Why Moses Delayed and Israel Made the Golden Calf

(Exodus 32:1) "When the people saw that Moses delayed." What is "delayed" (boshesh)? Six (shesh) hours had come (ba) and Moses had not come down. For Moses had made a condition with them and said to them: After forty days I will bring you the Torah. When six hours had come and he had not come down, immediately "the people gathered against Aaron." Our Rabbis said: Ha-Satan came and confounded the world, and showed them something like Moses suspended from the earth, with his bier in the air. And they pointed at him with the finger and said, "for this is the man Moses." At that hour Hur said to them: O stiff-necked ones, do you not remember what he did for you? They rose up and killed him. Then they assembled against Aaron, as it is said, "the people gathered against Aaron." They said to him: If you make us a god, well and good; and if not, we will do to you just as we did to Hur. "And Aaron saw" (Exodus 32:5) — he saw what they had done to Hur. "And he built (vayyiven) an altar (mizbeach)" — he understood (hevin) from the slaughtered one (mizzavuach). They sought to build it with him. He said to them: Leave me, and I will make it by myself, for there is no one to build it with me. And Aaron intended to say: while I am building it, Moses will come down. He built it, and Moses did not come down. Immediately "they rose early the next day... [and the people sat down to eat]" (Exodus 32:6). Every place where you find sitting, there you find corruption. As it is said, "and they sat down to eat bread" (Genesis 37:25) — what corruption was there? That they sold Joseph. And in another place it is written, "and Israel dwelt (sat) in Shittim" (Numbers 25:1) — and what corruption was there? "The people began to commit harlotry" (ibid.). And here too, "the people sat down" — a sitting of idolatry. The Holy One, blessed be He, said to Moses: They have risen to make sport with idolatry, and you are sitting? "Go, get down" (Exodus 32:7). At that hour Moses came to go down and saw the angels of destruction, and he was afraid to go down, as it is said, "for I was afraid of the anger and the wrath" (Deuteronomy 9:19). What did he do? He went and grasped the throne, as it is said, "He grasps the face of the throne; [He spreads His cloud over him]" (Job 26:9). And the Holy One, blessed be He, protected him and spread over him from the radiance of His Shekhinah. Come and see how much the sins caused: yesterday Moses was butting against them, and now he was afraid of them — "for I was afraid [of the anger and the wrath]." There are five angels of destruction: Af (Anger), Ketzef (Wrath), Mashbir (Breaker), Mash'hit (Destroyer), and Chemah (Fury). Moses mentioned the three patriarchs, and three departed, and there remained Af and Chemah. Moses said before the Holy One, blessed be He: Master of the World, You stand against one and I against one, as it is said, "Arise, O Lord, in Your anger" (Psalms 7:7). The Holy One, blessed be He, said to him: Go down — it is a descent (a degradation) for you. He said to Him: Why? He said to him: "For your people have acted corruptly" (Exodus 32:7). Moses said to Him: Now they are my people and not Your people? "Turn from Your fierce anger" (Exodus 32:12). Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai said: Moses did not cease praying until the Holy One, blessed be He, was reconciled to them. The Holy One, blessed be He, said: In this world, because the evil inclination is present among you, you sinned before Me; but in the world to come I will uproot it from you, as it is said, "And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh" (Ezekiel 36:26).