The Modern State of the Golden Calf 

Why didn’t God prevent the sin of the golden calf from happening? Perhaps, for the same reason He  doesn’t prevent such sins from happening today.   

It’s easy to choose God when the manna is falling and what’s left of Egypt is licking its wounds. It’s so easy that even the Erev Rav (mixed multitude) became Jews. The Erev Rav were the worst of the worst of the Egyptians. During the Egyptian bondage, they tortured us mercilessly.   

Why? Because the Egyptians were winning. Erev Rav have no standards or morals, they simply go with who is winning.   

When God turned the tide against the Egyptians and towards the Jews, the Erev Rav asked Moshe if they could convert and leave with us.   

These were despicable and evil people. Hashem commands us not follow the majority for evil (Shemot 23:2), even if they are in front.   

In a just world, they wouldn’t exist. In a merciful world, they would be punished until they saw the truth and repented.   

That’s not what happened in the desert.  

The Ultimate Free Choice 

When we received the Torah at Mount Sinai, Hashem sent miracles. There were clouds of glory. There were angels among us. The mountain shook. There was Divine fire everywhere.   

Two million Jews, from the greatest to the smallest all received a greater prophecy than the prophet Ezekiel.   

Moshe ascended the mountain and stayed there without food or drink for 40 days.  

On the day we expected Moshe to return, the Satan showed us an image of Moshe’s deathbed on the mountaintop. A man cannot survive without water for more than five days, or without any type of food for forty days. The seed of doubt was sowed.   

The Erev Rav, seeing the chance to be the new winners, took charge.   

They demanded that we build a golden calf. They demanded that we disregard all the miracles and worship idols. For those dreadful 24 hours that we thought Moshe would have returned but didn’t, they staged a coup d’état, commandeering the nation.   

We could have decided to wait a week to see if Moshe was okay. Don’t you have to wait 24 hours before calling the police to report a missing person?  

Why did we allow this to happen?  

Why did Hashem allow this?   

Why didn’t He send more miracles? All He needed was to shake the earth for 30 seconds and we would have ignored the riffraff.   

He didn’t.   

He allowed the evilest among us to take command. He let the worst garbage assume total power and start making dictates.   

That was the moment of free choice.   

When we are up and everyone is down, it’s easy to choose Hashem. If a million dollars fell from heaven every time we said a brachah (blessing), we wouldn’t live in a world with 14 million Jews and seven billion non-Jews. We would live in a world with 14 million non-Jews and 7 billion Jews.   

But there would be no free choice.   

It’s why the evil people prosper. If they didn’t, Hashem would be denying us the ultimate tool to serve Him: The freedom to opt for toil in serving our King. The chance to fulfill the Mishna to be like servants who serve our Master not for the sake of receiving a reward. (Avot 1:2)  

Only when the Erev Rav are in full control is choosing Hashem a choice. Only when three thousand  people were “living it up” around a statue of gold with nobody in sight did we have to toil to serve  God.   

Only when we have so much to lose by choosing to continue on His path does the journey become ever so meaningful.   

Within minutes of the sin, Hashem shows everybody, the good and the bad, that He was simply hiding to see who was truly loyal.   

The women refused to take part in the idolatry. As a reward, women received the day of Rosh Chodesh of each month as an extra holiday, during which they are supposed to abstain for normal household chores.

The entire tribe of Levy answered Moshe’s call, “Whoever is for Hashem, come to me.” (Shemot 32:26)

The wicked ones who seized power and perverted our nation with the worst sin in our history, were  eliminated on the spot.  

What Makes this Day Different From Any Other 

Is it any different today?   

Those who promote perversion, sterility, and abomination have staged a coup d’état of their own.  They have commandeered the western world while sinking their claws into our beloved nation.   

The United Nations, US, and Europe all condemn the Jewish State for working to structure our judicial system to reflect the highest value: Justice!  

Even as the majority of left-wing protestors in Israel wave Israeli flags and demonstrate fairly and within the boundaries of the law, their selected leaders do otherwise.  

They scream for civil war, knowing that if that were to happen, Hashem forbid, whichever side survives  will be easy picking for the Arabs to annihilate. The west’s Hellenist proxies tell others to risk everything while they sit on their mountain of money, confident that if war were to happen, they  will laugh about it over Starbucks in Seattle.   

But they are in control – even as most of the nation wants a Kingdom of Justice.   

Why?  

For the same reason that the Erev Rav were in control throughout our greatest sin.   

Hashem is hiding His face, one last time, to see who truly loves Him. To reveal who is loyal to Him, to  the very end.   

There were Jews who were loyal to God even as He tested them with the EREV RAV. Their loyalty in the face of  such darkness merited them the honor making it to the Land of Israel and being a part of the first great redemption of the Jewish People.   

May our loyalty in the face of such darkness merit Hashem’s compassion that we will make it to the Promised Land and play a role in the final great redemption of the Jewish People.  

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David Ben Horin lives in Afula with his family, millions of sunflowers, and Matilda, our local camel. David’s Israeli startup, Center Stage Marketing, is a lean marketing agency for startups and small businesses that creates and promotes SEO optimized ROI-driven to the right audience on LinkedIn to make your business the star of the show.