Q:
You mentioned before, the Jews of Mitzrayim experienced many cases of emunah, like with the makkos. Why did they, after all this, make the eigel?
A:
Why did the Jews of Mitzrayim make the eigel after they saw all the great things?
And the answer is why not? Why do people make tefillin? The egel was to them tefillin. You know what the eigel was for? It says כי זה משה האיש אשר העלנו מארץ מצרים לא ידענו מה היה לו – we don’t know what happened to Moshe, so they made an eigel instead of Moshe. The egel was to remind them of Hashem like Moshe used to remind them.
Tefillin have to remind us. כי שם ה’ נקרא עליך – tefillin remind you of Hashem. So they wanted an eigel to remind them of Hashem. The eigel was mitzvah-purpose. The only thing that was wrong was Hakodosh Boruch Hu said, “No matter how good your intentions are, I say you shouldn’t make any pesel or masecha. You can’t make an image.”
(Feb 4, 1982)
