The following is a brief summary of some of thoughts said over by R' Frand on the parsha this evening. I have attempted to reproduce these vorts to the best of my ability. Any perceived inconsistency is the result of my efforts to transcribe the shiur and should not be attributed to R' Frand.
R' Frand noted that when the sacrifices were brought at the inauguration of the Mishkan, Aharon brought two Karbanos on his own behalf and three were sacrificed on behalf of the Jewish people. The Torah writes in Vayikra 9:3 that the Jews' Karbanos were a calf, a lamb and a goat.
R' Frand quoted the Sifra which states that one might have thought that only Aharon required atonement, so the Torah tells us that the Jews did as well. But why did they need to bring more animals than Aharon? The Sifra answers that it is because they sinned at the beginning and at the end. In the beginning they slaughtered a goat which they used to convince Ya'akov that Yosef was dead. And they sinned in the end with the Egel. Therefore they brought a goat to atone for Mechiras Yosef and a calf to atone for the Egel.
But what is the connection between Mechiras Yosef and the Mishkan? And why did they bring the lamb as a Karban?
R' Frand quoted the Targum Yonasan which explains that the lamb was brought in the Zechus of Yitzchak. But this begets another question - what is the connection between Yitzchak and the Mishkan?
R' Frand next cited the Pesikta Rabbasi which states that the Mishkan was completed on the 25th of Kislev, but was not actually inaugurated until Nissan. During the intervening time it sat in storage, but the Jews questioned - what was wrong with the Mishkan that they could not use it now? The response was that it would be inaugurated in Nissan - the month that Yitzchak was born.
R' Frand then quoted R' Emanuel Bernstein who tied these concepts together. He explains that the sin of the Egel was not worshipping Avodah Zara as the Egel was meant to be an intermediary and not a deity. The Jews came to Aharon and asked him to construct an intermediary as they felt that they were lost without Moshe.
But if they were coming to Aharon, why not ask him to be the leader? Or at the very least, ask him what to do! The answer is that they did not come to ask any question - they dictated what they wanted. And this is not a Jewish trait, as when we have questions we ask a Shaila - we don't decide for ourselves.
This hearkens back to the sale of Yosef. The brothers had concerns that perhaps Yosef was a Rodef and that he should be killed. But instead of asking the Gadol HaDor (Ya'akov) what to do, they made their own decision based on what they thought was appropriate.
Thus the root of the sin of the Egel was the actions of the brothers in acting, rather than asking what to do. But Yitzchak stands in sharp contrast. When Avraham told him that Hashem had told Avraham to bring Yitzchak as a sacrifice, Yitzchak did not question, he followed the directions of his father , the Gadol HaDor, who had heard directly from Hashem.
This is why we invoked the Zechus of Yitzchak at the inauguration of the Mishkan - to atone for our sins in not asking questions and instead making our own uninformed decisions. And this is why the Mishkan was left until Nissan before it was inaugurated.
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