There has been a recent trend in this country, which would be ludicrous, were it not so arrogant, for some of those in positions of power to claim that the voice of God speaks through them. Further, their claims also imply that in speaking through them, God is issuing edicts, for example directing the embrace of Christian values for all the peoples in the country. In fairness, one leader who made such claims, did amend his original message, giving amnesty to Jewish and Muslim values, at least in an election year.

How does one become the official spokesperson for God? Does renouncing the error of one’s ways and becoming a born again something or other give special status? In other words, despite past transgressions, does seeing the light transform one into a person who is now worthy of spreading the word to others by way of divine intervention?

Surely we hear the voice of God in many ways, not the least of which is the beauty of our natural environment, the wonder of the creation of new life and the ability to sustain that which already exists, but even more surely, that voice is in all of us, and claiming unique ownership reminds us of the simple son at Pesach, who is not the subject of our derision, but of our understanding at the limitations of his mind and his inability to grasp important concepts.

Who then, has actually been chosen by God to be a spokesperson? Over the centuries, the Bible has chronicled great persons and events pertaining to the Jewish people and our belief is that Moses is such a person.

It was on the third day of the Hebrew month of Sivan, giving rise to what we now know as Shavuot, also known as Zeman Matan Toratenu, the Season of the Giving of Our Law - commemorating the receiving of the Ten Commandments- that Moses received a commandment by God to prepare the Jewish people for His visit. Three days later, on the sixth day of Sivan, the people were awakened by thunder and lightning. There were heavy, dark clouds hanging over the mountain. The sounds of the Shofar, the ram's horn, were heard echoing across the desert. The earth began to tremble and shake.

Then Moses heard a voice, God's voice, as He spoke to him from out of the clouds at Mount Sinai, commanding him to go up the mountain. Then God gave him two stone Tablets on which were inscribed the Ten Commandments, and which he was directed to bring back to his people at the foot of the mountain.

Skeptics and scholars, over the centuries, have questioned the direct communication from God to Moses. Moses was considered a holy man, not just a leader of his people, but a man who led the Jews out of slavery in Egypt, and he formed them, and those who joined them, into a tribe during the forty years that followed. As a political, military and religious leader, he gave them religious instruction and law that would enable them to survive successfully as a cohesive people in the centuries that would follow.

All religions have their spokespersons or figures which are related to a Deity or act as messengers for a Deity, and they are universally accepted. Compassionate human beings respect one another’s beliefs even if seems to stretch rationality at times and that is as it should be. But politicizing God and using His voice as a means to deliver our own self serving messages should never be acceptable and those who do so, should be the objects of our ridicule, censure. and total disbelief. Messages from on high will come from on high and not from any self appointed wannabe with claims of Supreme Being connections.