The Golden Calf: a take on this week's sidrah for children

Moses has spent 40 days and 40 nights on Mount Sinai. Down below, the people are restless. They demand Aaron, Moses’s brother, does something; they want a god to worship, so Aaron, presumably playing for time, asks for the people’s gold. They give it to him; he throws it in a furnace and a golden calf emerges.

One rabbinic commentary suggests that this strange and unholy miracle happened because of the actions of a misbehaving child, Micah, who is saved from slavery in Egypt – although he shouldn’t have been. We’ve told our story from the perspective of Talia, an eleven-year-old who is watching on.

This waiting around for Moses was getting ridiculous. Every day, the people assembled in the centre of the camp and kvetched. “What can he be up to – it’s been over a month?” said one. “I’m worried he needs food,” added a typical Jewish mother. My Grandma was the worst. She was 96 and didn’t think she had much time left. “Can’t we just head to the Promised Land without him? I don’t want to end my days hanging around in the desert.” She was trying to persuade a group of people to #leavealready. 

This particular morning the crowd was particularly noisy. Maybe there was news? I climbed above the crowd to see what was going on. Aaron was trying to calm everyone down. Apparently, he had promised to make the people an idol – that didn’t sound at all right – and everyone was thrusting their gold in his direction. He was throwing necklaces, chains and earrings into a pot suspended over a roaring fire. The pot was bubbling away, but there was no sign of an idol.