The Jews’ historic experience at Mount Sinai may very well be Judaism’s defining moment. The Divine revelation to an entire people, and the granting of a Code for humanity, changed the course of history.
That’s why the Jews’ behavior, only forty days after the Great Experience, is so baffling. Scripture tells us that Moses went up on the mountain (pursuant to the initial public Revelation) for a forty day period of communion with G-d. When he didn’t return on [what the Jews mistakenly believed was] the fortieth day, the crowd went into a frenzy. They decided to create a Golden Calf, and proclaimed “THIS is your G-d, O Israel, which brought you up from Egypt!” A clear rejection of their recent Divine experience.
It’s mind-boggling. How could they have been so blind to their reality? Aside from the religious blasphemy, it just doesn’t make sense on a human level.
The Talmud addresses this question, and tells us that the Jews were indeed above this kind of behavior; they were fundamentally better than this kind of behavior. Yet, amongst the millions of people, some had a seed of doubt by some (which one can imagine). The unusual thing is that G-d allowed for that seed to grow into a full-fledged panic and then rebellion.
Why would G-d enable this?
Our Loving Parent wanted to open our door to dealing with mistakes. The Jews’ response to their tragic misjudgment; their growth, repentance and rehabilitation, is a critical part of the Sinai experience.
We were given our destiny at Sinai. It was the launch of a perspective, a way of life. Sinai taught us that we need to approach life – all areas of life, not just the spiritual ones – with a search for meaning.
This lesson couldn’t have been complete unless it included dealing with failure. Uncomfortable as it is, failure is often a better teacher than success.
Everyone 'fails' at one time or/and another. The question is: What’s your response? Do you learn and grow from it? Or do you let it sap your energy, define your self-image and paralyze your life?
At Sinai, G-d gifted the world with a program for life. A life that has some clearly meaningful lessons; it also has many not-so-clear meaningful lessons, lessons that are a challenge to discover.
Sometimes the real gold is in the challenge.