Hurling and Shattering, Holiness and Hope

This week's Torah portion, Ki Tissa, tells a high-drama tale, and leaves us with lots to ponder.

Moses has already been up on top of Mount Sinai for nearly 40 days. Meanwhile, down below, the Israelites have despaired of him ever returning and instead have fashioned a giant idol -- a golden calf -- which they worship with sacrifices, food and drink, and dancing.

Back on the mountain-top, God fills Moses in that the Israelites have "acted basely" and that he needs to head down to see for himself. God continues (Ex. 32:10), "Now, let Me be, that My anger may blaze forth against them and that I may destroy them" -- threatening to wipe out the Israelites completely. Moses pleads and intercedes on behalf of the people, and he successfully convinces God to refrain from punishing them in that moment. 

But then Moses himself turns to go down the mountain, carrying the two stone tablets of the covenant. As he gets close enough to the Israelites' camp to actually see their calf and dancing (incidentally, the exact same "m'cholot"/ "circle dance" that Miriam had led the Israelites in after they'd crossed the split sea back in Ex. 15:20), Moses too becomes enraged! The text records that "he hurled the tablets from his hands and shattered them at the foot of the mountain" (32:19).

Reading this Torah portion this week, I am taken with the brazenness of Moses's act of shattering the tablets and want to pause here. The Torah itself is explicit about just how precious these objects are that Moses has thrown to the ground: "The tablets were God's work, and the writing was God's writing, incised upon the tablets" (32:16). We might expect God to be livid that Moses has directed his anger not towards the offenders but instead towards this precious divine gift, the symbol of their special relationship. (Truly, God often seems incensed by less... for example, we all know that Moses isn't permitted to enter into the promised land because of a different case in which he lost his temper and hit a rock.)

One famous midrash, however, evaluates this situation very differently. "And from where," it asks, "do we derive that the Holy Blessed One agreed with Moses's reasoning? As it is stated: 'The first tablets which you broke [asher shibarta] (Ex. 34:1). Reish Lakish said: The word asher alludes to the phrase: May your strength be true [yishar kochacha] due to the fact that you broke the tablets." (Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 87a)

In this interpretation, far from being upset about Moses's anger, God congratulates Moses -- literally, wishes him a "yasher koach" -- for having hurled the two tablets to the ground!

Although the midrash doesn't draw out the lesson any further here, I think Reish Lakish is positing that Moses's hurling of the tablets is not an impulsive act of anger but rather a purposeful act of alignment. After all, the Israelites have just violated one of God's first and most fundamental commandments: "You shall have no other gods before Me." Moses's smashing of the tablets puts him into emotional alignment with God (both of them being equally displeased with the Israelites). Furthermore, breaking the physical tablets helps them accurately reflect the reality of an already-destroyed covenant (similarly to how mourners' garments are torn at a funeral, to make their outsides reflect their inner/emotional state of being). While it would be easy to think that the shattering of the most sacred covenantal object is inherently bad, in all these ways it really can be viewed in a positive light.

Going yet a step further, the shattering of the first set of tablets is also helpful in that clears the way for something new to emerge. And indeed, it's only by virtue of their brokenness that Ki Tissa is able to move on to the themes of atonement and forgiveness, and tangibly to a second set of tablets (albeit a set carved by Moses's hand rather than by God's). In this version 2.0, the covenant has proven that it can tolerate rupture and repair -- and so it emerges stronger and more durable than the first, breakable set of tablets.

Finally, we learn (in Berakhot 8b) that "both the tablets of the Covenant and the broken tablets were placed in the Ark." This has always felt remarkable to me -- that as the Ark was carried through the wilderness for 40 years, as it accompanied Joshua into battle, and as it resided in the Holy of Holies of Solomon's Temple, we have the tradition that it contained both the shattered pieces and and whole tablets. On a symbolic level, we Jews are instructed to carry with us the evidence of our own mistakes, and the memory of our work of repair. Here, our tradition makes a bold assertion: that holiness resides not only in that which is whole, but also in that which is broken.

From this dramatic story, read through Reish Lakish's lens, some beautiful Torah emerges. Sometimes rupture is necessary and holy. That which has been broken shouldn't be discarded and forgotten, but rather preserved and carried, so that we can learn from it. The trick, of course, lies in knowing exactly where and how to apply this Torah. 

This week, unfortunately, I have no neat bow-tie to offer to this Dvar Torah; I feel that we are very much still inside a dramatic and sweeping story, inside the swirl of a period of great rupture. During my time in Israel two weeks ago, I sat with big existential questions about what it means to be part of the Jewish people at this moment in history, about the successes and failures of Zionism, and about the ways that our own stories of collectivity do and don't serve us. Just days after I landed back here in Seattle, Israel and the U.S. initiated a war against Iran which quickly spun into a wider regional conflict, with ripple effects in all directions, including the wedges it is exacerbating within the American Jewish community and between American Jews and Israelis. So much in our world feels like it is "breaking" and "shattering" in real time -- physical places, regimes, ideologies, relationships.

Only time will tell which aspects of this shattering will turn out to be positive in the long run. This week, then, I sit with more questions than answers. But, I take some comfort in knowing that our people have weathered dramatic moments before, and in recalling that sometimes shattering can be necessary and positive. I wonder aloud what newness will emerge from this fraught moment. Even when it feels like so much is shattering around us, I hold out hope that we might find holiness among the broken shards.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum