DR. AMBEDKAR........JEWISH PEOPLE 343
by bringing the Ten Commandments from Mount Sinai. He gave them laws for social, civil and religious purpose and instructions for building the tabernacle.”
“What did Moses not suffer at the hands of the followers ”? When the children of Israel left Egypt and were pursued and attacked by the army of Pharaohs they were sore and said unto Moses, ‘Because there were no graves in Egypt, has thou taken us away to die ?’ It has been better for us to serve the Egyptians than that we should die in wilderness.”
“The marching Israel came to Elim and camped there. There was not sufficient water for them all. They all shouted, give us water wherefore is this that thou hast brought us out of Egypt to kill us and our children and our cattle with thirst ? They were ready to stone him because there was no water.”
“Moses went up to Mount Sinai and delayed to come down. Immediately the Jews went to Aaron and said unto him. ‘Make for us Gods, which shall go before us; for as for this Moses the man that brought us out of the land of Egypt,’ we woe not what has become of him.”
Even his leadership was challenged. The Old Testament records that Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Ethiopian woman he had married and they said, “Hath the Lord indeed spoken only by Moses ? Hath he not spoken also by us ? Yet Moses bore their calumny, their abuse, tolerated their impatience and served them with the fullness of his heart.
“As the Old Testament truly says : ‘There arose not a Prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face’. Moses was not merely a great leader of the Jews. He is a leader whose birth, any downtrodden community may pray for.”
“Whatever interest others may have felt in the story of the exodus and the leadership of Moses they have been to me a source of perennial inspiration and hope.”
“I believe that just as there was a land of promise for the Jews, so the Depressed Classes must be destined to have their land of promise. I trust that just as the Jews reached their land of promise, so will be the Depressed Classes in the end reach their land of promise.”