The Nature of Rabbinic Authority – 1
Part One
When the nation of Israel is worthy,
it rises higher than the stars of heaven –
but when it falls, it resembles the sand
which everyone tramples underfoot
(Midrash Ohr haAfeila on Gen. 22:17)
Moses and Bnei Yisrael
The relationship between Moshe Rabenu and Am Yisrael was uniquely complex. While Moses’ loyalty and devotion to his flock after he had assumed the leadership was unwavering, the nation’s attitude to Moses veered between admiration, awe and submission on the one hand and resistance, resentment and aggressiveness on the other.
Many factors give rise to this phenomenon. The fact that Moses was an “outsider” not raised among his people was seen as partly detrimental and partly advantageous. This is already apparent in his earliest dealings with Am Yisrael; they “bow their heads” in recognition that Moses is coming to them with an authentic Divine message (Ex 4:31) but quickly turn bitter and accusatory one chapter later when the slavery intensifies (5:20-21). Later, after the Exodus, they “believe in G-D and His servant Moses” ((14:31) and echo their leader’s ecstatic and prophetic song; yet barely three weeks later they complain bitterly about Moses’ leadership (16:3).
A watershed moment comes at Sinai. When, two days before the Revelation, Moses comes to the people with a message from G-D that “the people will hear as I (G-D), speak to you (Moses) and believe in you (as My principal servant and their supreme teacher and leader) for posterity” (19:9), the nation has other ideas. According to the Mehkhilta (redacted by Rashi) the nation was not satisfied with this. They felt themselves on a par spiritually with Moses and requested to hear the revelatory words direct from G-D. Later they realise that they have overreached themselves and, seemingly after the Second of the Ten Commandments, approach Moses in a panic declaring it is all too much. “You, (Moses) speak to us and let not G-D speak to us (anymore) lest we die!” (20:16). Nevertheless, this desire for not only equality but egalitarianism is to surface again with disastrous results in the eigel ha-zahav (golden calf) episode as I shall endeavour to show.
Looking at it from a psychologist’s perspective (and my only qualification is intuition), it seems the people never really ‘forgive’ Moses for their own failing to reach the level needed for direct communication with the Divine. The fact that Moses had to ‘bail them out’ at the Revelation rankled with them inwardly and erupted in full force forty days later.
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Before taking a fresh look at the golden calf incident, let us examine one of the most familiar yet least-understood verses in the whole of Scripture.
נפשי ישובב, ינחני במעגלי צדק למען שמו (תהלים כ’ג ג’)
He (perpetually) restores my soul; He guides me in righteous paths for His name’s sake (Psalms 23:3)
Instead of using one of the more familiar words for “path” – for example derekh or mesila – King David chooses the word ma’agal. As R’ Samson Rafael Hirsch insightfully observes, the word stems from a root עגל which means “round”. Ma’gelei tsedek are actually “circuits of righteousness”. The phrase is often translated as “straight paths” because in English we speak about keeping to the ‘straight and narrow’ or about crossing a ‘red line’. But in Hebrew the imagery is subtly different. Explains R’ Hirsch: what King David is saying is that the good G-D guides him perpetually within the boundaries (circle) of what is right, lema’an Shemo as befits His nature, as He will lead a good person in the way he wishes to go..
It should not escape our notice that the root עגל also gives us eigel – calf!
We have gained a startling new perspective on the eigel episode. As so often in the sacred Hebrew tongue, a word or a name sheds light on a happening beyond the basic meaning of the word or name.
As soon as the people “perceived that Moses had delayed in descending the mountain” (Ex 32:1) – note the Torah emphasises that it was their perception alone that he was late as the Talmud (Shabbat 89a) explains that they erred in thinking the (partial) day of his ascent counted as the first day – they (or at least the more spiritually-challenged elements) wasted no time in setting in motion their game-plan which culminated in them dancing in a ma’agal (circle) around the eigel.
When, on Hoshana Raba and Simchat Torah, we form a circle around the Torah, we are reinforcing the unity theme that predominates on Succot following the cleansing of Yom Kippur that all Jews are equal in the eyes of G-D and all have an equal share in the Torah. However, this notion of equality takes on a very different and sinister hue when the people dance around a golden calf at the foot of Mount Sinai. Because the calf – the eigel – by dint of its very name is also a player in the “equality’ game.
As is evident from what the people peremptorily demand of Aaron – “Arise, make us an icon to go before us, since we don’t know what has become of that man Moses who brought us up out of Egypt” (ibid) – the eigel was intended to replace not G-D but Moses. But with a significant difference. Whereas Moses was appointed by G-D to lead the people, the eigel was fashioned by the people to be at their beck and call. The great attraction of the eigel was its sheer powerlessness.
But the nation (or at least the baser elements of the nation) voluntarily infuse it with a degree of power. How so? They elevate it to being their equal! The eigel becomes, as it were, an equal player in their ‘circle’ of equality. It is as though they are saying to it. “You are our figurehead which makes you our superior. But because we made you and appointed you, that makes us your superior! Therefore, you can be our ‘spiritual leader’ – but we can tell you what to do!”
(If any reader discerns any parallel between the picture I have painted and the way rabbis are viewed in much of the mainstream Jewish world today, it is entirely intentional!)
It took all of forty years until the bond between Moses and the Bnei Yisrael was not only fully restored but transformed to the extent that the people listened rapt to Moses’ 36-day oratory that comprises Sefer Devarim. Among the newly stated mitsvot in the final book of the Torah is a concept so radical and challenging that we are no closer to coming to terms with it today 3,300 years on. But more on that in my next blog!