The Golden Calf

The Mishnah, about 200 CE, rules that the calf's second account is read in synagogue but not translated. The Talmud identifies it as Aaron's excuse (Megillah 25b).

Mishnah Megillah 4:10 (compiled about 200 CE); Babylonian Talmud Megillah 25b; Exodus 32:21–24, JPS 1917 translation

The calf Aaron cast at Sinai while Moses was on the mountain, worshipped as Israel's god (Exodus 32).

Sources4 sources

Primary source

Jewish Publication Society, The Holy Scriptures: A New Translation (JPS 1917), Exodus 32, 1917, Exodus 32:1–24The narrative: the people ask Aaron for a god while Moses delays on the mountain; Aaron casts the molten calf (32:4); Aaron's own account to Moses at 32:21–24 ends with the calf 'coming out' of the fire.
and I cast it into the fire, and there came out this calf.
Mishnah, Megillah 4:10, William Davidson edition, 200, 4:10The ruling that the first account of the golden calf is read and translated in synagogue, the second account only read, not rendered into Aramaic.
is read but not translated

The tradition itself

Babylonian Talmud (Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi), Avodah Zarah 4b–5a, William Davidson edition, 500, Avodah Zarah 4b:17–5a:1The rabbinic reading: Israel just after Sinai was not fit for the sin, which happened so that a whole community would know it can repent; 'Go to the community that sinned' at the calf (5a).
The Jewish people fashioned the Golden Calf only to give a claim to penitents
Babylonian Talmud, Megillah 25b, William Davidson edition, 500, Megillah 25b:11–12Identifies the second, untranslated account as Aaron's report to Moses, Exodus 32:21–25, and Rabbi Shimon ben Elazar's warning that its 'this calf came forth' gave skeptics grounds to deny God.
Aaron’s account of what had taken place