What To Do With A Broken Torah?

(10) Then Ezra the priest got up and said to them, “You have trespassed by bringing home foreign women, thus aggravating the guilt of Israel. (11) So now, make confession to the LORD, God of your fathers, and do His will, and separate yourselves from the peoples of the land and from the foreign women.” (12) The entire congregation responded in a loud voice, “We must surely do just as you say. (13) However, many people are involved, and it is the rainy season; it is not possible to remain out in the open, nor is this the work of a day or two, because we have transgressed extensively in this matter. (14) Let our officers remain on behalf of the entire congregation, and all our townspeople who have brought home foreign women shall appear before them at scheduled times, together with the elders and judges of each town, in order to avert the burning anger of our God from us on this account.”

(13) On the second day, the heads of the clans of all the people and the priests and Levites gathered to Ezra the scribe to study the words of the Teaching. (14) They found written in the Teaching that the LORD had commanded Moses that the Israelites must dwell in booths during the festival of the seventh month, (15) and that they must announce and proclaim throughout all their towns and Jerusalem as follows, “Go out to the mountains and bring leafy branches of olive trees, pine trees, myrtles, palms and [other] leafy trees to make booths, as it is written.” (16) So the people went out and brought them, and made themselves booths on their roofs, in their courtyards, in the courtyards of the House of God, in the square of the Water Gate and in the square of the Ephraim Gate. (17) The whole community that returned from the captivity made booths and dwelt in the booths—the Israelites had not done so from the days of Joshua son of Nun to that day—and there was very great rejoicing.

Rav Yehuda said, Rav Said, "If someone discovers Kilayim in their clothes, they must take them off immediately - even if they are in the souk." What's the reason? "There's no wisdom, understanding, or council against God." ... Here is the proof: "'And to his sister.' What does this teach us? If he [a priest or nazir] was on his way to sacrifice his pesach, or to circumcise his son, and he found out that a relative has died, can he go return and become impure? No, for it says, 'He may not become impure' Perhaps just as he can not become impure for them, he also can't become impure for a Met Mitzvah? No, for it says, 'And to his sister.' To his sister he may not become impure, but he may become impure for a Met Mitzvah." Why? Shouldn't we say "There's no wisdom, understanding, or council against God?"

(15) Thereupon Moses turned and went down from the mountain bearing the two tablets of the Pact, tablets inscribed on both their surfaces: they were inscribed on the one side and on the other. (16) The tablets were God’s work, and the writing was God’s writing, incised upon the tablets. (17) When Joshua heard the sound of the people in its boisterousness, he said to Moses, “There is a cry of war in the camp.” (18) But he answered, “It is not the sound of the tune of triumph, Or the sound of the tune of defeat; It is the sound of song that I hear!” (19) As soon as Moses came near the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, he became enraged; and he hurled the tablets from his hands and shattered them at the foot of the mountain.

"That you smashed, and you shall deposit them in the ark." Rav Yosef teaches, "This teaches that both the tablets and the broken tablets were placed in the Ark. From here, you can learn that a Talmid Chacham that forgot his teaching under duress should not be humiliated." Reish Lakish said, "Sometimes the nullification of Torah is its foundation, as is written, 'That you smashed.' God said to Moses, 'Yasher Koach for smashing them.'"

(1) Thereupon the LORD said to me, “Carve out two tablets of stone like the first, and come up to Me on the mountain; and make an ark of wood. (2) I will inscribe on the tablets the commandments that were on the first tablets that you smashed, and you shall deposit them in the ark.”