Vampire Weekend's Surprising Jewish Stories
7 min read
After the Jewish people sin with the Golden Calf, God tells Moshe they are deserving of destruction and He wants to start the nation again with Moshe as the sole ancestor. He then tells Moshe to leave Him alone so He can destroy the nation.1 Rashi2 points out that Moshe infers from God’s words that if Moshe would not leave Him alone He might not destroy them. With this faint ray of hope, Moshe argues that despite their heinous sin, it would not be constructive for God to destroy the nation that He had just taken out of Egypt. His arguments worked and God indeed forgives the people.
Rabbi David Fohrman notes that there are a number of uncanny similarities between this passage and another defining episode that took place hundreds of years earlier – the destruction of the world in the time of Noach and Noach’s role in that tragic event.3
Before we discuss the comparisons between the two occurrences, it is instructive to note that there are general comparisons between Moshe and Noach: Firstly, there are only two times in the entire Torah where the word, teivah (ark) appears. The first is Noach’s teivah and the second is the teivah that Moshe was placed into by his mother when she put him in the river. Moreover, in both instances, the Torah recounts how these arcs were lined on the inside and outside.4 Conceptually, the cases overlap as well, as in both instances, a person found shelter from threatening waters in some kind of ark.
Secondly, the Midrash explicitly compares Noach and Moshe. It relates that Moshe was greater than Noach because, earlier in the Torah, Noach was called ‘Ish tzaddik’ (a righteous man) and later in the Torah he is described as ‘Ish Adamah’ (man of the Earth), which represents a lowering of his status. In contrast, Moshe is initially called Ish Mitzri (Egyptian man) but is later described as Ish Elokim, (man of God) which indicates a rise in status.5
But it is in the two episodes where the similarities really stick out: We’ll begin each comparison with this Torah portion and then go back to the Torah Portion of Noach: Firstly, when God first confronts Moshe about the Golden Calf, He says, “Go down, because your people, that you took out of Egypt, have corrupted themselves.”6 The root word used to describe the people’s corruption is ‘shicheit’. The passage about the Flood begins with the words, “God looked upon the land, and indeed it was corrupt, because all flesh had corrupted its way upon the land.”7 Again, the root word, ‘shicheit’ is used here, twice.
Another similarity is that both stories feature a time period in which the main protagonists spend forty days in an extreme environment with no outside access to food. Moshe is atop Mount Sinai receiving the Torah from God, while Noach is in the ark.
Another parallel in word usage is found when God decides how to proceed in His plans for destruction in both events. With regard to the Golden Calf, God decides not to destroy the nation: “And God regretted having said He would bring destruction upon His people.”8 The word for regretted is ‘veyinachem’. In Noach, the Torah relates, “And God regretted having made man on earth and His heart was saddened.”9 Here too, the word for regret is ‘veyinachem’.
We have seen a number of striking similarities between these two stories, and yet it is evident that they diverged from each other in a decisive manner: In both, the people corrupted themselves and God expressed a desire to wipe out most of the world and leave one righteous person remaining. Yet in the story of Noach, God followed through with His plan, whereas in the passage of the aftermath of the Golden Calf, God ‘changed His mind’ so to speak. Consequently, the identical root word, ‘veyinachem’ has an opposite meaning in the two episodes – with regard to the Flood, it refers to going back on the decision to create mankind, and in the Golden Calf, it refers to going back on the decision to destroy the Jewish nation.
What was the cause of such diverging climaxes to these two stories? It is evident that the cause is the dramatically different reactions of the two main protagonists – Moshe and Noach. When God tells Noach of His plans to destroy the world, we do not see that Noach argues. Rather, he dutifully follows through with God’s instructions of how to proceed. In contrast, when God expresses a similar plan to Moshe, he fights back and somehow ‘convinces’ God to refrain from His plan. One may argue that the two situations were different and that the Generation of the Flood was more of a lost cause than that of the Golden Calf. However, this assertion is disproved by a Zohar cited by the Sukkat David which tells us that had Noach argued if Noach would have waged such a forceful argument on behalf of his generation, as did Moshe, the Flood would have never occurred.10
It seems that the outstanding trait that enabled Moshe to stand up to God at a time of Divine Wrath was his mesirat nefesh – self-sacrifice, and more precisely his willingness to risk his own safety and well-being in order to help others. Rabbi David Fohrman,11 outlines a number of times in Moshe’s life where self-sacrifice was displayed, the first being by someone else on Moshe’s behalf. When baby Moshe was placed in the river, he faced almost certain death until Pharaoh’s daughter saved him at considerable person risk to herself, given that her father had decreed the destruction of all Jewish babies. Thus, at the beginning of his life, he was saved by an act of self-sacrifice.
When Moshe grows up, he sees a Jewish slave being beaten by an Egyptian, and he kills the aggressor, saving the victim. This was an act of great personal bravery and it meant that he was in effect leaving behind his privileged existence as a member of the palace. Soon after this, Moshe again places himself in danger when he tries to prevent two Jews from fighting, and the ramifications of this act are immediate as he is forced to leave Egypt.12 Yet again, Moshe puts himself at risk when he confronts a gang of shepherds who are harassing Tsipporah and her sisters, even though he is greatly outnumbered. The common denominator of all these episodes is that someone constantly put himself at risk in order to help others. This was the same trait that he so dramatically demonstrated after the Golden Calf.
We know that Moshe was adorned with numerous wonderful character traits, but it is possible that his self-sacrifice was one of, if not, the defining reason as to why God chose him to be the leader of the Jewish people at a time of great danger. Indeed, he put himself in great danger in his confrontations with Pharaoh. Yet, Rabbi Forhman suggests, his willingness to risk everything to defend the Jewish people at their lowest point, after the Golden Calf, demonstrates more than anything else the self-sacrifice that resulted in him being chosen as the Jewish people’s leader.
