Did you ever hear of original sin? It is the first sin that Adam and Eve made, known in Hebrew, as חטא הקדמון . Many thinkers and mystics say that this first sin continues to plague us forever. What I would like to share with you today is a different kind of original sin, the sin of the golden calf, the chet ha’egel, which is the first sin of the entire people of Israel after they left Egypt and were a recognizable nation. It is the first sin the Jews did after getting the laws of the ten commandments. They broke the commanmdment of "Do not make any idols" "Lo taaseh lecha pesel, לא תעשה לך פסל" and "do not bow down to them - Lo tishtachaveh lahem לא תשתחוה להם."

How did the sin of the Golden Calf effect Jewish law? Some rabbis in the mishnah say that any shofar can be used on Rosh Hashanah except the shofar of a cow כל השופָרות כְשרים, חוץ משל פרה. Why? The Gemara explains that one cannot argue for the forgiveness of the people of Israel using something which reminds Hashem of the sins of Israel. Or, as the Talmud puts it, the prosecutor cannot be the defendant אין קטֵיגור נעשה סנֵיגור. In other words, the shofar, which is supposed to be like a lawyer pleading for the Jewish people, cannot be a prosecutor, a cow, which reminds Hashem of the Golden Calf. Don’t worry, I won’t make any lawyer jokes.

In the same way, the clothes of the Cohen Gadol on Yom Kippur are different because of the Golden calf. Usually the high priest has gold in the threads of his garments. But on Yom Kippur when he tries to get forgiveness from Hashem, he takes off the special golden garments and he puts on simple white garments. Why? For the same reason we said before; אין קַטֵיגור נעשה סַנֵיגור meaning that the gold which serves as a prosecuter against the Jews cannot serve as a defendant for the Jews as he tries to get atonement on the day of atonement.

Also, back to our parasha, right at the beginning it says that every Jew must give a half shekel to the mishkan, the tabernacle, to be counted. Why a half shekel rather than a whole shekel? The Midrash, known as תנחוּמא , says that מחצית השקל על שחָטאוּ בשש שעות בַחצי היום since the sin of the golden calf took place at midday, which is half of the day, Hatzos, therefore we bring a half shekel to atone for that sin. Every time we today bring the half shekel each year before the megilah on purim, we are atoning for the sin of the golden calf.

Not only do certain mitzvos in the holy temple, the Beis Hamikdash, remind us of the sin of the Golden calf, but the whole idea of a tabernacle, a mishkan, even of a Beis Hamikdash, is a symbol כדי שיֵדעו כל האוּמות שנִתכַפר להם מעשה העגל for all to know that the Jews were forgiven for the sin of the Golden calf. Before the tabernacle was made, the nations of the world could have thought that Hashem would reject the Jewish people. But the midrash Tanhuma says that the temple stood as a proof that Hashem forgave us even for this terrible sin.

But the sin of the Golden Calf does not only effect a few particular mitzvot in the torah. It had an impact and an effect on all of Jewish history, as the Gemara says in Sanhedrin דף ק"ב עמוד א page 102b.