Bulls - Ki Tissa - Mythic Torah

Bulls.

They get a bit of a bad rap these days, known mainly for being an exclamation that something is not true, or for the name of some kind of sports team (I'm not a native in this country but I'm trying).

But back in the day Bulls were the height of prestige - symbols of wealth, strength and most importantly masculine virility.

Small wonder then that many gods of the ancient world were closely associated with calves and bulls. In Mesopotamian myth, there was Gugalanna, the Great Bull of Heaven slain by the hero Gilgamesh. While in the Ugarit (an area close to ancient Israel), the chief god El was worshiped as the Bull-El, and Baal, the storm god, was also associated with this masculine image.

In our Bible too we can see relics of this bull worship - Jacob is called 'bechor shor', firstborn of the ox in Deut 33:17, or Hosea 8, which reads as a critique of this worship of bulls.

But the most striking polemic against bull worship is in this week's parasha of Ki Tisa. Moses has gone up the mountain to receive the two tablets but the people get nervous, and turn to Aaron to make them a substitute:



4] Aaron took what they handed him and made it into an idol cast in the shape of a calf, fashioning it with a tool. Then they said, ‘These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.’

ד וַיִּקַּח מִיָּדָם וַיָּצַר אֹתוֹ בַּחֶרֶט וַיַּעֲשֵׂהוּ עֵגֶל מַסֵּכָה וַיֹּאמְרוּ אֵלֶּה אֱלֹהֶיךָ יִשְׂרָאֵל אֲשֶׁר הֶעֱלוּךָ מֵאֶרֶץ מִצְרָיִם: 

This passage should be read in conversation with 1 Kings 12, when Jeroboam sets up temples to God in the northern kingdom of Israel, as a rival to the temple in Jerusalem:

28] After seeking advice, the king made two golden calves. He said to the people, ‘It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem. Here are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.’

This incident in the book of Kings, with its extremely similar wording (including the plural 'gods'), makes it pretty clear that what the Israelites wanted from their golden calf was not a god but a vehicle for God. The idea behind Jeroboam's calves was that they were a substitute for worshiping God so far away in Jerusalem, not that they were meant to represent a different god altogether.

So what was the problem then?

Why do so many Israelites get put to the sword for worshiping the golden calf when all it was meant to be was a representative of, or a vehicle for, God?

At one level, any representation of God is a problem, limiting the divine to the tangible, tying the infinite to something that can be owned and possessed. Small wonder then that when God gives instructions for a Tabernacle to be built, it is space itself that is the seat of God, the least tangible physical thing there is.

But I think the Torah is concerned particularly about bull worship.

Even today, we see signs of male virility and power being celebrated and idolised. The idea of male sexual potency dominates billboards, TV shows and movies, and even if its women being portrayed, they are often depicted in poses meant to titillate male heterosexuals.

The golden calf teaches us that sexuality and wealth should not be at the core of our worship, the centre around which we revolve. The tabernacle is covered in gold, but at the centre is the sacred empty space of the divine - at the centre of the golden calf is just more gold.