Expecting Moses to return from Mt. Sinai as he told them he would after 40 days, the impatient and miscalculating amongst us pressured Aaron haKohen, the High Priest, into making a Golden Calf.
Chabad.org reports:
In the year 2448 from Creation (1313 BCE), Tammuz 16 was the 40th day following the Giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai, and the people of Israel wrongly expected Moses' return from the mountain (he would actually return on the following day). When their leader failed to return, they demanded from Aaron: "Make us a god that shall go before us". Hur (Moses' nephew, the son of Miriam and Caleb) tried to stop them and was killed by the mob. Aaron fashioned a calf of molten gold.
Didn't HaShem make us with 10 fingers and 10 toes? What's the problem with counting? And why do we always repeat our mistakes? Didn't King Saul himself miscount the days when waiting for Samuel the Prophet to return to him, and when he failed to do so, took it upon himself to act in a Priestly role, stepping outside the purview of Kingship and thereby forfeiting the Monarchy itself?
HaShem seems to take counting very seriously - sometimes it's commanded as in when Moses is ordered to count the Army-worthy males of the 12 Tribes, and sometimes it's forbidden, as in when King David took a census of the people, and many times miscalculation costs us much, much more than we are able to pay. Every time disaster strikes - as in with the Golden Calf and King Saul's mis-count - all we would have had to do is WAIT JUST ONE MORE DAY!!!
Patience - how to know when to have more of it, how to know when the time for patience is at an end and the time for action has arrived? Was Aaron HaKohen's creation of the Golden Calf really a delay tactic, was he hoping it would take several days to collect enough gold to make it and was he shocked when it burst out of the fire, fully formed? When we compromise a little, are we surprised to find out how quickly the slide downhill really happens?
All that can be said is: when you think you can't wait any more and you just HAVE to take things in your own hands - WAIT JUST ONE MORE DAY and see what happens. You may avoid a world of pain that way!
Today's Torah Schedule:
- 1:15pm: Rabbi Chaim Richman's "Light Unto The Nations" - Holiness In This World -The Holy of Holies is the holiest place on earth: What is holiness? How can we become holy? Can a place or time be imbued with sanctity? Torah teaches us an emphatic yes to all these questions. And the soul/time/space nexus where the holiest moment of the year, (Yom Kippur), and the holiest spot on earth , (the Holy of Holies), and the individual who represents the holiest possibility of man, (the Kohen Gadol – High Priest), meet and merge together is nothing less than the entire purpose of creation. (REPEATS AT 2am Jerusalem Time)
- 2pm: Rabbi Chaim Richman's series on the Breastplate of the High Priest continues with "Completing the Choshen: Faith Into Action." Holding the Choshen – Breastplate – of the High Priest in is hands, Rabbi Richman describes its details and the exhilarating feeling of faith being transformed into action through researching and recreating the Choshen which will soon be worn by the High Priest in the Holy Temple. (REPEATS at 3am)
- 3pm: Rav Ozer Bergman of The Breslov Research Institute teaches on Rebbe Nachman's Likutey Moran. This class was originally broadcast live last Thursday night June 24th. (REPEATS at 4am)
- 4pm: Lorelai Kude's wide-ranging very personal interview with Rav Avraham Sutton, originally recorded during the Summer of 2008 reveals fascinating insights into Rav Sutton's spiritual journey and development of his deeply insightful Kabbalistic Torah teachings. (REPEATS at 5:45am).
- 9am - 1pm: Lorelai's "Morning Dew for the Morning Jew" Show - The Monday Edition - is back in semi-full-force - ok, it's true that we're a little more mellow these days than usual but we've got a medical excuse - and believe me, after the 3 Weeks are over, we may be rockin' it harder than ever, b'ezrat HaShem - at least until Elul! :)
- 1pm - 6pm: "Israeli Soul" Afternoon music from Klezmorim and Yosef Karduner with some Beit HaBubot thrown in just for good measure.
- 6pm: Dan Hicks & His Hot Licks "Alive and Lickin'"
- 7pm: Ella Fitzgerald "These Are The Blues" (1964)
- 8pm: Mary Chapin Carpenter "Stones in the Road"
- 9pm: Paul Simon's Concert in Central Park (1991)
- 11pm: PHISH in Concert at Mountain View from 8-5-09
