In this week’s reading, the divine Torah encounters earthly life and breaks. When the people dancing around the golden calf come into sight, the writing inscribed by God flees upward and returns to its heavenly origin; the heavy stone tablets also return to their earthly nature, become heavy, fall from Moses’ hands, hit the ground and shatter.
The tablets were broken but not the covenant. The Torah was not lost, but it did change.
The second tablets were different from the first ones because Moses was a partner in their creation.
At the beginning of chapter 32 we read: The ETERNAL said to Moses: “Carve two tablets of stone like the first, and I will inscribe upon the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you shattered.” Later, it says that actually Moses wrote on the second tablets himself. In either case, this Torah was more accessible because it was created through cooperation as Abarbanel (Lisbon, 1437 – Venice, 1508) explains: “Moses with a partner with God in that work, to the point that it could be said that Moses did half and the Holy One did half, as a person deals with his friend or partner.”
That was only beginning. When the tablets were broken the house the study was founded.
How?
Rabbi Isaac Hutner, an important Rosh Yeshiva in the mid-twentieth century, innovated this idea are the basis of a statement by Rabbi Eliezer, “If the tablets had not been broken Torah, would never be forgotten by Israel (Babylonian Talmud, Eruvin 54a). According to Hutner this forgetting strengthened and increased Torah. The learning necessary to reconstruct its content caused sages to propose a variety of systems and opinions, and these became part of the Torah (Pahad Yitzchak, Hannukah 3).
The encounter between heaven and earth can be fertile. Some examples:
At the beginning of this week’s portion – before the tablets are broken – we read the commandment to collect a half-shekel from all Israelites, to redeem their souls and as a way to count the people. According to the text, this was to be a one-time operation. But next week, on Shabbat Shekalim (always on or before Rosh Hodesh Adar [B]), we will read the same verses again as the special maftir, a reminder that during this time period, money was collected in order to do the necessary maintenance work in the Temple before Passover, and to finance the communal sacrifices for the coming year. On one level, this is a purely practical innovation, running the Temple was expensive. Beyond that, this change provides a way for the public to participate in the cult, and feel like partners.
This is a relatively “easy” expansion of the text in light of public needs, without any real clash. In other cases, the encounter between Torah and our life can be a head-on collision.
In the book of First Maccabees 2:31-38, we read about an occasion when the Greeks attacked the Maccabean rebels on Shabbat, and the Jews refused to defend themselves. Everyone was killed. In light of the heavy losses, Mattathias, the leader of the rebellion formulated the innovative idea that saving a life overrides Shabbat, that the holiness of human life takes precedence over the explicit commandment to rest on the seventh day. We take this for granted but initially it was an innovation.
In the last century, especially in our generation, the status of women has been one of the most important fields in which Torah is expanding. Women bring different life experiences that enrich Torah. Our demand to stand tall and be considered equal members of society can move matters even in the most sensitive and rigid aspects of life. Approximately two weeks ago, the press reported that a private rabbinical court, headed by Rabbi Sperber, released a “chained woman” by retroactively annulling the marriage on the basis of her claim that the man had hidden his violent, criminal past from her, and her agreement to marry him was based on misinformation. This idea has precedents in the Talmud but many courts are reluctant to use it. Now, there is at least one court that dares to listen to women’s distress. What was not reported, to the best of my knowledge, is that nearly 20 years ago, Rabbi Diana Villa and the late Rabbi Monique Susskind Goldberg wrote a series of pamphlets (that were later gathered into a book), published by the Schechter Institutes, in which they outline case studies that use this, and similar, lines of thinking. I hope that we are not far from the day when women’s status as equal Jews will be accepted as Torah no less than the idea that saving a life override Shabbat.
The dissolution of marriages is a matter for courts, but there are many encounters between Torah and life on personal, familial and communal levels. They often involve Shabbat: a guest comes to a Bar Mitzvah with a smartphone on; traveling to synagogue or to visit a child on an army base; this microphone and… feel free to add your own.
There are many considerations: the holiness and importance of Shabbat must be weighed against honoring parents, the dignity of human life, the value of public prayer or family unity, the substance of electricity, the need for recreation beyond formal Shabbat observance. If these considerations, individually or together, were to always override Shabbat, Torah would not grow and we would be left with nothing but broken bits in a locked cabinet. The task is more complex.
Abarbanel compared the creation of the second tablets to a human partnership or negotiation. Each side has its own interests and each side must “get something” in the final arrangements. Study and consideration are necessary in order to grow Torah. The decision-making process can be compared to walking a balance beam. If we fall to one side we lose our humanity; if we fall to the other, we empty Torah and Judaism of their content. If we take each step carefully and with due consideration, will be able to move forward towards Torah that is richer and greater. May we merit not losing our balance.
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