The heart of this week's Torah portion is the grave sin of the Golden Calf, one of the low points in the story of the Israelites' journey through the desert. Our Sages compare this disgraceful episode to a bride who is unfaithful on her wedding night. Moses is on Mount Sinai, cut off from the Jews for 40 days and in total communication with God, who teaches him the Torah. At the foot of the mountain, the bride, the Jewish people, decides to share her bed with an idol, the Golden Calf. God orders Moses to descend: "Go, get thee down; for thy people ... have dealt corruptly" (Exodus 32:7). Moses' idyllic period on Mount Sinai ends abruptly; reality is far grimmer than he ever imagined.

Moses begins his descent and, halfway down, encounters his trusted assistant, Joshua, the son of Nun. Here is how the Torah depicts their meeting: "And when Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted, he said unto Moses, 'There is a noise of war in the camp.' And he said: 'It is not the voice of them that shout for mastery, neither is it the voice of them that cry for being overcome: but the noise of them that sing do I hear. And it came to pass, as soon as he came nigh unto the camp, that he saw the calf, and the dancing; and Moses' anger waxed hot, and he cast the tables out of his hands, and broke them beneath the mount" (Exod. 32:17-19).

'Answer' or 'torture'?

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Moses and Joshua debate the meaning of the sounds they hear emanating from the camp. Joshua hears "a noise of war"; but who is fighting whom? Has there been a victory or a defeat? Moses replies, "... but the noise of them that sing (kol anot) do I hear." Interpreting Moses' answer as "I hear a cacophony," Rabbi Saadia Gaon apparently relies on the Mishnaic use of the root of anot, as we read in one of the final texts in the Babylonian Talmud's Tractate Mo'ed Katan, where there is a discussion of the mourning customs permissible on a festival: "On a festival, women may sing chants together but cannot clap their hands or thighs ... And how do they sing? In unison." Moses is referring not to a harmony of voices, but rather to anarchy.

Whereas Saadia Gaon interprets kol anot as being related to the root ana (answer), Rashi explains the phrase differently, seeing it as being derived from the root ina (torture): "These are not the shouts of heroism. These shouts do not sound like the cries of heroes proclaiming a victory, nor like the cries of the weak screaming 'Alas!' No, I hear curses and words of derision that torture their hearers." According to Rashi, the Israelites are exhausted, and their community is rife with conflict and hatred - an anarchy wherein both leadership and direction are lacking.

Saadia Gaon's interpretation is compatible with Rashi's: Anarchy can throw an entire nation into havoc. This situation can turn even a calf into a god, especially if it is made of gold, and can make the Israelites proclaim, "This is thy God, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt" (Exod. 32:4). Joshua believes he hears the "noise of war in the camp," war obviously stemming from an ideological conflict between Moses' supporters and opponents. However, Moses clarifies to him that the voices are hollow, lacking any ideological content.

The same Jews who were taken out of Egypt and saw the Red Sea's parting have, within only a few days, reached a nadir, and their lives are empty. Apparently, great miracles cannot effect any change in a nation that was once enslaved. Any delay in the journey causes it to lose hope.

Moses must lead the Israelites out of this low point in their saga. It is a difficult moment, in which he must dramatically stop the pointless infighting. When, lifting his sword, Moses proclaims "Who is on the Lord's side? Let him come unto me" (Exod. 32:26), the tribe of Levi rally around him, striking down their own relatives in their effort to arouse the Jews from their stupor.

Only after they have come to their senses does Moses begin the rehabilitation campaign intended to restore their religious faith. He musters all his strength to wage this war, which is meant to defend a weak nation. He begins to introduce set frameworks into the way of life of this people who have been sentenced to liberty. The portable Tabernacle, with the new tablets and the broken ones, will become the camp's center, the tribes will march as they bear flags and colors, and, only after all these preparations, will they attempt to renew their journey to the Promised Land.

Several millennia later, in a short story, "Aftergrowth," poet Hayyim Nahman Bialik describes a dream that has haunted him for years: He finds himself part of a long caravan returning from the fair. Everyone is quarreling, exhausted, perspiring, angry and in an ugly frame of mind. They shout as they beat their animals mercilessly, they are oblivious to what their neighbors are saying and they refuse to change their opinions about anything. This is a flock of animals and the narrator is part of it. I do not know whom Bialik is picturing when he describes this ragtag caravan that is moving forward without reaching any destination.

During the Yom Kippur War, songwriter Naomi Shemer responded to Israel's low morale with her song, "Lu Yehi" (Let It Be). Her great insight enabled her to see the white sail on the horizon opposite the heavy dark cloud. She hears the noise of war, the sound of the shofar (ram's horn) and the sound of drums, hoping that these sounds will not drown out her prayer - namely, that everything we wish for will be granted. The week's Torah portion opens with "When thou takest the sum of the children of Israel, according to their number" (Exod. 30:12). We must look to the distant horizon in order to find our points of strength. We need a perspective that will free us from the voices of weakness enveloping our society. A hollow leadership is throwing us into confusion and we seek gold-plated stars in the sky for us to dance around. This is a dangerous situation. We must pray for better days. Let it be.