s with Aaron's standpoint. Firstly, Aaron said to the people that you should go take the earnings of your wives. Yet these men took their own jewelry and sinned with it. In addition we can affirm the displeasure of Moses initially with Aaron in Shemoth Rabbah (42:6) we see that the real sin of Israel was not the fact that they made the Golden Calf. In truth only a small percentage was involved. What Israel was punished for was that they did not speak up against these people. They allowed them to kill Hur. They allowed them to threaten Aaron’s life so that he would be put into a situation where he would have to choose if he could make a calf. Thus the entire nation was responsible for this sin, not only Aaron but also anyone who was quiet and didn’t say they objected.The Zohar states (193 b) that the Alter that Aaron built was not meant for the idol it was meant for the sake of god. We see according to this that an Alter saves a person from being killed. Aaron held on to the altar so that the children of Israel would not be able to kill him, thus we see that the altar is refuge for all that really serve god and truly believe in it. Thus one who truly believes in the altar one can truly believe that this alter is the savior so too one who truly believes in god and serves him in the proper way he will not be denied by godIn addition the Zohar states (192) that the Golden calf is attributed to Aaron, because he took the gold into his hand. The Zohar states that if the gold had touched the ground it would have lost its magical quality. Thus from this we can infer that the gold received some of its Keddusha from the fact that it went straight into the hand of Aaron and it was treated with respect and not like the real worth which it was.Now we can answer all of our questions. Firstly, the Jews were able to go down to that level because they were on a level which involved god at all points. When they didn’t see god in fron...
