Watch: Why the Golden Calf Riot Matters more NOW.

Hello Readers of Below the Bible Belt -

Why were 3,000 Hebrews killed by their own brothers at the foot of Mount Sinai, by the command of Moses?

What does this story tell us about the deep divisions among Jews and people everywhere - right now?

Most of us don’t quite remember the devastating details but the biblical story of the Golden Calf is much more than a tale of theological dispute and communal crisis.

This Torah text is the first official account of a civil war within the Jewish nation - the original crack in the collective fabric that was written and edited over time to mirror and mold the historical division between the Northern Kingdom of Israel and the Southern Kingdom of Judah.

What’s this text of terror warning us about today?

How does this origin story help us make sense of the deep idealogical divides between us right now? Can a better understanding of this evolving narrative help us respect different stands, build better bridges between us, honoring our ancient and hallowed differences as we strive for common ground?

We met online last week to dig deep into these questions as one more reflection on the Below the Bible Belt journey to read through the entire Hebrew Bible - focusing on some key themes and takeaways for our contemporary reality - with all its challenges.

You are invited to watch the recording of our conversation+ check out this link of the 1923 silent film - the original Ten Commandments that includes the golden calf scene

+ scroll down to read the full quotes + links to texts referenced our conversation. Please note - we will pick this thread up in January for a year-long exploration of the North-South narratives, how and why we were born divided - and what do we do with this knowledge - right now. There is a lot of stake.

Thank you for joining me below the bible belt.

More soon.

Thank you for being on this journey with me - with gratitude for your generous support.

Kind Days of Gratitude and Peace, everywhere.

Rabbi Amichai

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“The Bible is by no means monolithic; it is profoundly layered — filled with counter-voices and countertraditions that run against the grain of the dominant discourse.”

Ilana Pardes, Countertraditions in the Bible: A Feminist Approach. Harvard Univ. Press

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“Goddess worship, feminine values, and women’s power depend on the ubiquity of the image. God worship, masculine values, and men’s domination of women are bound to the written word. Word and image, like masculine and feminine, are complementary opposites. Whenever a culture elevates the written word at the expense of the image, patriarchy dominates. When the importance of the image supersedes the written word, feminine values and egalitarianism flourish…

Conceiving of a deity who has no concrete image prepares the way for the kind of abstract thinking that inevitably leads to law codes, dualistic philosophy, and objective science, the signature triad of Western culture. I propose that the profound impact these ancient scriptures had upon the development of the West depended as much on their being written in an alphabet as on the moral lessons they contained.”

Leonard Shlain, The Alphabet Vs. the Goddess

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“One kingdom -- the kingdom of Israel -- was born in the fertile valleys and rolling hills of northern Israel and grew to be among the richest, most cosmopolitan, and most powerful in the region. Today it is almost totally forgotten, except for the villainous role it plays in the biblical books of Kings. The other kingdom -- the kingdom of Judah -- arose in the rocky, inhospitable southern hill country. It survived by maintaining its isolation and fierce devotion to its Temple and royal dynasty. These two kingdoms represent two sides of ancient Israel’s experience, two quite different societies with different attitudes and national identities.”

Israel Finkelstein & Neil Asher Silberman - “The Bible Unearthed” (2001)

“The E version of the stories came from the northern kingdom, and the J version from the southern kingdom. The author of J was a layperson. The author of E was a priest, but from a priesthood group of Levites who traced their descent from Moses.

In the E source, the Golden Calf is made by Aaron. Aaron is the ancestor of the other prominent priesthood in Judah, which had excluded the other Levites from the priesthood. Whereas the J source does not tell the story of the Golden Calf.”

Richard Elliott Friedman - “Who Wrote the Bible?” (1987)

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“It is easy to forget how much our own experiences and point of view influence how we understand passages that were written in a different time and place. Of course, the story’s ability to be meaningful to diverse audiences is what makes it timeless.

And so a story that was originally a Judean critique of Northern Israel has come to be the prototype of idolatry, thereby making its presentation of the various characters—Aaron, the people, God, and Moses—all the more striking.

The implication in both Kings and the Pentateuchal account of the golden calf is that the Israelites worshiped the calf as an idol representing a deity other than YHWH. Is this what worshippers at the northern temples would have said about their own practice? Were the calves representations of God or gods? Evidence from ancient Near Eastern material culture would lead us to question such an assumption.

Archeologists have found that ancient Near Eastern deities were often portrayed atop animals.[9] Exodus (25:17-22 and 37:6-9) describes cherubs, which appear to have been winged animals, on top of the ark where God appeared.[10] The book of Psalms describes them as God’s steeds (Ps 18:11), and Numbers 7:89 tells of God speaking from between them.

The Ten Commandments prohibit depictions of God, so ancient Israelite temples may have depicted only animals on which God stood– whether the cherubs (in Jerusalem) or the calves (in Dan and Bethel).

The book of Kings describes Jeroboam’s construction of these shrines, which were located in the northern and southern regions of his new kingdom, as intended to keep the people in his “breakaway” nation from being drawn to the Temple in Jerusalem, which was now the capital of his enemy Judah (see v. 27). In other words, his motivation was primarily political, not religious. But the idolatrous sounding phrase “this is your god” implies that Jeroboam meant to replace the God of Israel with these calves.

In other words, the book of Kings, which quite clearly regards the Judean monarchy as the only legitimate one and Jerusalem as the only legitimate Temple, is emphasizing the religious aspect (idolatry) of what was probably a political act (providing a place where the Northern Israelites could worship God outside of Jerusalem.)”

Prof.Frederick E. Greenspahn

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“Where do we go from here? Toward a theocratic state where God becomes a cabinet member or towards a secular republic envisioned once by Israel’s founders? Who holds Israel’s ultimate authority: the rabbi or the sovereign, the Knesset or the Beit Haknesset? The slow and cold civil war over the country’s identity is heating up toward a boiling point, unless we find the courage to finally disentangle religion from the state.

To understand this moment, one must look back to its roots.

Over the past few decades, the bigger worldly picture has reversed. After the twentieth century, the most secular in human history, God has returned to the political arena. Not only in Israel but across the world, religion has reemerged as a central force in public life. In the United States, evangelical Christianity has become the backbone of the Republican Party, shaping policy on issues from abortion to foreign affairs. In Turkey, Erdogan restored Islam to its place as a pillar of national identity, dismantling decades of Kemalist secularism. In India, Hindu nationalism under Modi has transformed faith into an instrument of majoritarian rule. In Poland and Hungary, Catholicism provides moral cover for authoritarian populism. In Russia, the Orthodox Church has become a full partner in state corruption and imperial war. And in Israel, belief in the chosen people has evolved from a spiritual concept into a political supremacy.

In the monotheistic world, two distinct models emerged for governing the relationship between heaven and earth. Both derive from the lives of their founders: Jesus and Muhammad. Jesus, executed by Roman authorities as a potential opposition to the imperial order, left behind a principle that would eventually reshape Western politics: Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and unto God the things that are God’s. Whether he intended it or not, this planted the seed for what would later become the separation of church and state. Muhammad, by contrast, was both a prophet and a statesman. The unity he forged between faith and governance became the foundation of the Islamic political order, where divine authority and civil law became inseparable.

Israel stands on the fault line between these two traditions. A modern state built on Enlightenment foundations, it nonetheless leans heavily on religious myth and biblical claim. It speaks the language of civil rights while thinking in terms of destiny and divine chosenness. It maintains a secular legal system yet submits identity, marriage, divorce, and conversion to extreme religious institutions. It insists on being both Jewish and democratic, even when the two definitions collide.

The tension is not only ideological but sociological. Half of Jewish society descends from Western cultures that internalized the Christian principle of separation between religion and state as natural and necessary. The other half hails from Muslim regions where faith and politics were intertwined for centuries. This internal split runs through every institution of Israeli life, from parliament to the army, from schools to the courts. The question is no longer whether Israel can balance these contradictions, but whether it still wants to try.”

Avrum Burg, God is Back

God is Back