Rosh Chodesh Tammuz

On the seventeenth of Tammuz the Tablets were shattered as a result of the sin of the golden calf. But the golden calf is not merely an idol made in the desert. It appears every time we take a particular thing and turn it into the most important thing in our life. It could be money, success, status, power, or even an idea we are convinced is right. The problem with these things begins when they take control over us, and we can no longer see anything beyond them. And what actually happens to us? We seek something tangible that will give us security, we grasp hold of it, and gradually we begin to bend all our other values for its sake. And then the Tablets are shattered, because when one thing becomes an idol, truth is absent. Every generation has a different calf. The month of Tammuz invites us to examine what is running us, before we discover that for its sake we gave up the things that truly matter.