Jeremy Rosen
Making Sense of the Bible: Can its Ancient Text be Relevant Today? Exodus 25:23

Jeremy Rosen - Making Sense of the Bible: Can its Ancient Text be Relevant Today? - Exodus 25:23

- Ladies and gentlemen, good morning or afternoon. We are in the middle of a rather uninspiring part of the Bible of the Torah, dealing with the tabernacle and the clothes of the priesthood. And I for the first time, intend to skip because I, as I mentioned last time, unless you’re particularly interested in construction and the details of construction or unless you are particularly interested in the clothes that the high priests wore, there’s not much that is interesting, it’s pretty dull routine. Now, of course, the fact is that all systems have cloth rules and have ways of showing their significance. You think of the Catholic church in particular, but you also think of all those parades and those soldiers, those guards or indignities, greet other dignities, it’s all part of the ceremonial. But just going to skip through from chapter 25 for a couple of chapters, just outlining briefly what they’re talking about. And then we’re going to come to the narrative again, which I find much more interesting. So we started talking about the construction of the tabernacle and in particular, specifically the inner area as opposed to the outer area. The inner area had the ark, the ark of the covenant, we mentioned that. And that was made out of wood, covered in gold, and then covered again with this verse 17 of chapter 24, the caporat, the cover. The cover that would be over the ark. And there were the two cherubim. In fact, we’re going to come, sorry, about an example of two chairmen who were also engraved on one of the covers that were going to be used. But then we move on to verse 23, to the Shohan, there was this table, this unusual table which, again, was made out of wood and overlaid with, with silver and with gold.

And it was structured in such a way that it was a portable table that had built into it little rings on each corner, which you put poles through and you could move it when it was necessary to move, it was heavy. But then after that comes in verse 31, the menorah, the candelabrum. And as I mentioned, I think last time, the candelabrum had these curved branches going up. Although Habad particularly likes to have the angled one, that’s a minority opinion. And as again I mentioned in the arkh in Rome celebrating the capture of Jerusalem and its holy objects, the menorah is seen there with three, with curved arms based on a solid base, whereas the temple version had legs that it was based on. And after the menorah, we go to chapter 26 and we talk about the tabernacle itself. This is the bigger outside area that the sacrifices took place in. People could come part of the way in, but not all of the way in, and that was made out of material. And as it says in verse, chapter 26, verse one, embroidered on it were these cherubs as well, so they are two sets of cherubs. And then we go onto the various curtains in, we go down to verse seven, the various curtains. And then we move on to the next version of, sorry, 15, I’m just going to change my glasses for a moment because these are not all that clear, much to my surprise, I thought they would be, that’s better. And that’s 15, the branches, sorry, the planks of the tabernacle. So it had a wooden kind of boundary fence and there were bolts on it in 26. And then there was another curtain that separated the inner part to the outer part.

And then on chapter 27, we go onto the altars. There were two altars, there was the altar made out of wood and there was an altar made out of metal. But the Bible has already said that you don’t use any metallic instruments in making that. And then the courtyard of the tabernacle is 27 verse nine. And then we go on to chapter 28, which talks about the individual clothes of the priests. And there was headgear, the Christian mitre is pointed at the top, whereas the Hebrew hat was rather more a floppy hat, I suppose bit like a French bet to some extent. And then there was a band around the forehead of the high priest which mentioned God’s name. And then we had all the different garments, and the main one was this breastplate that carried the Urim and Thummim and the 12 jewels of the tribes, which hung down over a long undercoat, an Ephod. And that was used to ask questions, answer questions in the old tradition that was common in the Middle East at that time. And then we move on to chapter 29, and in chapter 29, when you are giving the priests their responsibilities and what they have to do. And then you have the dedication, all the period of the sacrifices that were made when they were dedicated. And finally, we move on to chapter 30 where you have another altar for incense. And the question of course, is why don’t they put all the altars together? Why do they interrupt them between the different clothes? In other words, there was an altar before we talked about the priests clothes and there’s an altar after we talk about the priests code, priests clothes, sorry.

And then there are more comments about the laser that was used to wash and to purify beforehand. And then of course there was also the oil that was going to be used. But before we get there, I want to start at chapter 30, verse 11. So we are skipping down here from chapter 30 to verse 11. Come on, come down, come down, come down, come down. Chapter 30 in, here we are getting somewhere, no? Nearly, not quite, not quite, not quite. Here we are. So it is verse 11, chapter 30. And we’ve talked about everything up to now. And in a sense, there’s one thing left and there’s a very important thing left. You know, very often donors out of the goodness of their hearts or for other reasons, decide to donate buildings to institutions, to universities, to charities, and everything like that. And they pay for the building, but they don’t pay for the upkeep of the building. And very often the upkeep of the building is very, very difficult and very often, prevents the building being used in the way that they should be used. Now Ki Tisa here talks about the importance of providing the maintenance for the building. The way that they did it was including the idea of everybody having to donate an annual amount in order to make sure that the building or the tabernacle here and everything that went on in it was taken care of. There would be donations otherwise, but this was a kind of a national tax. By the way, I should interrupt just for a minute to say that Janet has asked me about the details of the robes, the high priests wore. I’ve skipped that because for most people, I don’t think it’s particularly interesting. But at the end, I will deal with any questions you might have about it.

The other question that I’ve already had here that I really should go beyond is the question of whether, I’m sorry, just a minute. The question of the menorah, was it the same in the first and the second temple? Yes, the assumption was that it was the same model, even though it had been taken and confiscated at various times, it was always remodelled or remade to that same model. Anyway, so to return now to Exodus 30, verse 11. God speaks to Moses and he says, When you lift up or when you appoint or when you count to lift up the head is also to appoint somebody. So Joseph’s head was raised when he was taken out of jail. But here you can say literally, when you number or when you count the heads of the children of Israel, according to their numbers, each person should give, and this is a strange term, a ransom for his soul to God when he is numbered and so that there will not be a plague. So the Bible talks in many places about the danger of counting people, the danger of having a census. King David had a census and there was a plague during his lifetime because of it. And the question is, why are they so worried about the census, particularly in view of the fact that when we get to the third book, sorry, the fourth book, numbers, we’re going to have lots and lots of numbers of each tribe and repeated several times. Part of it could be understood in the ancient world as superstition. Another part of it could be used, could be understood as the idea that if you rely too much on numbers rather than on souls, you are putting too much emphasis on the physical. You are assuming that if your army is a big army, it’s going to win.

When we know that it’s not numbers that matter so much as the quality of the people, and we want to focus on the quality of the people. And yet sometimes we do need to perform some form of counting. If the answer is to count through a religious purpose in a sense that mitigates the purely material sense of I’m bigger than you. And so this idea of focusing on some symbol instead of the person is where the idea of the Shekel comes in, which we’re going to talk about in a minute. The Shekel was a coin. It was a coin well known in that part of the Middle East, it was not the exclusive right of the Jews. And throughout the literature, we borrow other people’s coinage depending on where we are. And this was an obligation of every person to make this minimal basic donation to help the running of the tabernacle and later, the temple. And it became during the Zionist period, the idea of everybody giving a Shekel as a donation to the help build up the state of Israel. But the question of kaphar nafsho, kaphar literally means atonement. It’s the same word as Yom Kippur, kippur kaphar. And this is an atonement. Now this strikes me as very interesting because that was very much part of the Catholic mediaeval and later church of the idea of St. Peter’s Pence of everybody giving some money and that atone for their sin. That must come from here. And so it’s another way of saying that giving charity or donating to a good cause is going to help you spiritually.

And verse 13 describes , and this is what you should all be giving. Everybody who goes through the akum, which is I suppose like the polling booth or the counting booth, the people who check everybody, the bureaucracy maybe, will donate one half of a Shekel so that everybody can be on the same level, rich and poor, half Shekel, . And we’re talking about the Shekel that we use because in different countries, their coins might be the same name, but not necessarily worth the same as we know there’s a difference between a Canadian dollar and American dollar, and they want to know how much it was. It was 20 guara, which is like 20 grains, grains of silver, grains of gold, grains of carats if you like. Half the Shekel is a . So now we have a repeat of the term, , donation. Remember we had this before when we talked about building the tabernacle and providing for the priests, we also use the word, truma, but there the truma was voluntary. Now the truma is obligatory. So the obligatory truma is everybody who passes through the count from 20 years upwards. So we’re not counting those below 20. Very interesting, was that the voting age of those days? And it goes on to say in 15, the rich man doesn’t give more, he can’t show off. The poor person mustn’t give less even if it’s difficult/.

To give this donation to God. As an atonement for them as a spiritual commitment. And you should take all this silver from the children of Israel and turn it towards the functioning, the service of the of the temple. As a memorial before God, what does that mean? It means that you should stand before God. God, shall we say, will remember you, will record you. You will remember that this is a religious act that is supposed to heighten your spiritual awareness. Now that’s where we are going to skip again because there are more donations for Aaron and his priest. And that is also the important oil that you will find in verse 25. In verse 25, you make this special oil with spices and it should be, and added spices to it. So it’s if you like a perfumed oil. And in verse 26, it will say, , this is, sorry, in verse 25, it’s described as, , anointing holy oil. And this anointing oil in verse 26 is going to be sprinkled around the tabernacle when you dedicate it over all the vessels. And in addition to that, you are going to anoint the high priest, and the priest is also going to be anointed. And so in verse 30 it says, You will anoint. The word, Messiah comes from this word, to anoint. It’s the same word. And the only time anointing is used in the Torah is with regard to Aaron, the priesthood, and the high priest, and the vessels that are in the ark. Where does the idea of Messiah come from?

Well, later on when Samuel appoints, anoints the first king, whether it’s Saul or whether it is David, he anoints them. The anointing doesn’t make them the king. In the case of Saul, it did, but he still needed approval. It was another way of saying, you know, God approves of you. And similarly, when it came to the anointing of David, David was anointed while he was still a young shepherd, before he actually became king. So the ointment then was if you like, a commitment for the future. King Solomon was anointed. And the question then is why was nobody after Solomon anointed in the Judean kingdom? There was one anointing in the northern kingdom, but that was a different matter. And so he’d emerged the idea that you only an a king could be anointed, but a king was only anointed when there was a challenge to his authority, when his authority was challenged. So although you could argue anointing Saul makes sense, anointing David makes sense, why do they then a need to anoint King Solomon? And the answer is because King Solomon’s accession to the throne so to speak, was challenged by his brothers. Two different brothers challenged his position and therefore the anointing had to show this has God’s approval. Now, where does the idea Messiah come in? Well, if you anoint a king after there’s a break, and if in 586, a sun kingdom of Judea was destroyed and its people scattered, although some of them, most of them came together and lived in Babylon, if you were hoping for a kingdom to be renewed, you would hope for a king to come and be anointed. So the idea of anointing somebody became at that stage the idea of we want our king back. And then in the second temple, initially there were no kings.

The idea developed that we would like somebody to come and restore Judaism as it originally was designed or to make the world a better place, and that’s where the idea of the Messiah came from. But the fact is that at this stage, the Messiah was not a person, but simply oil that was anointing the temple and everything that went with it. And then 31, we go on to talk about appointing the two people who were involved in the crafts work of the temple and everything that was done. In verse two of chapter 31, you have Bezalel and of course, the Israeli School of Art is named after Bezalel, Ben-Uri, Ben-Yehuda, the grandson of who the man unfortunately who was later killed at the golden calf. Again, we don’t know the order. And in addition to that, he’s going to have an assistant that’s going to work with him called a holy that we’re going to mention later on. And they are given this obligation to run the tabernacle. And then in verse 12, having talked about the anointing oil in chapter 31, we then talk about keeping Shabbat. And it’s very interesting that Shabbat comes in at this particular moment. So verse 13, on chapter 31 goes like this, Speak to the children of Israel and say to them, Having a temple or tabernacle is one thing, but it doesn’t mean you don’t have to do other things.

So the ah, the nevertheless, you have to keep my festivals. This is an obligation on you as individuals. So as individuals, the only thing you’ve been asked to do up to this moment is to give your Shekel. Now you are being asked to make sure you keep the festivals because this is a sign between me and the children of Israel and you for all generations to know that I, your God, I’m making you holy, I’m not just making a tabernacle holy, tabernacle has its role and its function and everything in it, but the fact is that you as a people are holy. And keeping the Shabbat and keeping the festivals is a way of reiterating and confirming your particular role in this whole religious setup. And I want you in verse 14, to keep the Shabbat, you’ve got to remember it . But you have tomore keep the Shabbat. It’s a very important phenomenon for you. People who desecrate it will die and the use of the term, die, can be taken to mean the death penalty and it’s arguable, but it could also mean they are killing off their spiritual soul. Whoever works on that day, the soul is being cut off from the Jewish people For six days, in verse 15, you should do the work, and on the seventh day, it is a Shabbat. Now a Shabbat Shabbaton means a Shabbat of Shabbats. Now that normally is only used of Yom Kippur as the Shabbat of Shabbaton. But here it’s used, it is your very important Shabbat and don’t do work. And in verse 16, the basis of the on a Friday night, we say . And as a result of this order, the children of Israel did actually keep the Shabbat. To do what is necessary for the Shabbat, for all future generations. Berit, it’s a covenant between God and us.

So it is very important. In verse 17, between me and the children of Israel. It’s a sign forever. Because in six days, God made the earth and on the seventh day, he took a rest. He took a break from what went before. And his soul was able to breathe to elevate itself. So this is in addition to the reference in the 10 Commandments in Exodus and in Deuteronomy to Shabbat. Here you have a reiteration of the importance of Shabbat and it comes after discussing the tabernacle precisely to emphasise that the Jewish religion had on the one hand, the public role, the role of the tabernacle, and later on the role of the temple. And you might say now the role of the synagogue, but also the individual was the most important thing. You don’t get the priest do anything for you, the priest doesn’t get to God for you, you have to get yourself directly. And so in verse 18, God gives to Moses. When he stops speaking to him the two tablets of stone. What does that mean? God has got a finger? I don’t think so. And what he scraped through this tablets of stone, I don’t think so. So again, what do you take literally here? Basically you’re saying God was totally involved in this covenant. This covenant that the two tablets of stone represent, they’re called , the tablets of of witness, of this pact, of this agreement between God and us. And that ends this preamble that I’ve skipped through. When we come now to chapter 32, I’m going to go back to the word by word. I’m going to take a break here to answer certain questions at this moment.

So I have a question from Susan which says, where in the desert would all these buildings sewing projects get their materials? And the answer is that the children of Israel were in Egypt. They weren’t all on the same level as being slaves. We know that there were different, so to speak, levels of activity, and people did have their own property. In addition to that, we know that when the children of Israel left, they were given a whole lot of gold and silver and vessels and containers and all things they would need for their journey through the desert because the Egyptians were glad to get rid of them. And the third point is that the Sinai desert was an important crossing ground between the empires of the north, the Hittites, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, and the Egyptians in the south. And so there were caravans going through all the time. In the book of Genesis, we hear when Joseph is sold, he is sold to traders going from the north to the south and merchants of different descriptions. So, they also had access to the sea and they could trade. So there were plenty of places where they were able to get goods they wanted, they talked about having their herds and their sheeps, their sheep that came out of Egypt with them. So they had the means of trading of, whether it was wool or whether it was meat or whether it was milk, whatever it was. For all these reasons, that is why they had access to all of this. Janet asked me about the robes that the high priests wore. Well, the temple ceremony involved constant changing of clothes and there were two types of clothes that you had in the temple. There were the clothes that you wore when you were sacrificing, and then the clothes that you wore when you were performing the role of high priest to the masses, so to speak. So you had your ceremonial clothes and you had your utility clothes, the clothes that the priest wore all the time as the high priest, but then would change in the process of sacrificing. And they were beautifully embroidered and it was considered to be as much and important as having a nice temple, it was considered in those days, having the nice clothes was considered a way of showing how important we are and showing how much we respect God by only wearing our best clothes on to the God.

So then Shelly asked, and I answered that one, the translation Thelma of Ki Tisa literally means, when or if, Ki could mean if or when you appoint or you gather everybody together in order to raise money for the tabernacle or you gather people together because you want to take a census and you take a census by counting not the people, but by counting the clothes. So, then you might want to mention Artscroll published varied in-depth book of the tabernacle, which is an excellent presentation of the details of the structure, the clothes of the priests, it’s much more detailed than the Soncino text which was done over 50 years ago. Thank you Yusraf for mentioning that. And yes, Artscroll do publish. There are also at the back of the Artscroll, five books of the Torah, the Chumash, the design of all these things. And there are many books, and last week mentioned a couple of them that do give the design of the tabernacle, the temple, and specifically also of the clothes of the priests. And Susana’s family in Israel is all well, thank God they all are well, still going into the shelters or the shelter rooms in their apartments. But thank God nobody has been hurt and we are still praying and hoping that this will sort itself out. And now to continue, for the next part, we turn to chapter 32. Chapter 32 begins the story of the golden calf. Verse one. And the people saw. This term, boshesh, means is normally translated as being he delayed, he delayed coming down the mountain. The English that I have in front of me says that it means he took so long, and in the, let’s see the JPS version, it also says he took so long, but the word, boshesh, literally means to delay, to hold back. Some people notice that it’s the same word as six. Shesh, six. And maybe he had told people he was coming down at a particular moment and he took six days longer or maybe six hours longer. But either way, the meaning clearly is without taking the mid rush of six, the meaning sibley is he delayed. And the people gathered around Aaron and they said to him, , get up.

Make us a God. And notice, they use the word elohim here and not adonai. Elohim has this plural sense. So they could be, they’re talking about their time in idolatry where there were lots of gods, and they wanted to go back to having lots of gods. And that’s reinforced by that because it says then, this is the plural, they will go before us. Because Moses, who’s only a man, Who did take us out of the land of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him. He’s up the mountain, he’s taken a long coming down, we don’t know what to do. Everything about this is problematic. First of all, how do you make a God if you’re not making an idol? And if you are making an idol, have we not already had in the 10 commandments a clear statement that you must not make idols, unless we are saying this is a problem of chronology. Or does it mean that these are people who longed for the multi guard version of Egypt and Assyria and the whole of the rest of the world at the time? And although Moses was said to be a representative of God, he wasn’t God. So this also underlines the importance of the idea that people thought Moses would do everything and he was the one doing it, but he wasn’t supposedly the one doing it. And then who are these people? The term, , implies the whole lot of the people. And in fact the term, , later on in the Bible is going to mean when we all come together, a jubilee to read the Torah together. But the mid rush suggests it wasn’t all of the people. The mid rush goes back to comment on the fact that when they came out of Egypt, it says in Exodus that they came out of Egypt with the Aravra, with a mixed multitude, with a lot of other people who were not part of the children of Israel.

They were in fact, political refugees or just fortune hunters or whatever it was, they were not part. And the argument the mid rush likes to suggest is the good Jews didn’t do it, but the bad non-Jews did, that’s one way. On the other hand, as we’re going to see there are lots of other examples in the Torah of Jewish rebels, of Jews fighting. We already saw this in Moses when Datan and Aviran, the two people who were fighting, two Jews fighting, turned on him and said, who the hell do you think you are? So the children of Israel are shown throughout the Torah to be fractious, to be constantly giving trouble to Moses, and Moses not knowing quite how to deal with it. But anyway, now they’re coming to Aaron, and Aaron says to them in verse two, , break off, the golden nose rings. But no, this is in the ear, the earrings. Nezem can also mean any gold ring. It could mean in your nose, in your ear or everywhere else, but here, it’s specifying the fact that this is for , in the ears of your wives and your sons. So they were multi, you know, he decorated all the time. And you might remember that in the time of Jacob, when Jacob took his children to, on the way to meet , and then they went on from Issa to the land of Canan. In the land of Canan, they got into trouble and Jacob insisted that they remove all their golden ornaments.

So this reference in Genesis to Jacob telling them to get rid of all their golden ornaments implies that it wasn’t the Jewish way. And yet, here it seems everybody is wearing golden ornaments, I suppose. Were they doing that when they were slaves in Egypt or did they do this when they came out of Egypt, and said, ah, now we’re free, we can splurge money on having nice ornaments and gold bling. Anyway, he says, break off. Later, we’re going to understand that he said, in your wives and sons, why didn’t he say, you take off your golden instruments, golden ornaments and give them? And in fact, that’s what happened. So not just the wives and the children, but everybody took off their instruments, their golden decoration in their ears and brought them to Aaron. And Aaron then took them and he took it, in verse four, from their hands and he shaped it. is to create, to make as a goldsmith would make, , in a mould. So first of all, he has to build a mould, then he has to put the gold in it, and turns it into a molten calf. And everybody said, these are your gods Israel, who took you out of the land of Egypt. Now can that make sense? They’ve just made it, and they’re saying, this is your God who took you out of Egypt? Are they mad? And what about Aaron? First of all, to make a mould doesn’t, can’t be done just in a minute, it takes time. And then you’ve got to melt down the gold and then you’ve got to give it time, that must have taken time too. But certainly, it shows that he was actively involved in making this object. But it’s the people who are saying, this is your God who took you out of the land of Egypt. And so that is where we will stop and continue with this story next week. Please God. So I just want to have a look at the other questions that we have.

Q&A and Comments:

Carol Ann asks, my daughter in Italy lives in an area devoid of Jews, but she has seen so many memorials or hanukkahs around. Well, that’s probably because historically, I’m talking now, there were lots of Jewish communities in Italy. They were there from Roman period and they were added to dramatically after the expulsion of Jews from Spain. And in addition, many Jews from northern Europe, during the Crusades and during the Ishmail Nitsky Polish, Ukrainian massacres migrated down to Italy to escape it because although Italy was made up of little independent states, there was no nation of Italy until the 19th century. Each state ran its own affairs, and some states included Jews and welcomed them, and some Jews excluded them and drove them out. And so because Jews were constantly moving and moving around, then they will have left behind, many of their religious articles, artefacts, whether they are candles for Shabbat or whether they are for Hanukkah. And they became part, they were bought and sold and used and became part of the, shall we say, the modern day industry of buying and selling artefacts. But in addition to that, should also point out that a lot of people go to Italy for holidays, Jewish religious people, and there’s a big Habad presence in Italy. And very often, they go round providing Menorah, these candelabra to people who are there as visitors, or when it’s Hanukkah, time they go round looking for Jews to give these Hanukkah to. So I don’t know the specific answer to the area where your daughter is living, but I do know that it’s not surprising to find these artefacts around. And not only that, but in almost every church or certainly every monastery, there are huge collections of Jewish books and Jewish artefacts that were confiscated from the Jews and where Jews were killed just taken over and put into their store chambers and to add to their museums.

Q: Shelly asks, in verse 12, do you think the use of the word, kappul, atonement bolts the idea that tabernacle is mandated in response to the golden calf?

A: That is an absolute, actually brilliant point to make and a make point I should have made earlier, even though I intend to make it later. But all of what we’ve been reading, all of it seems to imply that this took place after the golden calf. So even though it’s recorded in the Torah before that, it all seems to be referring to what went on after the golden calf and that this was seen the tabernacle as look, we tried to make it as non-representational as possible, but clearly people need symbols, and therefore, this is going to be a symbol. And what does God mean when it says, Shelly asks, God refreshed his soul on the seventh day? Well remember, everything we’re talking about God is a metaphor and it really is trying to explain how we humans should imitate God or we should be godly or be holy. And so just as God initiated the material physical world, which is for us and for us to cope with and live in, so he creates the spiritual world, which is also for us to make use of. So when he uses the term, refreshes his soul, it’s refreshing our soul, we want to link to God, feel close to God. And that’s what the term nefesh, which means a soul, but also means to give your soul a break, really is trying to convey.

Q: Anna, so this is where the expression, written in stone comes from?

A: Oh yes, absolutely. Carved in stone, and they did carving in stone beforehand. But the idea it is written in stone indicates it as important as the 10 commandments.

Janet, I always thought the golden calf was huge as in classic paintings, but in fact, it was pretty small. Yes, I think it was pretty small and it if it would’ve been huge, huge, it would’ve been a huge industrial, you know, imagine sort of Michelangelo with his massive sculptures trying to sculpt them. That took a heck of a long time. Of course, this was done by different metal of of casting, but nevertheless, yes, it can’t have been that very, very big.

Thank you Clara, thank you Rita, and Clara again, and Janet. have been grown in Calabria in southern Italy for thousands of years. Oh yes, they have indeed. Even though a thousand years ago in Calabria, in southern Italy, was the biggest Jewish communities in Europe. There were Yeshiva in Taranto and Bari. Two cities now, I don’t think there are any Jews there or I, there must be, ‘cause Israelis get everywhere. So they’ve got to be there now, but they’re not big Jewish communities. So Calabria was, during the Roman period, a very, very important Jewish settlement area. But as industry or opportunities in northern Italy were more attractive, people began to migrate from the south to the north. That’s being true for a long time of Italy, of the anyway. And today, the drugs from Calabria are considered to be the finest and the best because they go back a long time and have been cultivated and they cost a heck of a lot of money.

Richard Culker, 32:24 says, Aaron didn’t make a mould, but just hold the gold into it. Richard, you are jumping the gun. We are going to have this whole story repeated from Aaron’s point of view and we will look at that next week and then see indeed the contradiction between what is stated here and what Aaron says when he has to excuse himself to Moses when he comes down the mountain.

So all of that, don’t miss next week’s exciting episode. Thank you everybody, and bye.