Wednesday 11 March 2020

Parsha: Ki Tisa, "Aaron's Honour"


We need not be overly judgmental re: Aharon's role in the Eigel Masecha when we read the following:
What's with the sarcasm against Aharon? Yes, the making of the gold into the form of a calf was, as per Rashi to 32:4, not Aharon's doing (it was done by Egyptian magicians or by Micha, as the case may be). So according to this, he could indeed correctly say: "All I did was throw the gold into the fire, and as far as I was concerned it would have just melted there into a big blob; others are to blame for the actual making of the calf.
Same thing with "hisparaku." True that Aharon tells the people "paraku," but in a transitive rather than a reflexive sense: "take off the golden rings from your wives', sons', and daughters' ears..." - but not from your own. Whereas the next verse continues that they instead brought him their own jewelry: "vayisparaku" - a reflexive form - "all of the people took off the gold rings in their ears..." (Rashi makes this point explicitly in his commentary to 32:2.) So Aharon's description in 32:24 is indeed in keeping with this. "I asked only 'lemi zahav' - go see who in your families has gold available; but 'hisparaku,' they took off their own earrings, which I had not expected."
In short, then, Aharon is giving a quite accurate summary of what happened, distinguishing between what he did (asking for people to bring their families' gold, throwing it in the fire) and what he did not do (having them bring their own gold, making the calf). He's not trying to mislead Moshe. If anything, he leaves out other considerations in his own favor, such as his fear for his life after seeing Chur murdered for opposing them (Rashi to 32:5).

Kol tuv,
- Alex Heppenheimer
- aheppenh@yahoo.com
-Mahpach list
- Reproduced with the permission of Alex Heppenheimer

When in doubt - give our "icons" a break.

Shalom, RRW

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