Shabbos Parashas Eikev - 5775

Shabbos Parashas Eikev - 5775

Rabbi Hal Miller

And I grasped the two Tablets and threw them from my two hands, and I smashed

them before your eyes. [Devarim 9:17]

In Devarim, the final book of the Torah, Moshe both reviews much of what came before,

and adds a series of new laws. Our verse is part of the review, and refers to the

incident of the golden calf, Shemos 32:19. There we read that he saw the calf and the

dancing, his anger burned, and he threw the tablets down, breaking them. What is

different about our verse here, that warrants this repetition? Why would Moshe break

the Tablets that had been written by G-d Himself?

Rashi justifies Moshe's action by comparison with the commandment about the Pesach

sacrifice, that a stranger may not eat it. He says that the people made themselves

strangers by their actions, and thus all the moreso were no longer qualified to partake

of the sanctified items.

Ramban adds that Moshe was unable to restrain himself from anger, and broke the

Tablets out of rage.

Rashbam implies that the breakage was an accident, that Moshe's strength gave out

when he saw what was going on, and they fell. But, Nechama Leibowitz says that our

verse proves these opinions wrong when it uses the words "grasped" and "threw". There

has to be something more than light, human-like explanation.

While Moshe was still up on Mount Sinai, G-d told him what was happening down at

the foot of the hill. There was no surprise by the time Moshe descended. His actions by

then were calculated, not reactive. Talelei Oros asks why it would not have been enough

to just hide the Tablets for a future generation. Perhaps bringing the Tablets to the people

would have encouraged their improved behavior. Obviously, Moshe had something else

specific in mind.

Physical things do not have sanctity of their own accord. If we treat something as holy,

it is because the Torah directed that. The holiness stems not from the item, but from the

spiritual concept that item represents. In our case, the Tablets were not holy, only the

commandments written upon them were holy. Moshe was able to see that the people

did not understand that difference, and would have treated the Tablets as they treated

the golden calf, which completely defeated the point of the Tablets. Thus, he had to

destroy them.

But what additional information do we learn in our verse? We already knew that the

Tablets were broken. We already knew that Moshe was angry, that he threw the

Tablets down. What we didn't know from before was that Moshe specfically did this

act in front of the eyes of the people. Why? It was not for anger or revenge. It wasn't

to "get back" at the people, nor for Moshe to thumb his nose at them.

Moshe wanted to teach the people that even though G-d had personally written these

Tablets, they were merely physical representations of a spiritual concept, and that

the physical pieces were not the main value. He wanted them to understand that the

spiritual concept, the belief in and service to G-d, was what they needed to accept in

their hearts, without an intermediary. Judaism is a relationship between each one of

us, and G-d Himself, one-on-one, no agent, no representative. He gave us the Torah

to guide how we manage our part of this relationship. Try as we might, we

cannot make something holy, except our own souls. But it is our responsibility to

accomplish just that.