The Golden Calf

So Moses went up into the cloud to get the Ten Commandments. He was gone for forty days and forty nights (as opposed to forty days and thirty-nine nights, which would have been a little cheaper). This works out to four days per commandment. It was like getting a covenant from the Department of Motor Vehicles.

At this point, the Israelites started getting antsy. “Hey, what’s he doing up there?” they said in unison. “How long does it take to get a few measly commandments?”

He was gone so long that the Israelites became very upset and – we have all done this in times of stress – made a Golden Calf and worshipped it. Basically, the Israelites, fearing that Moses would not return, began losing faith and demanded that Moses’s older brother, Aaron, make them a new god. So Aaron gathered up their golden earrings and ornaments and constructed an idol for them to pray to and exalt for bringing them out of the land of Egypt.

Finally, Moses came down with the Ten Commandments, which were written on two stone tablets because G-d had used a large font. When he saw the Golden Calf, he got ticked off and threw the tablets on the ground, breaking them.

Fortunately, they were still under warranty, and G-d wrote out another set of commandments, but this time in a slightly smaller font and underlined the one about obeying your parents. Moses placed the tablets in the Lost Ark, which was stored for safekeeping in a large government warehouse.


haggadah Section: -- Cup #2 & Dayenu