Personally, I would love to have seen the writing, even though I cannot read Hebrew, but I digress. Of course, we know that God warned Moses of the sin of the people and when Moses hurried down the mountain he met Joshua, who was concerned about war But Moses told him it was not the sound of war, but the sound of singing Then when Moses could see the camp, particularly the calf his brother, Aaron, had made and the dancing very different than the dancing when the Egyptian army was destroyed in the Red Sea — ; , Moses threw the stone tablets from his place on the mountain to where they were shattered at the base of the mountain We do not have a direct answer given by inspiration that settles the matter.
Paul found by inspiration an allegory based on the story of Hagar and Sarah with their children by Abraham Galatians , so it is not an exercise in futility to look closer and see if there is a profitable message here also. Before we can attempt to answer that question, we should establish some given facts. First, the people already knew the Ten Commandments. They had been first given to Moses back in Exodus , The people heard the voice of God and begged that He not speak again to them vs.
Scholars disagree on whether Moses Breaking the Tablets of the Law cover , painted by Rembrandt when he was in his early 50s, shows Moses with the first tablets of the Law, which Moses smashed when he saw the people dancing about the golden idol, or with the second tablets.
Two scripture passages are generally associated with the painting, depending on the interpretation:. Moses made his way back down the mountain with the two tablets of the Testimony in his hands, tablets inscribed on both sides, inscribed on the front and on the back.
As he approached the camp and saw the calf and the groups dancing, Moses' anger blazed. He threw down the tablets he was holding and broke them at the foot of the mountain Exod , Rembrandt, Moses Breaking the Tablets of the Law. The king heard of this and wished to kill her. When the very existence of the Jewish people is threatened, Moses is prepared to tear up the wedding contract in order to save the bride.
No one is more deeply identified with the Torah than Moses. The Torah of Moses? Explains the Midrash: because Moses gave his life for the Torah, it is called by his name. And yet, when the Jewish people are in jeopardy—or even a small minority of the Jewish people, corrupted by the fringe element of erev rav —Moses does not hesitate to break the tablets.
When the Jewish people are in jeopardy, Moses does not consult anyone. He does not even consult G-d. When Moses must choose between Torah and Israel, his devotion to Israel supersedes all—including that which defines the very essence of his own being: his divine mission and his relationship with the Almighty.
In everything else he did, he was acting on a clear mandate from G-d: G-d instructed and empowered him to take the Jews out of Egypt, split the Red Sea and transmit His wisdom and will to humanity. And Moses did not go off to a side to carry out the most painful and potentially self-destructive act of his life. With its closing words the Torah establishes that it sees its own existence as secondary to the existence of the people of Israel. Still, I do not know which preceded which.
Note that dancing is not mentioned in the Deuteronomy account. Netziv adds something that does not appear in the text here or in Deuteronomy, namely, that Moses ran back from the camp to the mountain. That he needs to resort to this is an indication of how hard pressed he was to reconcile the two phrases, which he understood as representing different locations.
From a traditional standpoint, one might suggest that in Deuteronomy, where Moses is speaking to a new generation, he omits certain things his anger, the killing of the sinners , perhaps because he does not want them to emulate these aspects of the event, and perhaps because he regrets behaving in this manner.
Another difference between the accounts regards the fate of the sinners. In the Exodus account , Moses rallies the Levites and instructs them to kill the infidels. There would seem to be a connection between the lack of anger in Deuteronomy and the absence of violence. Louis H. Feldman, James L. Kugel, Lawrence H. Scholars assume that the text was originally written in Hebrew, but only a Latin translation of a Greek translation is extant.
Return to your cave! Shabbat 33b. I am grateful to Zev Farber for alerting me to the Genizah fragment. Yebamot 71a. This of course is not the simple sense of the verse at all. That Rashi chose to read the shattering of the tablets into it, and thus to conclude his commentary to the Torah with it, indicates that for Rashi the shattering of the tablets was not simply laudable but an act of great importance.
However, Rashi does not explain why he considers this to be of such importance. For one possible explanation see Isaac S. There are many different collections of their work, but on each tractate one version was published in the standard Talmudic printings, becoming the standard Tosafot commentary. The one on Yevamot chosen was compiled by R. Eleazer ben Solomon of Touques late 13 th cent. Taking note of this, Tosafot argue that, by definition, each of these three things must have been based on a flawed argument.
See, e. Thus, Tosafot work to find an error in the halakhic reasoning in all three of these cases. Asher ben Yehiel make the same argument in the gloss on the parallel passage in Shabbat, but in reverse order b.
Shabbat 87a, s. Note here that the two points are disconnected from each other and referenced in reverse order. See also the analysis of Ritva R. Yom Tov of Seville, on b. In other words, the decision was actually mistaken, but since Moses had good intentions God gave him a pass.
This would then reflect a third option between Moses accidentally doing what God wanted him to do, though for the wrong reason, and Moses actually having done something wrong.
Rabbi Uzi Weingarten is the designer of the Communicating with Compassion course. I would like to receive new essays When published Before Shabbat. Torah Portion.
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