Sunday
I revisit today a poem I shared a decade ago that puts a positive spin on the golden calf story, one of today’s lectionary readings. Although the calf works as a handy stand-in for any form of materialist idolatry (including the gold plating that DJT is applying to the White House and various statues), its historical origins are more complicated. Rabbi Jacob J. Staub explores them in his thought-provoking poem.
First, here’s the story:
When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered around Aaron, and said to him, “Come, make gods for us, who shall go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.” Aaron said to them, “Take off the gold rings that are on the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.” So all the people took off the gold rings from their ears, and brought them to Aaron. He took the gold from them, formed it in a mold, and cast an image of a calf; and they said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!” When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation and said, “Tomorrow shall be a festival to the Lord.” They rose early the next day, and offered burnt offerings and brought sacrifices of well-being; and the people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to revel.
When the Lord informs Moses up on the mountain what is transpiring, Moses must talk him out of destroying them all. “Turn from your fierce wrath; change your mind and do not bring disaster on your people,” he begs before reminding in God of the promise he made to Abraham, Isaac, and Israel. At this urging, we are told, “the Lord changed his mind about the disaster that he planned to bring on his people.”
While the Lord may have relented mind, however, Moses determines that heads still must roll. Speaking to the priest class (the Levites), he commands that “each man strap a sword to his side. Go back and forth through the camp from one end to the other, each killing his brother and friend and neighbor.’” We are informed that the Levites did as Moses commanded and that about 3000 people are killed.
Given this murderous turn, which conjures up images of current events in Gaza, we can see why Staub revisits the story. In his eyes, the people are rebelling against an overly doctrinaire and grim version of Judaism.
In this reading, Moses is a psychologically wounded man who wants to impose his narrow vision of Jahweh on the Israelites, Staub’s Moses sounds like Freud’s repressive patriarch in Moses and Monotheism, whom Freud imagines as a dictatorial leader that the Israelites rebelled against and killed. In Freud’s thought experiment, the Israelites then experienced Oedipal guilt, which they internalized as a stern and judgmental superego.
I don’t recognize all the names in the third stanza of Staub’s poem, but they seem to refer to a historical time when the Israelites worshipped multiple gods, some of whom were later explained away as different names for the One God (for instance, Adonai). “Ashira” may be Asherah, once believed to be the female consort of Jahweh. Apparently Judaism was not a strictly monotheistic religion until after the Babylonian exile, which was when the Book of Exodus was written. Historians place the historical Moses around 700 years earlier, which means the Exodus account may not be any closer to historical truth than Freud’s.
In any event, Staub imagines a free-flowing spirit that is chillingly repressed by priests. Moses, a “bridegroom of the blood,” himself ignores his wife Tzipporah and his sons. Staub wants Judaism to return to what he imagines are its more celebratory and less patriarchal roots. Our problem is not that we worship the golden calf, he says. It’s that we worship orthodoxy.
Think of it as a poem advocating for a multicultural Israel.
Sadly, Moses and the Levites in the poem sound like Netanyahu and his ultra orthodox followers. “We don’t need another Pharaoh to lead us into freedom,” Staub declares. True idolatry, I suspect he would say, is ethnic nationalism.
“Guide him please, Holy One of Compassion,” he begs the Lord. “Love him doubly, forgive him his wrath.”
The Golden Calf
By Jacob J. Staub
From the valley below, the ebullient notes of celebrants,
the beat of tambourines liberated after four hundred years of abuse.Sing unto the One,
Who smites the tyrant,
Who hears the cries of the oppressed,
Who parts the Sea and plants the seeds for generations yet unborn.Ana, pool your gold. Adonai, give it to God.
Hoshi’a, smelt it down. Na, cast the throne.
Ashira, link your arms. Ladonai, circle the fire.
Ki, spin into oblivion.
Ga’oh, let go, let go, let go.
Ga’ah, God is One, we are one.
With broken bodies of former slaves, we undulate,
following the Source enthroned into the wilderness of promise.And up over the ridge, the Levites wait, in formation,
swords on thighs, servants of the Lord, privileged
to follow orders, to do as they are told.
A martial clan descended from the heroes of the Battle of Shechem,
they wear their forebears’ medals proudly.
They have been instructed in the proper use of herbs and oils,
in the dire consequences of disobedience, of initiative, of openheartedness.
In formation, they await the signal from Moses, down from the mountain,
to charge, to slay three thousand defenseless, spent from a night of celebration.Moses claims that You love only him,
that we were spared because he intervened,
that You do not like our offering.
Moses, who has never seen Your face—
not in the silent, steamy eyes of Tzipporah,
from whom he stays cloistered,
not in the bloody foreskins of his sons,
whom he ignores in the name of his holy work.
Moses, who doesn’t touch.
Moses, who doesn’t dance.
Moses, the bridegroom of blood.Guide him please, Holy One of Compassion.
We don’t need another Pharaoh to lead us into freedom.
Love him doubly, forgive him his wrath.
He was taken as an infant from his mother.
Only You know what befell the lad in the palace,
but below, all we see is his sweltering rage.
Otherwise, as You surely can foresee,
generations will mistake
fervent worship for idolatry.
