From the Golden Calf to Today: What Do We Attach Our Hearts To?

26 October 2023

What Do We Forget After Deliverance?

Question: Does having emerged from a wrong guarantee that we will never be mistaken again?

We may leave a great hardship behind.

We may joyfully welcome the way opened to us.

But afterward, we may lose our direction again.

What Musa’s people experienced in Surah Ta-Ha makes us consider this possibility.

There are people who have witnessed deliverance.

They have lived experiences before them.

Yet they turn toward the calf brought forth by Samiri.

Here we encounter not only the surprising behavior of a community in the past.

We also see how quickly human beings can forget.

They may replace the truth that guided them yesterday with an image within their reach today.

A great experience they have undergone may not automatically become lasting faithfulness.

So having made a right choice in the past does not remove responsibility for today’s choice.

People need to preserve their direction.

The emphasis on repentance, faith, good deeds, and continuing on the right path in verse 82 of Surah Ta-Ha also prompts us to consider this continuity.

A moment of enthusiasm matters.

But life does not consist only of that enthusiasm.

How we walk afterward matters too.

The standard we adopt after hardship passes matters.

What we attach ourselves to when resources become available matters.

Seeing the truth once does not end our responsibility to choose it every day.

We cannot regard ourselves as completely secure because of a good deed in the past.

We should also consider our behavior today.

Why Do We Attach Ourselves to Something That Cannot Answer Us?

Verses 88 and 89 of Surah Ta-Ha describe the calf and the attitude of those who turn toward it.

Their attachment to something that cannot answer them in words or bring them harm or benefit is questioned.

This question helps us think about the actual power of what we attach ourselves to.

Sometimes people think all their worries will end when they possess an object.

They imagine their shortcomings will be resolved when they attain a position.

They place extraordinary meaning on a business growing, a property being purchased, or an achievement arriving.

Wanting these things and building one’s entire life around them are not the same.

We can work.

We can want to own a home.

We can aim to expand our business.

But when we tie all our worth to a single outcome, we create another burden for ourselves.

If that outcome does not arrive, we may consider our entire life a failure.

If it does arrive, we may then live in fear of losing it.

Question: Do we use what we possess, or does it govern all our decisions?

Asking this question does not mean labeling every desire as idolization.

It means honestly considering the place we give it in our hearts.

It means looking at which standards we push aside for a goal.

It means recognizing what we sacrifice to avoid losing something.

The contradiction the account of the golden calf places before us is clear.

People can place something that cannot truly answer them at the center of their lives.

In the presence of something that shines, they may forget their own question.

They may also not want to hear the warning directed at them.

Harun’s warning is there.

But the presence of a warning does not ensure that everyone listens.

So the issue is not merely hearing the right words.

Whether we are open to accepting them matters too.

On Whom Do We Place Our Mistake?

When Musa returns to his people, explanations are offered.

Responsibility for what happened is described through various justifications.

In Samiri’s words, the self making a deed seem pleasing also draws attention.

People often place a justification within the wrong they have done.

In this way, they make their behavior more acceptable in their own eyes.

They describe the circumstances.

They describe the influence of others.

They explain why they could not act differently at that moment.

Some of this may help us understand what happened.

But explanation and evasion of responsibility can become confused.

Knowing how a wrong arose is one thing.

Claiming that we had no part in it is another.

Question: Are we trying to understand our own mistake, or to justify ourselves completely?

We do not have to answer this question immediately.

We can pause and listen to our own defense.

If every sentence we speak names only someone else, we may be missing our own part.

Someone else’s bad behavior does not make every behavior right for us.

Someone doing wrong in the name of religion does not remove our responsibility toward righteousness either.

People may see this more easily in other areas.

Seeing people fail at a job does not mean everyone must abandon that work.

They may think they can do it better and try to understand the mistakes.

The same care is necessary for our moral responsibilities.

Someone else failing to keep a promise does not erase the value of keeping one’s word.

Someone else doing wrong does not turn our wrong into something right.

If we tie our own direction entirely to others’ faults, we also leave responsibility for our lives to them.

Yet there is an area of choice that belongs to us.

It may be narrow.

It may be difficult.

Even so, we need to consider our own attitude.

Is an Apology a Reckoning in Which We Expect Something in Return?

Imagine that we have a disagreement.

We recognize our own mistake.

We go to the other person and admit it.

There may also be an expectation within us.

They will admit their own mistake too.

They will apologize too.

Thus the conversation will conclude as we imagined.

But sometimes the other person acknowledges only our mistake.

They say nothing about their own part.

Does the wrong we admitted disappear in this case?

No.

The rightness of our apology does not depend on the other person saying the same words.

Admitting our own mistake does not mean approving all their behavior either.

We should not confuse the two.

Our responsibility belongs to us.

Their responsibility belongs to them.

Admitting one’s own wrong does not mean taking on someone else’s wrong.

This distinction matters in relationships.

An apology can sometimes turn into a hidden bargain.

The expectation “I have said it; now it is your turn” can govern the entire conversation.

Yet we can preserve our own integrity without making it conditional on mutual admissions.

Of course, understanding what happened and discussing boundaries may be necessary.

Rebuilding trust may take time.

But the sincerity of our first step should not be measured by whether we receive the answer we want.

People may think admitting a mistake diminishes them.

In reality, they have looked at themselves more honestly.

This honesty can help them see more clearly the path they will continue on.

Instead of remaining within the same defense, an opportunity arises to turn toward a new behavior.

Do We Forget Lasting Responsibility for What Is Temporary?

Later verses of Surah Ta-Ha remind us of the Day of Reckoning and the world being left behind.

They describe people regarding their past life as a very short period.

Time that seems very long to us today may seem very short from another perspective.

Matters that completely fill our agenda may face a different measure that day.

The description concerning mountains also prompts us to think about appearances we consider permanent.

Even things that seem unshakable to human eyes do not continue unchanged.

This reminder does not ask us to do nothing today.

It asks us to question the purpose of what we do today.

There is a direction within our work.

There is an intention in how we use our earnings.

There is a responsibility in our relationships.

If we measure all of these only by temporary gains, our accounting of life may be incomplete.

On the other hand, recognizing our mistakes is not a reason to imprison ourselves in hopelessness.

We need to consider the door of repentance.

We need to consider the opportunity to turn toward a good action.

Thinking we can never progress because we have made a mistake can also stop us.

It is possible to turn back from a wrong.

It is possible to turn again toward the truth we have learned.

What matters is being able to leave behind the justifications that make wrongdoing look good.

Let us not merely observe Samiri’s attitude from afar.

Let us also look at how we embellish a desire within ourselves.

Let us not regard the questions Musa directed to his people as belonging only to others.

Let us consider our own attachments too.

What we attach our hearts to becomes visible in our decisions.

What we cannot give up may reveal this more than our words do.

A justification that makes a wrong look good sometimes begins with a very familiar sentence.

We say that everyone does the same thing.

We say that behaving differently is difficult.

While protecting our own desire, we may slowly push our standard into the background.

This change does not always happen at once.

It may advance through small concessions.

Then we may realize that we are standing somewhere we did not initially want to be.

So we should not wait only for major turning points.

We should also consider the direction of our daily choices.

In the account in Surah Ta-Ha, we see that a warning is present.

But we also see that people do not want to leave what they have attached themselves to.

Attachment to something can make it harder to assess it correctly.

The cost of giving it up grows in our eyes.

We produce more explanations to protect it.

We can ask ourselves about this distinction.

Are we trying to understand the truth?

Or are we looking for a sentence to defend what we do not want to let go of?

Recognizing this distinction can be a sincere beginning.

Let us not immediately assume that all our habits have been resolved.

But when we stop embellishing our mistake, we stand in a clearer position to change it.

The connection between repentance and good behavior becomes important here.

We do not merely feel sorrow within ourselves.

We also show our direction through our behavior.

We can live this in our relationships with people.

We can begin by acknowledging our own part.

We can preserve in our own words the truthfulness we expect from others.

In this way, discussing a wrong done in the past helps us consider our lives today.

Question: What governs us today: the standard we know to be right, or what we fear losing?