. And so simply, the great accomplishment of Moshe that Klal Yisroel should be accepted again by Hashem still demanded the need to purify them. This is something which is clear, logical and naturally understood.