Golden Calf

This week’s Torah portion narrates the incident in the desert of Israel and the Golden Calf. How did human beings who had experienced godly revelation at Sinai revert to worshipping a Golden Calf just a few short weeks later? What happened to "a kingdom of priests and a holy nation" to cause this terrible reversal?
Perhaps an even more difficult question is what was the sin of the Golden Calf? We always assume that the sin was the building of a calf itself. It was a very common practice among peoples of the time to make graven images and our people knew no different. Moses had not yet come down from the mountain to instruct them about God’s commandments. So perhaps the building of the calf was not their sin.
Perhaps their sin was one which we all commit from time to time. They lost faith. And worse, they allowed their fears to overtake them and lead them to rash actions. They did not build the Golden Calf because they no longer believed in Adonai. Rather, they did so because they felt their leader Moses had abandoned them. He had been gone 40 days and nights, and they started to get worried. When they became restless no one stood up and said, “Let’s have faith, let’s remember that Moses will not abandon us. We should not do this.” Rather, mass rejection overtook the camp.
What a powerful lesson for us today. How often do we act hastily because we get nervous and feel alone? How often do those actions, performed with the best intentions, wind up creating even bigger problems?
After Moses finds out about the sin of the Golden Calf he asks God to destroy the people. God does not. Rather God forgives the people. Moses cries out (EXCLAIMS?) that God is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in kindness. This week may we all be reminded of this lesson, to be more like our Creator, slow to anger, patient and forgiving.