The golden calf – Ki Tissa
When the people made a golden calf and Aaron said, “This is your god, O Israel” (Ex. 32:4), was he such a fool that he really believed what he told the Israelites?
He was surely well aware that the golden calf had neither life nor will, and it wasn’t a golden calf that brought the people out of Egypt.
Maybe what Aaron was doing was mocking the people: “This is your god?” or he was talking rationally, “How can this idol be real?”
Rashbam and Nachmanides suggest that it wasn’t Aaron who was foolish but the people, who had not yet settled into proper belief but had been influenced by the heathen tribes they met in the wilderness.
