חודש תמוז - עבודה זרה בלוח העברי?

And when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mount, the people gathered themselves together unto Aaron, and said unto him: ‘Up, make us a god who shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we know not what is become of him.’ And Aaron said unto them: ‘Break off the golden rings, which are in the ears of your wives, of your sons, and of your daughters, and bring them unto me.’ And all the people broke off the golden rings which were in their ears, and brought them unto Aaron. And he received it at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, and made it a molten calf; and they said: ‘This is thy god, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.’ And when Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation, and said: ‘To-morrow shall be a feast to the LORD.’ And they rose up early on the morrow, and offered burnt-offerings, and brought peace-offerings; and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to make merry. And the LORD spoke unto Moses: ‘Go, get thee down; for thy people, that thou broughtest up out of the land of Egypt, have dealt corruptly; they have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them; they have made them a molten calf, and have worshipped it, and have sacrificed unto it, and said: This is thy god, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.’ And the LORD said unto Moses: ‘I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a stiffnecked people.

There were five events that happened to our ancestors on the seventeenth of Tammuz and five on the ninth of Av.On the seventeenth of Tammuz: The tablets were shattered; The tamid (daily) offering was cancelled; The [walls] of the city were breached; And Apostomos burned the Torah, and placed an idol in the Temple. On the ninth of Av It was decreed that our ancestors should not enter the land, The Temple was destroyed the first And the second time, Betar was captured, And the city was plowed up. When Av enters, they limit their rejoicing.

Then He brought me to the door of the gate of the LORD’S house which was toward the north; and, behold, there sat the women weeping for Tammuz.

The precept concerning idolatry balances all other commandments, for it is said: "And when ye shall err, and not observe all these commandments, which the Lord hath spoken unto Moses" (Num. 15.22), which was traditionally instructed that the Verse speaks of idolatry. Herefrom you deduct that whosoever admits idolatry denies the whole Torah, all of the prophets, and all in that which the prophets were instructed since Adam even till the end of time, as it is said: "From the day that the Lord gave commandment, and onward throughout your generations" (Ibid. 15.23). But whosoever denies idolatry admits the whole Torah, all of the prophets, and all in that which the prophets were instructed since Adam even till the end of time. Thus it is the outstanding commandment of them all.⁴Horayot, 8b; Sifre, Num. 15; Nedarim, 25a. C. G.

וירא העם כי בשש משה לרדת מן ההר, “when the people saw that Moses was tardy in descending from the mountain, etc.” This occurred on the 16th day of Tammuz. How do we arrive at this date? The Torah (Ten Commandments) had been given on the sixth of Sivan seeing that for six days commencing with the first day of Sivan the mountain had been covered in cloud (compare 24,16). On the sixth of these six days the revelation occurred. On the following day Moses ascended the mountain as the Torah wrote: “He (G’d) called to Moses on the seventh day (24,16). He remained there for forty days as we know from 24,18. “Moses remained on the mountain for forty days and forty nights.” When did all these days come to an end? On the 17th day of Tammuz, seeing Moses had told the people that he would return at the end of forty days at noon (according to Rashi). The people had made a mistake thinking that the day on which Moses ascended the mountain, i.e. the seventh of Sivan, was one of the forty days of which he had spoken. If that had been so, Moses should indeed have returned on the 16th of Tammuz. When the people noticed that by noon on that day Moses had failed to return they thought that someone had detained him and he would not return altogether. The Midrash (Shabbat 89) says that Satan had brought darkness and confusion on to the globe at that time, and that he showed the Israelites an image of Moses lying on a bier. This accounted for the people saying: “arise let us make gods who will go before us, for this man Moses who brought us out from Egypt-we do not know what became of him.”
Moses had spoken of 40 whole days not including the day on which he ascended the mountain. Accordingly, the people should not have expected him before the 17th of Tammuz. When the Torah writes (verse 6): “they rose early in the morning,” this was the 17th of Tammuz. It was ממחרת, “on the day after the 16th of Tammuz.” On that day they offered sacrifices to the golden calf. At noon on that day Moses returned and smashed the Tablets. On the day after that, the eighteenth of Tammuz, he burned the golden calf and convicted the people who had actively participated in the cult of the golden calf and commanded the Levites to execute these people. On the nineteenth of the month he ascended the mountain again pleading for forgiveness for the people, remaining there another forty days. He spent the entire period in prayer and pleading with G’d as he himself testified in Deut. 9,25: ”the forty days during which I threw myself down, etc.” These days came to an end on the first day of Ellul. On that same day, after having briefly returned to the camp, Moses ascended the mountain again after having been invited to do so by G’d, (34,2) and remained for forty days. This was in preparation of receiving the second set of Tablets. These forty days came to an end on the Day of Atonement, the tenth day of Tishrei. On that day the sin of the golden calf was finally forgiven; on the day following the day of Atonement the people began bringing their contributions for the building of the Tabernacle. The Tabernacle was erected on the first day of Nissan following, i.e. close to a whole year after the Exodus. All of this teaches you that the sin of the golden calf preceded the matters described in Parshat Ki Tissa. [The instruction to make sockets for the Tabernacle from the half-shekel contributions which were to atone for that sin would not make sense if the Tabernacle had preceded the sin of the golden calf. Ed.] This is merely another example of the fact that the Torah did not see itself as obliged to report matters in chronological order (compare Tanchuma Ki Tissa 11).

What they needed was a new "man of God." You can learn from Aharon's excuse to Moses that it is as I have explained: "They said to me, 'Make us a god to lead us' " - not a god to worship. He explained to Moshe, "As long as you were gone, they needed a guide. If you should return, they would leave him and follow you, as they had done at first." In fact, this is exactly what happened. As soon as the people saw Moshe, they abandoned the calf contemptuously, letting Moses burn it and grind it to powder without anyone intervening. In fact, they fled from the calf without Moshe's saying a word to them. If they had really worshipped the calf, they certainly would not have let Moshe burn it without stoning him to death!