“Aharon (Aaron) said to them, ‘Remove the golden earrings
that are on the ears of your wives, your sons and your daughters and bring them
to me. And all the men stripped themselves of the golden earrings that were on
their ears and brought them to Aharon.”
The second reading of this week’s Torah portion begins with an
account of the making of the golden calf idol. When Moshe does not descend the
mountain where he has gone to receive the Ten Commandments, according to Rashi,
the people miscalculate the days and fear Moshe will never return. Torah
recounts that the people demand that Aharon make them an idol to worship.
According to MIdrash (Tanchuma 21), Aharon seeks to delay
the idol-making, and assuming correctly that the women would hesitate to part
with their jewelry, he requests that the men contribute the gold earrings of their
wives and children. In fact, the women do refuse to contribute their gold, not
because they do not want to relinquish it, but because they do not want it to
be used to construct an idol. The men, however, eagerly and hastily remove
their own earrings. As previously discussed in this blog (parashat Bo:
January 17, 2013), for their refusal to participate, the women are rewarded with
their own holiday at the beginning of each month, Rosh Chodesh.
In next week’s Torah portion, the men are given an opportunity
to atone for the sin of constructing the golden calf idol: Moshe asks them to contribute
the materials needed for the building of the Mishkan (Sanctuary). “They
came, both men and women, as many were willing hearted, and brought clasps and
pendants, rings and golden beads, all vessels of gold.”
Writes Rebbetzin Chana Bracha Siegelbaum in Women at the
Crossroads: “The expression translated in our verse as ‘both men and women’
reads in the Hebrew ha-anashim al hanashim which literally means ‘the
men on the women’. Rashi, Ramban and Rabbeinu Bachaya explain that the women
took off their jewelry and brought it at once. They preceded the men in
bringing [the gold]. When the men arrived, they found that the women had
already brought their contribution.”
“Perhaps the word al, which literally means ‘on’,
alludes to the fact that in preparing for the Mishkan, the men relied on
the women. It was the merit of the righteous women that enabled the building of
the Mishkan. G-d rewarded the women both in this world and in the coming
world for refusing to give their jewelry to the golden calf, yet giving generously
to the Mishkan, which was erected on Rosh Chodesh.”
