Shavuot, when we celebrate the receiving of the Torah (Law) is the culmination of our partnership with The Creator. Whilst this is possibly the most significant event in the whole of the Children of Israel’s 40 years in the desert the event didn’t go off without a hitch! Moses disappears up Mount Sinai for 40 days and whilst he’s gone some of the Israelite’s think that Moses has gone forever and decide to revert to the ‘old-ways’ of Egypt and build a golden calf in order to worship it. They totally ignore the miracles they have actually witnessed that have brought them to the foot of Mount Sinai and that will begin an association as G-d’s chosen people that has endured ever since. They ignore the miracle of the 10 plagues, they ignore the miracle of the actual escape from Egypt, they ignore the miracle of the parting of the Reed Sea, they ignore the miracle of the drowning of Pharaoh’s army, they ignore the miracle of Manner and finally they ignore the miracle of the ascent of Moses.
I have long held the view that today’s Jewish anti-Zionists and criticizers of Israel are closely related to those same Jews who built the Golden Calf. They too have ignored the miracles we 20th and 21st century Jews have witnessed. They have ignored the miracle of the escape from the death camps of Europe, they have ignored the miracle of the UN vote for partition, they have ignored the miracle of the founding of the State of Israel, they have ignored the miracle of the Aliyah of 800,000 Jews from Arab lands, they have ignored the miracle of turning the desert green, they have ignored the miracle of the winning of every war waged against Israel by its enemies, they have ignored the miracle of the Hi-Tech revolution that Israel is the world engine of and they have ignored the miracle of how Israel has grown from 650,000 to over 8 million people in just 67 years.
Back in biblical times G-D ordered that those Jews who had built the Golden Calf should pay for their disloyalty and ignorance with their lives. This was the harsh lesson for those who thought to ever doubt the power of the miracles. Today those same doubters, those same people who would have us build the Golden Calf against Israel don’t live in the same fear. In some perverse way they think that history doesn’t repeat itself. I challenge them that history certainly does repeat itself therefore let them suffer the consequences.