Aharon’s Role in the Golden Calf

What would you do if someone forced you to do something that you knew to be wrong? You would likely be killed for your inactivity if you refused to do it. The person forcing you would likely accomplish the action themselves in any event. If you decide to do it, you will prevent others from performing evil acts. Is it worth doing a bad thing to save others from doing something worse, or should you die rather than act? Is it worth keeping to your moral standards and not performing an evil act, no matter what the consequences?

This dilemma is similar to the story of Aharon and the Golden Calf, which can be found in Exodus 35. The Torah describes the people’s demand for Aharon to create a “g-d” that would “go in front of them” as a substitute for Moshe, whom they believed had died.

The Torah tells us that Aharon asked the people to gather the gold jewellery of their womenfolk and bring it to him. The people were so zealous to create a g-d that they gave Aharon their own jewellery. Aharon then threw the gold into the furnace, creating a golden calf. The people bowed down to the calf and said “This is your g-d who took you out of Egypt”. They bring sacrifices to it and eat and drink, which results in licentious behaviour.

The Abarbanel comments that this was not the first time that Aharon had been asked to create a g-d for them. He points out that this must have been a repeated request, based on the Talmud in Sanhedrin (7a). Aharon, together with Chur, the son of Miriam, were given the leadership of the Jewish people in Moshe’s absence. Chur refused to create a molten idol. His refusal had a high cost. They killed Chur, and we do not hear about him again in the Torah.

Aharon knew that they would kill him if he didn’t obey their demand for an idol. Aharon decided that he would create an idol, something expressly forbidden in the Torah, for two reasons:

1. He believed that he could postpone the service of the idol until Moshe returned by making it himself and requesting the gold from the women, who he believed wouldn’t be easy to convince to separate from their golden jewellery.
2. The Abarbanel asserts further that he wanted to create a perfect idol, something which had no defects, to show the Jewish people that even though it was a perfect idol He wanted it to be perfect to show that if the calf didn’t fulfil its purpose, it could not be put down to his faulty handiwork, and that any defects that the idol expressed would discourage the people from ever serving an image of gold. Therefore, when they asked the golden calf which direction to take, and the golden calf did not answer, he could show them the gap in their logic.

The problem in his thinking was twofold. First of all, he could not stop the eagerness of the people who brought their own jewellery to him, not giving Moshe any time to return.The second problem was that the people didn’t even bother to ask the calf for directions. They were so dazzled by the molten image they created that they bowed and made sacrifices for it straight away. They didn’t even see that the golden calf could not serve their purpose, so keen were they to have anything, anything that would soothe and assuage their fears of being leaderless in the desert.

In summary, Aharon acted in good faith, even though the results were exactly the opposite of his expectations. The people served the calf, and this resulted in their immediate demise, were it not for Moshe’s advocacy of the Jewish people.