At the Tikkun Daily Blog, Rabbi Michael Lerner warns the Jewish people against replacing the Golden Calf with the state of Israel:
Go into any synagogue in the US or Israel and you can tell people that you don’t believe in God, don’t observe the commands of Torah, don’t observe the Sabbath, or even that you plan to be eating a pig sandwich on Yom Kippur and the majority of people will shrug their shoulders, and welcome you in. But dare to say that you think that Israel is violating human rights or, worse, that it really is just a political entity like all other political entities and does not have any particular claim on your loyalties, and you will be treated as though you had just spoken the greatest of Jewish heresies.
And that is what it means to be the god of a particular people—when critiquing it is seen as the one belief that you cannot critique without being dismissed as hurtful, evil or perverse. When Aaron facilitated the creation of the Golden Calf, he proclaimed “These are your Gods, O Israel.” Today, in word and deed, most of the synagogues in the world proclaim “The state of Israel is the ultimate holy God, O Israel.” Israel is the new idolatry.
Read the full post here.