Remembering the Egel

After the Chiddushei HaRim passed away, Rav Wolf Strikover did not travel to Rav Heinich of Alexander and accept him as a Rebbe. Once he met a chassid of Alexander and asked him to repeat a Torah teaching he had heard from his Rebbe. The chassid opened with the pasuk, "And on the day I make My account, I shall bring their sin to account against them" (Shemos 32:34), and explained it according to Rav Heinich's insights.

The usual reading of the pasuk is that although Hashem forgave Bnei Yisrael to the extent of not annihilating them, whenever He takes an account of their sins, He counts the sin of the egel hazahav (golden calf) among them as well. Rav Heinich explained it differently. Whenever Bnei Yisrael sin, Heaven forbid, if they seek forgiveness and do teshuvah, Hashem says, "I will forgive them," because He will always count the chet ha'egel. Any calamity that befalls the Jewish people also carries with it the consequence of the chet ha'egel. If the sin of the golden calf was a terrible sin and Hashem forgave it, all the more so will He pardon their other, lesser sins when they ask His forgiveness.

When Rav Wolf Strikover heard this explanation, he was so moved, and so disappointed that he had not gone to Rav Heinich himself, that he tore at his hair in grief and cried, "This is the great and holy Alexander Rebbe, and I was prevented from traveling to him."