by Gahl Sasson
Exodus 32:1-6 "…‘Make us a god who shall go before us'... and he fashioned it with a graving tool, and made it a molten calf; and they said: ‘This is thy god, O Israel….'"
That history repeats itself is one of the oldest axioms in the world, and one of the oldest continuously observed holidays in the world, the 17th of Tammuz, dramatically proves this point. On the 17th of Tammuz - which we observe with mourning, fasting and contemplation - a series of calamities befell the Jewish people, all on precisely the same day though centuries apart.
On the 17th of Tammuz in 586 BCE, the walls of Jerusalem were breached by Nebuchadnezzar, who went on to conquer the city and exile its inhabitants. On the 17th of Tammuz in 70 CE, the walls of Jerusalem were breached once again, this time by Titus the Roman. Then, in both cases, two weeks later on the Ninth of Av the first and second Temples respectively were destroyed completely. That same date - the Ninth of Av, or Tisha b'Av - in 1492 was the date on which King Ferdinand decreed that the last Jew must leave Spain. It is also the date on which World War I began in 1914.
So history repeats itself. Sometimes even on the same day.
But, as we shall see, myth repeats itself, too. And Jerusalem contains within its history and identity a challenge to remember not only our defeats but also our self-defeats. And perhaps a challenge not to repeat them.
The summer of 2000 saw peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians. They did not lead to peace. For two weeks the two sides negotiated, but to no avail. The most immediate reason had to do with Jerusalem: a City of Gold, a holy place for the three religions derived of Abraham, and the city that was crowned the capital of Israel for the first time in 1004 BCE by none other than King David himself. So what happened to this City of Gold?
Well, the fact that Jerusalem has seen much history and been sacred to three faiths certainly complicates matters. But the key to the present impasse may lie even deeper in the past, before either temple was built. Long before Jerusalem was even conceived, there was another incident on the 17th of Tammuz. This one we read about in Exodus, Chapter 32: the day when Moses discovered and destroyed the golden calf.
The recently freed slaves had been left alone for some time while Moses was up on Mount Sinai. Tired of imagining a God who had no physical appearance, they asked their high priest Aaron to build them a golden bull-calf so they could worship, and in no time one was prepared. Everybody was happy, having at last an object to adore, to love, to fight for, kill for and touch. A golden manifestation of their belief.
Moses arrived down from the mountain on the 17th of Tammuz, saw the calf, and smashed the Ten Commandments, supposedly written by the hand of God, and destroyed the golden calf.
Camp David: talks on the future of Jerusalem, the City of David. Talks of peace that ended midway between the 17th of Tammuz and the 9th of Av, summer 2000, stuck on the status of Jerusalem.
Gematria, which assigns numbers to letters and adds them up into words, gives zahav, "gold" in English, the value of 14 - the exact number of days the peace talks of 2000 lasted. Jerusalem is called the City of Gold; the walls of the city were breached twice on the same day of the Hebrew year that the golden calf was destroyed.
The parallels are too many to overlook. Neither Jews nor Muslims should consider Jerusalem something to kill or die for, because no object in this world holds God in it - the very thought is idol worship. We must not turn Jerusalem into a new kind of golden calf.
The city of Jerusalem today contains 600,000 inhabitants - the same number of people who were at Mount Sinai when the golden calf was made. Again today as then, the golden calf must be destroyed as a concept, for if not, it will have to be destroyed physically once more.
Can Jews and Muslims, who both revere Moses as perhaps their greatest teacher, learn the lessons of their own primal stories? Muhammad said: "There is no God but God." Moses said God's true name is "I Am that I Am." God is everywhere, not only in Jerusalem.
Moses ordered the golden calf to be burned, melted and ground into dust. He then diluted the gold dust with water and all who had worshipped it had to drink. You can say he shoved the golden calf down their throats - but it is more than that. Actually gold is a mineral that is needed in the human body. Taken in the right quantity (that is why it must be diluted with water), it is important to the immune system. So perhaps Moses was the first homeopath.
But he certainly knew how to deal with false icons. When a physical object becomes the subject of such hate and controversy between people, it must be ground and transformed into a healing remedy. The City of Gold can no longer serve as an excuse for war.
We need not grind up Jerusalem and dilute it with water; the Torah is a book of symbols. But we must grind up our concept of Jerusalem as Gold. Jerusalem is a most beautiful place, a holy place, a symbol of union with God for millions of people. But we must not make a fetish of this holy connection. Many Kabbalists believe that after the second temple was destroyed, the center of Jewish consciousness moved from Jerusalem into the heart of each person. The temple is now in us. It's interesting to note that in alchemy the symbol of the heart is gold.
It is time for all of us to change our perception of Jerusalem. Jews and Muslims alike need to dissolve the way they revere this place, to dissolve their violence or tenacity with compassion. Moses dissolved the gold of the calf with water, and water in Kabbalah is a symbol for feeling, compassion and forgiveness.
Try to look for the golden calf in your life. To what physical object do you assign too much value? Where is your idol worship? Is it your car, your house, your financial statements? Is it your diamond earring, or golden ring - or perhaps, a golden city?
Gahl Sasson is a certified astrologer, professional musician and writer. He teaches classes in Astrology, Kabbala and Mythology, and holds private consultations using Hebrew names and astrology. His last article for OLAM was "The Father of Wisdom & The Mother of Understanding".
