Revolution is a tricky business

Revolution is a tricky business
by Rabbi Daniel Allen
Discuss on Our BlogRevolution is a tricky business. Just read this week’s Torah portion about the Golden Calf. Moses has led our people out of Egypt, in a transition from slavery to freedom. The freedom will be based on laws soon to be delivered by God, that ultimate revolutionary.
The Jewish people exhibit all the tendencies of the slaves they had been for more than 400 years. They are complaining, self-deprecating and fearful of the unknown. At each step in the journey they had to be reassured. In the wanderings before crossing the Red Sea this assurance was provided by the great pillar--a cloud by day and fire at night.
Now, with Moses’ long absence the crowd needs reassurance and the people need a leader. Aaron is convinced to build the Golden Calf. This calf is the new god since the faith needed to sustain the revolution that the unseen God and Moses have been leading has lapsed.”When the people of Israel saw that Moses was so long in coming down the mountain, the people gathered against Aaron and said to him, ‘Come make us a god who shall go before us for we do not know what has happened to Moses.’”
Today’s Egypt is in the midst of a revolution. We, who love and support Israel, must ask several questions. Will the new Egypt live according to a system of laws? Will the laws afford human rights for all who live there? Will a new Egyptian government abide by the terms of the Israel-Egypt peace treaty? Will the Egyptians turn to other false leaders, leaders who will merely reconstitute a dictatorship not based on law and peace?
Our Zionist revolution was humane. The Israeli Declaration of Independence states, among other things, that Israel will “ foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; …it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex.” It further states “We extend our hand to all neighboring states and their peoples in an offer of peace and good neighborliness, and appeal to them to establish bonds of cooperation and mutual help with the sovereign Jewish people settled in its own land.” Israeli society continues to strive, along with our help, to reach the ideals of its Declaration of Independence.
We Zionists, and especially we Reform Zionists, support those who are working to reshape Egypt as long as it becomes a civil society of laws and a partner for peace with Israel in the region. We have common cause with those who believe in the power of laws and the democratic process of governance. We are Zionists and thus we are revolutionaries.
Rabbi Daniel R. Allen, Executive Director of ARZA, has served as the CEO of the American Friends of Magen David Adom and the United Israel Appeal. Allen is considered a leading expert on Israel and American Jewish Philanthropy.