I finally watched Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer with my son Boaz. Without giving anything away, what stood out most was the dramatization of the initial test of the bomb on July 16, 1945. Nolan and his cinematographer, Hoyte van Hoytema, brought out the fire of the blast in blazing technicolor fire. “Now I am Death, Destroyer of Worlds,” Oppenheimer whispers to himself as he takes in the enormity of the weapon he just helped to create.
I thought of these words as I reread the story of the Golden Calf in this week’s Torah portion, Ki Tisa. Looking closely at the Hebrew, I found the Torah described the idol not as a golden one, but as a molten one. Egel Masecha not Egel HaZahav is what the Torah calls it, Egel meaning calf, Masecha, meaning poured (incidentally, this is the same Hebrew word used for “mask”). Molten suggested the rolling fire we saw in the Hollywood blockbuster.
Reframing the Biblical scene not as a renegade idol, but as a renegade bomb, brought newfound power to the ancient tale. Here, Aaron was transformed from the High Priest to the chief scientist. What the people desired of him was not a new way to defy God, but a new way to destroy humanity. In this retelling, Moses’ anger was fully justified, the broken tablets a perfect metaphor for what the tragedy such technology would bring to humankind. Now, this story I never fully connected with, came alive in unexpected new ways. God’s threat to destroy the people that had just been brought out of Egypt, and the fire that burned through the community, destroying the transgressors all made sense. It also revealed the truth of Ben Bag Bag’s famous saying: “turn it, turn it, everything is in it.” By rereading the Torah in the context of modern life, new understandings will suddenly come to life and transform the ancient text into something palpable for us today.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Alex