“Gold and silver are of little use in a barren desert,” one skeptic reminds.
“Perhaps not so useless after all,” postures another.
Moshe has been on top of the mountain more than a month. Why is it taking so long? Surely God knows the law He wishes His people to follow. What are they doing up there? Inscribing the commands in stone or something?
Meanwhile, rumors are circulating amongst the Israelites. Whispers at first, and then outright speculation: “Moshe is dead; Yahweh has left us here in the desert to perish.” And, “Never shall our people see the Promised Land. We should never have left Egypt. For is it not better to live in comfort as slaves than in austerity as free men?” A statement embossed by the question: “One God? Who ever heard such nonsense? We must return to worshipping Pharaoh’s pantheon, and then we will again share in Pharaoh’s riches. When can we leave this forsaken desert and return to our lives in Egypt?” Which was qualified by groundless conjecture and an ad hoc decision: “Moshe will never return from the mountaintop, so we must turn to Aaron. He is a wise man, and surely he will know which god we should appeal to for salvation?”
So, in Moshe’s absence, Aaron is consulted by the Israelites.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely: we have heard it said so many times that we have come to accept the premise itself as an absolute. But is it true? Because the Israelites maintain little patience with their leader Moshe, or maybe because certain members of society are contrary, or need to cause a little trouble, or are inclined to act out of self interest, Moshe, whatever his reputation and whatever his accomplishments, is marginalized without trial. Aaron is given the keys to the kingdom, windblown and forlorn as it is. Once in power he commands the Israelites to collect all the gold that they’ve carried out of Egypt—rings and earrings and bracelets, buttons and platters and goblets, which is a sizeable cache because gold as a commodity was plentiful in Egypt, and because Pharaoh, never expecting the Israelites to survive the rigors of the brutal desert, offered no resistance and indeed gave his sovereign encouragement for the Hebrews to take as much gold with them as they desired on their journey. A great smelter is constructed at the center of the encampment, and all the gold collected from the Israelites is melted down and then refashioned into a magnificent idol—a golden calf—to be worshipped on a great altar. An idol to be worshipped in place of Yahweh, the one God of the chosen!
Money is the root of all evil: that’s another one we’ve heard again and again. But should we take it to the bank?
After being away for nearly two months, Moshe finally comes down the mountain. But he looks more like he’s been fighting a war than listening to lectures and taking notes in God’s classroom. His face is brown as tanned leather; his long white hair is unwashed, matted—a home for lice and insects and God-only-knows-what. His robe is soiled and tattered, his sandals in ruins. Upon his shoulder he carries two stone tablets, and he all but buckles under their weight.
Must be an ominous message chiseled on that stone, I think to myself.
Of course the scene awaiting Moshe upon his arrival at the encampment is nothing less than the most grandiose toga party ever held. (Remember those high school beer keg parties that the jocks always threw when their parents were away for the weekend? Well, that was nothing compared to what poor old Moshe found upon his return from Mount Sinai.) What he sees takes away his breath—Yahweh’s too, probably—and infuriates him to the point of losing control. The Israelites have renounced their faith in Yahweh, the one God, and in turn have fashioned an idol out of solid gold—a golden calf—and now they are wildly dancing round and round this burnished feral creature, slobbering drunk, naked, dirty and fornicating openly, singing blasphemies. What has happened in his absence? And what will Yahweh think when He gets wind of this? Moshe is not about to take personal responsibility for such an elemental sin—not after Yahweh has released the Israelites from bondage, taken them as his Chosen People, guided them through the trials of nearly forty years of wondering in the desert, saved them from Pharaoh’s armies, and finally given them His law to live by—no small gift, indeed! Yet here they gather to dance around a golden idol—an infraction, though they do not yet know it, of God’s most essential law: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; Do not have any other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me, but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments.”
OMG!
Needless to say, Aaron and all his pagan followers are in deep shit. Seeking him out, Moshe asks not a single question, or utters not one reproach, but instead smashes the two stone tablets at the blasphemer’s feet, and God’s Law lay broken in shards upon the earth.
Chagrinned by Moshe’s censure, the Israelites dispense with their idolatry and return to the pious worship of Yahweh. Moshe then goes back up the mountain to see if he might obtain a ‘copy’ of the original document from God. Of course the outcome of Moshe’s journey hangs in the balance, and the Israelites behave themselves scrupulously while he is away.
Luckily, Moshe finds Yahweh at home on top of Mount Sinai when he returns. God is not happy by what has happened but decides to forgive His people anyway (because He actually has no other people to embrace in their place) and He gives Moshe an exact likeness of the original tablets to take back down the mountain to share with the Israelites. Though nobody is really sure—not Moshe, nor any of the Israelites—whether the replacements include the same blessing and power that the original tablets had contained. And I must say that I wonder to this day, three thousand, five hundred years later, if the Jews are still paying for the renunciation.
Back at the modern-day Jerusalem REP, I again meet up with Matthew Taylor. The facilitator of my journey backward in time, he asks, “How was your trip, Fizzy Oceans?”
“Pretty damn interesting,” I tell him. “It’s one thing to read these ancient stories in archaic language, and an entirely different thing to experience them in the present tense.”
“That’s VL for you,” he assesses matter-of-factly.
“Even so,” I observe, “the essence and the power of these events are indisputable.”
“And alternative conclusions can be drawn from a retelling, or a reliving, of these events—conclusions relevant in today’s, shall we say, more complicated world.”
“Do you really think today’s situation in the Middle East is more complicated?” I ask.
“Consider this interpretation,” he invites.
I take a seat on a bench to listen to his hypothesis.
“Power—and its potential for transformation and compassion—resides at the heart of the story of Exodus. In a dramatic moment, Moses leads the oppressed Jewish people out of slavery in Egypt, only to be halted by the seemingly impenetrable Red Sea. Then, the power: the Red Sea parts, and the Jews walk toward their freedom and self-determination. As autonomous people, the Jews are transformed by this power, and also they are implored to embrace compassion, when God reminds the angels that the Egyptians ‘are God’s children’ too.
“Today, Jews must part a modern Red Sea—the psychosocial fear, anger, and mistrust that divides Palestinians and Israelis—to claim a different kind of freedom, one of communal reconciliation and cooperation for life sustenance.
“If we are to take the parting of the sea as a metaphor in the context of an oppressed people’s struggle for freedom, then maybe our inquiry into its applicability to today’s challenge could engage the questions of power, transformation, and compassion. What is the power symbolized by the parting of the Red Sea? What does this power make possible?
“Imagine it: The
sea stretches in infinity before you. One wave so strong it could pick you up and carry you like a twig to shore. An undertow so powerful it could drag you to the depths, helpless and drowning. Your mortal strength seems powerless against the currents and tides. What force could possibly ‘part the sea?’ What force could bring about freedom for an oppressed people? What force could facilitate reconciliation in a seemingly ‘intractable’ conflict? What is that power?
“Many of us are familiar with threat power—it’s dramatized in violent Hollywood movies, enacted by armies and police forces, and studied at the military science and political science departments of universities. We are also familiar with exchange power—it resides in our wallets, drives the world’s economy, and is studied at economics and business schools. Integrative power, to say the least, is less well understood.
“Could threat power or exchange power ‘part the sea’? What power could bring about the kind of reconciliation that would enable long-term healing and cooperation between Israelis and Palestinians? Integrative power is the one at work here—the one we need to harness right now.”
“But under current conditions, how could such a philosophy be manifest?” I ask.
“In May of 1893, a young Indian attorney named Mohandas K. Gandhi was ejected from a train in South Africa for one reason: he was not white. Though holding a first-class ticket, the train operators decided he was not fit to occupy a first-class cabin seat, based solely on his skin color. Gandhi made a decision that changed his life, and history. He decided to transmute his anger, remove all hint of vengeance or reprisal, and positively approach this insult as one against all humanity. He concluded that all parties involved were demeaned by this unjust situation. He set out to free oppressed and oppressor alike from the structure of violence. Gandhi converted a negative drive of anger and resentment into a positive drive of universal love and determination for social justice. In the process, he unleashed an indescribable power inside himself. This personal conversion of a negative drive into a positive drive is precisely what the sea’s parting symbolizes—the power unleashed by an individual’s spiritual love, a source of limitless strength. This is the greatest power humans have been endowed with. If the sea is a barrier, the parting of the sea can be seen as our personal ability to surmount the most difficult obstacle when we unleash an internal positive drive. Gandhi said of this conversion, ‘I have learnt through bitter experience the one supreme lesson to conserve my anger, and as heat conserved is transmuted into energy, even so our anger controlled can be transmuted into a power which can move the world.’
“Integrative Power: ‘I do something authentic (from my heart), and in the process, I have faith that we will end up closer in our relations.’
“Gandhi made it his mission in life to right the wrong utilizing integrative power. Thus began a forty-year freedom struggle for Indian civil rights in South Africa and home rule in India. Gandhi’s movement involved dialogue, self-sacrifice, constructive work to rebuild India’s indigenous economy and cultural civilization, and willingness to nonviolently oppose injustice—always with an eye to an integrative process and outcome. Gandhi’s steadfast commitment to right means and right ends, and the ultimate goal of friendship with the oppressors, is reflected by British historian Arnold Toynbee’s comment, ‘Gandhi made it impossible for us to go on ruling India, but he made it possible to leave with dignity.’ Indeed, Gandhi and his followers had done something authentic, and moved closer in relations with the British.”
“Yes, I have met Mahatma Gandhi personally,” I tell Matthew. “Though even after my experience with the Jews in the desert, I might not have made the connection that you are trying to make.”
“The parting of the Red Sea demonstrates what becomes possible when a negative drive is converted to a positive drive. To India’s numerous ‘realist skeptics’, Gandhi’s plans to use integrative power to usher out the British as friends seemed about as plausible as parting the Red Sea! To one skeptic who said, ‘You know nothing of history; this cannot be done,’ Gandhi’s response was, ‘You know nothing of history. Just because it has never happened does not mean it is not possible.’ Of course, now history demonstrates that integrative power can bring about mass social change and freedom for both oppressed and oppressor.
“The main lesson we can derive from the parting of the sea is that the conversion of a negative drive to a positive drive begins in the individual. Thus, we who are parties to this conflict—Israelis, Palestinians, the Diaspora—can make individual decisions to convert our anger at the injustice we see every day into a positive drive to heal the wounds, love one another, and seek the humanity in each other. We can be angry at the structures that cause pain, but offer love and dignity to the people…
“What if we were to believe that Palestinians and Israelis have been ‘chosen’ to make peace with each other and to demonstrate to the world the power of love to heal conflict? We can draw upon past real-world examples to envision a radical transformation, both in the process and the outcome. Gandhi set out to do something so radical that few could even imagine it.
“Just like the skeptics who doubted Gandhi’s plans to escort the British out as friends, some might believe Israelis and Palestinians cannot be friends. Israeli/Palestinian communal reconciliation is possible, and inevitable when the idea begins to gain traction in the minds of people.”
“Thank you, Matthew,” I tell him. Not so much for the retro-experience—a real trip though it was—but for his foresight, which we can only hope will soon be regarded as insight.
Shalom…
The PL Garden of Gethsemane at the foot of the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem is a short distance from the Wailing Wall, and my friend Matthew Taylor has directed me to his friend, Sir Harold Smithson, who has consented to be my guide to the fabled events of the Passion as it happened more than two thousand years ago. Sir Harold is waiting for me in the garden as night falls on the evening before the beginning of the Jewish Passover in the year 33 A.D.
“Have no fear, Fizzy Oceans,” Sir Harold tells me, “because the players in the drama we are about to watch have no consciousness whatsoever of our presence. They can neither see us nor hear what we say. We are like ghosts in this world. Their drama is an essential one, and they must play their parts in perpetuity.”
“Really…”
“Watch and learn,” he insists. “Over that hill, the one covered in olive trees, Yeshua is about to enter the garden with his disciples Simon Peter, John and James the Greater. This story is known in Biblical history as the ‘Garden of the Agony’.”
“Am I really going to see Jesus?” I ask.
“The Lord is entering now,” he confirms.
Turning toward the hillside stand of olive trees, I see Yeshua emerge from the grove flanked on his left by James and John, and on his right by Simon Peter. At first glimpse of The Son of Man I am dumbstruck by his presence and charisma. He is dressed in a simple white robe with sandals upon his feet, yet an aura of white light seems to engulf him as he walks. Upon his face is the look of inescapable destiny, yet he appears to be calm, if not reconciled. He asks his disciples to grant him privacy, and he moves a stone’s throw away from the threesome to talk intimately with his Father. Sir Harold and I follow, careful not to compromise his sanctuary.
“Father,” Yeshua prays reverently and humbly, “the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. I ask Thee: Remove this cup of wrath from which I am bound to drink.” Immediately, the Son of Man collapses over a stone as he receives his Father’s answer. “Thy will be done,” sobs the Son of Man.
Overhead, the stars swirl against the black backdrop of the desert sky. In the distance, thunder can be heard. Or is it the marching of feet upon hardened earth? Yeshua lifts himself from the rock and again implores his Father to spare him the ordeal that awaits him. Once again, God shows the Son of Man his fate, and sends an angel from Heaven to comfort the lamb in the hour before sacrifice.
“This is heart wrench
ing,” I whisper to Sir Harold.
“This is an eternal struggle,” explains my guide, the scholar. “It is the primal conflict experienced by every person who has ever walked in a corporeal body upon the earth. It might seem trite to say it, but we all must eventually face death, and no matter how strong our faith might be in something or someone greater than ourselves, we are all afraid. Yeshua is not immune to the fear of pain and suffering; he is not impervious to anxiety of the unknown. He is first a man; his eternal metaphorical identity is yet to be manifest. This is the inevitable moment of doubt, the urge to cancel at the most critical moment our elemental obligation as human beings.”
Who is this person that lived in the ancient land of Palestine and called himself the Son of Man? Why is he willing (albeit somewhat reluctantly) to forfeit his life, to pay the ultimate price for the love of people who do not love him, and to a god he can neither see nor touch nor influence? Is he a martyr? Or is he a fool? Is he a man? Or is he God incarnate?
As Yeshua recovers his composure, the three disciples approach him. James leans close to his ear and informs him, “The others have arrived—all except one: Judas Iscariot.” The Lord looks into James’s eyes and says, “All is as it must be.”
The descended angel hovers nearby, but the three disciples seem oblivious to the seraphim. Ever louder grows the thunderous sound of marching feet. The air is thick with moisture. Beads of sweat from the Son of Man’s brow hit the ground like droplets of blood that nourish a parched and starving earth. The incessant hissing of a thousand locusts hidden within the leafy trees confuses any attempt at logic and numbs rationality. Faith hangs like a gossamer cloud over the Sea of Galilee. Yeshua lays his tender hand upon John’s shoulder and tells him, “Go now and remain with the others until the time comes.”
“And what time is that, Master?” John asks.
Yeshua places his finger gently over John’s lips. “All your questions will soon be answered,” he reassures.
The Virtual Life of Fizzy Oceans Page 25