The story of the Golden Calf is a tragedy that upon reflection seems unnecessary. How? God tells Moses (Ex. 32:7) that he better hurry down from the mountain because the Israelites have made a golden calf and are worshiping it.  Moses has been up on Mt. Sinai for forty days in order to receive the Torah. The people become increasingly nervous in Moses’ absence and implore Aaron to make them a god. He makes a golden calf and tells them that there will be a festival of worship on the following day. The next day the people celebrate with food and dance.

      Presumably, the whole problem would have been avoided had the people been told that Moses would be away for forty days. Or if God had told Moses that Aaron was making the calf and announcing tomorrow as a day of worship. The text makes clear that Moses could have had time to appear before they worshiped the Golden Calf. Why did God wait until after they were already worshiping the idol to tell Moses?

      Sometimes it feels that the Torah is testing human beings, whether in choosing one son over another in Genesis or in this case leaving the people uncertain. At any point, Moses could have sent a message re-assuring the people of his return.

     One way of understanding this story is that it represents the people’s desire to have a tangible representation of God, whether it is God’s spokesperson, Moses, or a statue of a calf. Of course, that is exactly the point—God can have no physical representation. The people have made a critical mistake. 
     Later in this portion Moses asks to “see God,” presumably for reassurance. Even Moses, whom God speaks to regularly, shares the people’s desire to “see” God. God rejects this desire. Instead, God places Moses in the cleft of a rock and says ”I will pass my tuvi /goodness before you.” Tov/goodness is a critical term in the Torah. It is how God describes each day of creation—it was good.  In our lives, we are called to bring goodness into the world. 

     Goodness is not a simple quality to attain. The Torah reflects the tension between a God who is perfect and humans who are, by definition, imperfect. The text of the Torah hints at this. The word tov itself reminds us and God of human imperfection. The gematria/the numerical equivalent of the Hebrew letters of tov is 17. One would expect it to be 18/chai, thereby confirming that life is good and being good is what life is about. 

    We are called to strive at the end of every day of our lives to echo God’s words: it was good---but we do it knowing our goodness is imperfect. That is more than good enough.