When Moses comes down and sees the calf and the dancing, he smashes the two tablets of stone. His anger is so fierce that he destroys the very thing God had just written.
I've been angry at injustice - systemic injustice, pastoral abuse, exploitation - and I've often felt guilty about that anger. Shouldn't I be patient? Shouldn't I be gracious? But Moses' anger at sacred things being desecrated is presented not as a failure but as appropriate.
A rabbi once told me: 'If you're not angry at injustice, you don't understand what's at stake.' Moses loved God deeply enough to be furious when God was insulted. That's not unspiritual rage - that's the heat of covenant faithfulness.
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