Gold that shines, gold that profanes

There is a famous machloket between Rashi and the Ramban as to whether the Mishkan (tabernacle) was created before or after the horrific incident found in our parasha of the Chet Haegel Hazahav (the Sin of the Golden Calf). Rashi strongly supported the exegetical principle, ain mukdam umeuchar b’Torah (there is no chronology in the Torah). Therefore, he suggested that the mitzvah of building the portable sanctuary (Shemot 25:8) came after, and as a direct response to, the Sin of the Golden Calf – even though this commandment appears in an earlier parasha. According to this interpretation, the Mishkan’s purpose was to serve as a place of renewed spiritual encounter between G-d and man, and thereby rebuild the relationship that had been almost irrevocably destroyed.

In stark contrast, the Ramban maintained yaish mukdam umeuchar b’Torah (there is chronology in the Torah). Therefore, the commandment to build the Mishkan had nothing whatsoever to do with the Egel Hazahav (Golden Calf); the commandment to construct the Mishkan was like tefillin or lulav, a beautiful way to serve Hashem, rather than a Divine response to the Sin of the Golden Calf. 

According to Midrash Tanchuma 19, the Egel Hazahav was a miraculous creation that came into being via the black arts (sorcery) of Egypt. Rashi quoted this notion in his commentary on Shemot 32:4: “As soon as they [the Jewish people] had cast it [i.e. the gold] into the fire of the crucible, the sorcerers of the mixed multitude who had gone up with them from Egypt came and made it [the Golden Calf] with sorcery.”