Ki Thisa: Leadership

The dramatic middle of the parsha, the interaction at Sinai - including the episode of the golden calf - is overwhelming.  The end of this portion, the new relationship between the people and the , now sanctified, Moshe is a fitting coda.  The beginning, an expiational poll tax, is appropriate in retrospect.  It establishes an equality among all the contributors. The unifying issue of this chapter is leadership. 

The trouble begins when Moshe is perceived by the people (or at least by the activists of the time) to be delayed.  Moshe had emphasized the danger of approaching the mountain, he had warned that any person or animal that touched the mountain would be stoned to death.  Perhaps Moshe's exemption to the rules had been revoked?  Maybe this response of the people  was similar to what my parents felt when I did not come home until the AM and they did not know where I was? 

The people ask Aaron to makes them an E, an entity that is variously defined by the commentators, to go before the people  in the absence of Moshe.   The Ramban says: 

What they needed was a new "man of God." ..."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."

It was a leadership issue, not a metaphysical change of heart. 

The Bekhor Shor  ( 12th century) also interprets  the E as a judge:

 שופט דיין ומנהיג ודבר כמו נתתיך א' לפרעה וכמו עד הא' יבא דבר שניהם וחס ושלום לא נתכוונו לע"ז :

A judge  or leader, as the word (E) is used in ' I will make you a leader (E) to pharaoh' or as in ' the two of them  shall bring the matter to the judges (E) ' and heaven forbid, they did not have idolatry in mind.

He notes that the word is used to mean a master or judge in other contexts. 

Why were the people so desperate for a leader? So desperate that  they alienated the Gd who brought them out of Egypt.  What did the leader do for the people?

From the events described after the  golden calf , the special relationship between Moshe and Gd is revealed.  Moshe is able to deal with the entity of fatal visage (to look at Gd, even for Moshe, is death.)  Moshe, in his plea for the people and their continued close relationship to Gd  - a plea that includes an offer to sacrifice himself and his legacy - reveals at least one aspect of his entitlement for such a role:  He cares for his charges. 

The idea of Gd implies immense power. When the people ask for an E to lead them, they are both conferring and attributing this power. The leader helps the people direct the power at their disposal.