When the call went out for Tabernacle offerings, Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus 35:22 records a scene the Torah's plain text only hints at: with the men came the women. And the women did not bring leftovers. They brought chains, and necklaces, rings, bracelets, and every ornament of gold.
The rabbis read this against the dark mirror of a few chapters earlier. When Aaron built the golden calf, he had asked the people — and particularly their wives — for their gold (Exodus 32:2). Tradition says the women refused. They saw through the calf before the men did. So the gold that built the calf came from men stripping their own ornaments and those of their children. The women's gold stayed on their wrists.
Now, here in Exodus 35:22, the women finally bring their gold forward. Not for an idol. For the Mishkan. The Targum's careful listing — chains, necklaces, rings, bracelets — echoes the same jewelry categories Aaron had requested and been refused. What the women withheld from the calf, they poured out for the Tabernacle.
This is one of the Torah's quiet honors to the women of the wilderness generation. The rabbis of Midrash Tanchuma (Pekudei 9) said the month of Rosh Chodesh was given to women as a reward — a monthly festival exempted from certain work — precisely because of their refusal to donate to the calf and their enthusiasm for the Mishkan.
The takeaway: giving is not only about what you bring. It is about what you refused to give before, and to whom. The same gold, offered to the wrong altar, builds idolatry; offered to the right one, builds the dwelling of God.