The Hasidic masters understood in a way few do that redemption is not necessarily a movement of history, but a movement within the human heart. History is simply the outer reflection of humanity’s inner awakening of itself.
Which brings us to this week’s parashah. Did you know that one of the descriptions of God is a zealot, demanding ultimate and complete fealty? God tells the Jewish people in the very first commandment not to have any God’s before them, for “I am a zealous God, visiting the guilt of the parents upon the children, upon the third and upon the fourth generations of those who reject Me.” Any deviation will not be tolerated. Perhaps an all-knowing God is justified in zealotry — even though we will see that God “evolves” — but for God’s minions who claim to advance God’s goals, I find this absolutist zealotry terrifying, an absolutism with the potential to commit great evils upon God’s creatures.
Given this, the episode of the Golden Calf in our parashah is depicted as the ultimate betrayal.
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