Those forty-nine days are the countdown from Passover, when the Jewish People left Egypt, thousands of years ago, until Moses delivered the Torah from G-d, which is commemorated on the Jewish Holiday of Shavuot.
But it didn't go all that smoothly...
Many of us remember too well the days before there were cellphones, smartphones and all sorts of ways to contact people immediately, check if someone is late, lost, warn others of delays, double-check times, locations etc. We ask rather rhetorically:
"How did we manage in the days before cell phones?"
One thing was that we had to be more patient, trusting and planned things better in advance. We knew that since there was no way to contact someone on their way, we just had to wait a bit longer, or more and trust that there was some perfectly legitimate reason for the delay. That's what makes the sin of the golden calf, the rapid and impatient building of an idol, that golden calf, so inexplicable and bad. The recently released from slavery to Pharaoh in Egypt Jewish People had decided that Moses must have deserted them, died or whatever when he didn't come at the moment they expected him and demanded from Aaron that they construct a god, that infamous golden calf.
Obviously they didn't do all of the spiritual growth stuff during the forty-nine days which is very popular now. See this site for example, A Spiritual Guide to the Counting of the Omer, Forty-Nine Steps to Personal Refinement.
And have a wonderful week everyone...
5 comments:
I appreciate your appreciation Batya. Thanks so much.
Yocheved, Thank you!!!!
So you think if Moshe and Bnei Yisrael each had their own cell phones, we might have avoided the Golden Calf? I bet Moshe would forget to turn his on, Bnei Yisrael would get impatient, and Golden Calf anyway.
Thanks for fixing my blog feed on your sidebar!
Leora, no, not exactly. I remember how in the days before cellphones we were less prone to expect people exactly on time and less prone to panic if they were late. So in the days when people had to rely on the sun to know the time, approximately, the hysteria about Moshe's delay was very exaggerated and preplanned.
Leora, thanks for the tip, because it also helped me to add "feed" to another blog's link.
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