Many years ago, while pursuing an additional Masters degree in Theology, I came perilously close to failing a class. I was studying with Professor Uriel Simon, one of the pre-eminent Jewish experts in Bible in the world, who was spending a semester at Yale on leave from Bar Ilan in Israel.
The class was incredibly difficult, entirely in Hebrew, and delving into one of the most complex commentators of all time, Abraham Ibn Ezra. I was assigned Ibn Ezra’s commentary to the torah portion Ki Tisa, which deals with the Golden Calf. Somehow, I completely misunderstood Ibn Ezra and it was only out of mercy that Professor Simon did not give me an “F” on my paper. This week, as we once again study Parashat Ki Tisa almost three decades later, I finally figured it out. Ibn Ezra argues that the people did not commit the sin of idol worship in making the Golden Calf-they were seeking not a substitute for God, but a substitute for Moses himself-they were simply looking for a strong leader to lead them out of the wilderness. Their “sin” was in putting too much faith in one man, indeed in a “strong man”. We are living in a perilous time when too many of our fellow citizens are once again captivated by the idea of a “strong man” who despite his incredible moral failures as a human being somehow manages to convince people to follow him. As Ibn Ezra warned us, seeking a “strong man” leads to sin.
Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi Doug Sagal