By Dr. Rabbi Moshe Dror
It would seem that whenever you have some WOW high, then comes the letdown. No high is for long.
Imagine yourself standing at Mt. Sinai hearing the Word of God and while Moses is still on Mt. Sinai, you get Aaron to build the Golden Calf for you. To be in the presence of the Holy does not automatically make you holy. The peak experience of Revelation at Sinai is simply unsustainable for the Israelites. Faithlessness follows close on the heels of miracles. In the Bible, the Golden Calf was a national disaster.
In this image Ratner, shows us the High Priest in all of his sacred vestments and just below is the modern version of the Golden Calf. This is an idealized American version of the industrial Age fascination with gadgets and especially the car. How many men spend more on their car than on their wife? The images of material wealth gems, dollars, and the Mercedes Benz are all part of what we worship. Remember the song of the 1970’s of Janis Joplin Me and My Mercedes Benz.
What are our Golden Calfs today and tomorrow?
Power, control, and who knows what else are what we take to be our highest motivations in life.
There is a remarkable Midrash (Rabbinic commentary) that captures the mood of Moses when he first sees the Israelites and their Golden Calf. Moses is not filled with rage or anger but rather with despair. He does not smash the Tablets but they slip from his hands. What happened? It would seem that he senses the deep chasm between the divine ideal for humanity and the human reality. The Tablets just become too heavy to hold. The letters fly off the Tablets and return to heaven and the Tablets become just a hunk of rock and fall from the hand of Moses. It would seem that Moses was sent on a fool’s errand.
But the saga does not end there. The Bible goes on and gives details for constructing the divine legitimate Tabernacle that is designed to function as the vehicle for the renewal of the covenant that joins God and Israel and God and all of humanity. Can we even envision a future in which people have no idols? Would they be human?
Whatever our own idols may be, what many people now are devoting their life to is a powerful shift from separation to collaboration, forgiveness, Interconnectedness and Yes, LOVE.
