Golden calf God of Israel was associated with or pictured as a calf/bull deity through the process of religious assimilation and syncretism. Among the Egyptians' and Hebrews' neighbors in the ancient Near East and in the Aegean, the aurochs, the wild bull, was widely worshipped, often as the Lunar Bull and as the creature of El. When Moses went up into Biblical Mount Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments (), he left the Israelites for forty days and forty nights. The Israelites feared that he would not return and demanded that Aaron make them "gods" to go before them (). Aaron gathered
Law given to Moses at Sinai Law given to Moses at Sinai A Law given to Moses at Sinai (Hebrew "Halakhah le-Moshe mi-Sinai" הלכה למשה מסיני) refers to a halakhic law that is neither explicitly stated in the biblical laws nor derived from it by Talmudical hermeneutics but known from the Jewish tradition. As a category, "The law given to Moses at Mount Sinai" refers to halakhot not included in the Written Torah, but which were transmitted orally (the Oral Torah) since time immemorial from one generation to the next, with no scriptural source. The laws are nonetheless considered by the Talmud to have the force