Sotah at Sinai

...On the 17th of Tammuz he came down and shattered the tablets,... Moshe went back up on the 18th of Tammuz and pleaded for mercy on behalf of Israel, as it is written "When I lay prostrate before the LORD those forty days and forty nights, because the LORD was determined to destroy you," (Devarim 9:25) At that moment, the Holy One once again viewed Israel with favor and said to Moshe to carve new tablets and to come up the mountain once again... He came down on the 28th of Av and carved the second tablets, as it says "So Moses carved two tablets of stone, like the first, and early in the morning he went up on Mount Sinai..." (Shemot 34:4) He went back up on the 29th of Av and the Torah was repeated to him a second time, as it says "I had stayed on the mountain, as I did the first time, forty days and forty nights; and the LORD heeded me once again: the LORD agreed not to destroy you." (Devarim 10:10) 'As I did the first time,' just as the first was a time of favor, so too the second were a time of favor- we can derive from this that those in the middle were a time of anger. He came down on the 10th of Tishre, which was Yom Kippur, and announced to them that they had found favor before God (Hamakom), as it says "Pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for Your own!” (Shemot 34:9) Therefore it was established as a fixed day and a remembrance for the generations, as it says "This shall be to you a law for all time: to make atonement for the Israelites for all their sins once a year..." (Vayikra 16:34)

The Rabbis said to him:...Doesn’t it state in the verse: “And he took the calf that they had made, and burned it with fire, and ground it to powder, and strewed it upon the water, and made the children of Israel drink of it” (Exodus 32:20)? Moses ground up the calf intending only to inspect them like sota women

When a man's wife has gone astray: The Rabbis interpreted the verses as alluding to the incident of the Calf. "Man" refers to the Holy One, blessed be He, who is called 'man' (Ex. 15:3), "when his wife goes astray", refers to Israel, who turned astray from following Him, as we read, 'They have tuned away quickly' (Ex. 32:8), which the Targum translates as 'They have acted as a faithless wife quickly'..."and broken faith with Him", this is the sacrilege of idol worship, where the same word "maal" is used to describe the idolatry in Baal Peor.

"And a man has laid with her", that is Aharon, who made for them the calf; "and brought forth seed", for this is the type of idolatry that they would practice, where they would pass their seed before the idol through the fire, as it says "do not give over to pass before Molech", "and it was hidden from the eyes of her husband", Chas Veshalom, but they thought to themselves that the divine eye wasn't watching, as it says (Psalm 94:7), "They declared 'God does not see'"...

"Or a spirit of jealousy passed over him and he was jealous of his wife and she was not defiled"(v. 13)", for there were many righteous among them, but the Holy One, blessed be He, was incensed against them all, intending to consume the good with the bad, as it says, 'Now leave me alone, that I may let my anger burst forth and consume them'.

And this water that causes the curse shall go into you" (v. 22), This water alludes to the water of the brook into which Moshe cast the dust of the gold of the Calf, and Moshe warned them by all that they had undertaken at Sinai that the water would test them. Three times the expression "shall go into" is used here, alluding to the three ways in which the worshippers of the Calf were sentenced to be punished: by the sword, by the water ordeal and by the plague...Rabbi Berechia son of Abba, son of Kahana said in the name of Rabbi Elazar: Any sinner who had witnesses and a warning died at the hands of the Beit Din; one who had witnesses but no warning was tested like a Sotah; one against whom there were neither witnesses nor a warning died by the plague. Rav and Levi ben Sisi both said that if he sacrificed, oddered incense or poured out a libation he died by the hands of the Beit Din; if he clapped his hands, danced or was merry he was tested like a sotah; and if he was glad in his heart he died by the plague.

"And the woman shall be a curse among her people" (v. 27): But her people were well, for the sinners were punished but the rest escaped; "And if the woman was not defiled" (v. 28) alludes to those who were righteous and yet drank..."And she shall bear seed", alludes to the righteous Israelites whose seed entered the Promised Land...and for whom the Holy One, Blessed be He, did what He had promised Avraham: "And all this land that I have spoken of will I give unto your seed (Ex. 32:13), for, in fact, after the incident of the Calf, it is written, "And the Lord spoke unto Moshe, saying, "Depart, go up from here...unto the land of which I swore to Avraham (Ex. 33:1)...

And just as God forgave them with regard to the calf and reconciled with them and decided to dwell among them and bring them to the land, so too did Yechezkel prophecy that God ultimately will do for us, as it says, "Thus said the Lord GOD: I am going to take the Israelite people from among the nations they have gone to, and gather them from every quarter, and bring them to their own land...and they never will defile themselves again through their fetishes...I will make a covenant of friendship with them—it shall be an everlasting covenant with them—I will establish them and multiply them, and I will place My Sanctuary among them forever.