I am influenced by my Catholic upbringing, Three years in Aberystwyth, Wales, added to that. I have never read the bible from cover to cover. But the Catholic liturgy exposed me to much of those writings. My own reading brought me to passages that remain with me. Here, I mention Moses and his followers wandering in the desert.

 

I see this as a parable. When Moses went up to the mountain, his followers defaulted to idolatry and hedonism, Our default conditions! Their charismatic leader was absent, They had no agreed set of rules by which to live. Mose returned with the Law. Those Commandments provided the glue that held people together. They could then proceed to the promised land even without their charismatic leader—because they had an agreed charter of behavior. 

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As we move from one set of social guidelines to another, we find ourselves in rough waters. Making a new set of guidelines is difficult, and  we often default to a primitive, pagan form of social (dis)order.