Friday, March 29, 2024

Sin of Golden Calf and Working

 Michtav M’Eliyahu (01 page 277) Both the Ibn Ezra and the Ramban believe that that the main sin with the Golden Calf was that they erred in descending from their high level to the level of nature even though this was done for pure motivation in that they wanted to remain in pure service of G-d according to their belief that Moses was no longer with them. This was the deception of the evil Inclination which encourages man to the apparent simplest course  to achieve a goal (for example a person mistakenly thinks that the withstanding of a test always leads to sanctifying G-d’s Name) – we have already explained that this was the basis of Adam’s sin i.e., descent for the purpose of ascent.  Repentance for this sin is difficult since it contains an aspect of sinning with intent to repent And the root of this sin are the sly tricks of the evil inclination to bring man down. It can be determined to be  evil since it mixes together lust and spirituality. As we see when Eve stated “that the tree is good to eat and is lust for the eyes and pleasing to the intellect. Just as a person masks his combining Torah with working

3 comments :

  1. So he is saying that combining Torah with work is equivalent to Golden calf and sin of Adam harishon?
    Only a fool would say such a thing, not a great scholar.

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  2. Sinning with the intent to repent would appear to be rejected by the gemara in Yoma that specifically says such an approach is not accepted on YK.

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    Replies
    1. There's actually a Chabad drush that Adam didn't din, just came to a lower level. More yashke stuff

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