Machshavot HaLev - Yeshivat Lev HaTorah

118
Immediately after hearing of the chet ha-eigel, Moshe begins to plead with God.
He offers a number of arguments:
בלה תובשחמ
a) It is the nation that You took out of Mitzrayim – Hashem has already
invested too much in the nation to abandon it now.
b) It will undo the moral message that yetziat mitzrayim has revealed to the
world. Instead of Redeemer of the oppressed, You will be viewed as a sadistic
murderer in the eyes of the world.
c) You promised Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov to give them countless
descendents and inheritance of Eretz Yisrael.
God doesn’t respond to the first two arguments. After the third, He immediately
relents and agrees not to destroy the nation. Apparently, Hashem’s promise to the
avot was Moshe’s only successful negotiating point.
One would expect that from this point, the story of the chet ha-eigel would be
fundamentally over: “Wow, that was close! God almost decided to wipe us out!
Good thing we have His promise to the avot to save us.” But the story is far from
over – it seems that Moshe’s work has only just begun:
On the next day, Moshe said to the nation, “You have sinned greatly. Now I will go
up to Hashem. Perhaps I will be able to atone for your sin.” (32:30)
Perhaps? Hasn’t God already relented? What is Moshe unsure of? What does he
intend to accomplish in this second conversation that he did not attain already?
Clearly, Moshe is anxious, for he expresses his uncertainty to God: “If You will
tolerate their sin…” (32:32)
God responds in a way that on surface seems to be meant to reassure – He says to
Moshe – “Go. Arise from here, you and the nation… to the land that I promised
to Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov…”(33:1). God reaffirms His commitment
to the avot, and tells Moshe that the time has come to fulfill the promise. This
sounds like a wonderful turn of events.
But the nation views this as a tragedy: “The nation heard this horrible thing, and
they mourned” (33:4). What was so horrible about God’s intention to fulfill His