God’s love for His people Israel is an upside-down love.
First crude and physical, with a strong hand and an outstretched arm:
Miracles, ten plagues and ten commandments,
Almost violent, on a no-name basis.
Then more: more emotion, more soul
But no body, an unrequited ever-longing love
For an invisible god in the high heavens. A hopeless love.
.....
When God packed up and left the country, He left the Torah
with the Jews.They have been looking for Him ever since,
shouting,"Hey, you forgot something, you forgot."
and other people think shouting is the prayer of the Jew.
Yehduah Amichai, Open, Closed, Open
(15) And Moses turned, and went down from the mount, with the two tables of the testimony in his hand; tables that were written on both their sides; on the one side and on the other were they written. (16) And the tables were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, graven upon the tables. (17) And when Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted, he said unto Moses: ‘There is a noise of war in the camp.’ (18) And he said: ‘It is not the voice of them that shout for mastery, neither is it the voice of them that cry for being overcome, but the noise of them that sing do I hear.’ (19) And it came to pass, as soon as he came nigh unto the camp, that he saw the calf and the dancing; and Moses’anger waxed hot, and he cast the tables out of his hands, and broke them beneath the mount.
"That which is totally Divine is not sustainable...... "
F. R. Yitzhak Arama, Akeidat Yitzhak, 15th century Spain
Why didn’t God sculpt the second tablets, the way He sculpted the first ones? Because that which is totally Divine is not sustainable in the hands of humans. Therefor the first tablets, which were “made by God and written by God”, were not sustainable. Therefore, God told Moses “sculpt [the second Tablets] for yourself” – you make them and I will shape them, thus retaining both the shape and image of the first ones, but these will be sustainable.
And the Letters Became Heavy
Pireki D'Rebbe Eliezer 45
Moshe took the tablets and went down (the mountain), and the letters were carrying themselves and Moshe... and when the (letters) saw the instruments and the golden calf, they flew off the tablets, and became heavy. Moshe could no longer carry them, so he threw them out of his hands, as it says, "and he broke them under the mountain."
The Shattered and the Whole Side by Side
Talmud Tractate Bava Batra 14b
Rav Huna said… the [full] Luchot and the broken Luchot lay [side by side] in the Aron (Holy Ark).
(9) Now Joshua son of Nun was filled with the spirit of wisdom because Moses had laid his hands upon him; and the Israelites heeded him, doing as יהוה had commanded Moses. (10) Never again did there arise in Israel a prophet like Moses—whom יהוה singled out, face to face, (11) for the various signs and portents that יהוה sent him to display in the land of Egypt, against Pharaoh and all his courtiers and his whole country, (12) and for all the great might and awesome power that Moses displayed before the eyes of all Israel.
Hevrutah:
Read the following three texts -- the Midrash from Shemot Rabbah, the commentary by Rabbi Shapira, and excerpt from Shaul Magid's Essay. Consider:
- The connection between shattering and the emergence of the Oral Torah.
- What makes Human Divine partnership possible?
- Is there a meta-principle here? Does all shattering pave the way to expanded partnership? If so, how?
!Don't Feel Bad Moses
(ג) התחיל מצטער על שבור הלוחות. ואמר לו הקב"ה: אל תצטער בלוחות הראשונות, שלא היו אלא עשרת הדברות לבד, ובלוחות השניים אני נותן לך, שיהא בהם הלכות מדרש ואגדות, הה"ד (איוב יא): ויגד לך תעלומות חכמה כי כפלים לתושיה....
[Moses] Moses started feeling bad that he broken the tablets, God told him: Do not feel bad about the first tablets, for they only contained the ten commandments, however in the second tablets I will give you, that they will have Halakha, Midrash and Aggadah, this is what is said: (Job 11): I will tell you hidden wisdom for it shall be double comforting.
Rabbi Hayyim Elazar Shapira of Munkatcz, from Sha’ar Yesakhar (a leading Hungarian Hasidic master d. 1936)
We must understand why God said (and Rashi cites) “Congratulations that you broke them (i.e., the tablets).” It is because if Moses did not break the (first) tablets Israel would not have needed the oral law because everyone would have known, merely by reading, the meaning of the Torah without any (oral) deliberations about the meaning of the law.
By shattering the first tablets [the need for, and existence of, the] oral law was created (na’aseh v’nithaber ha-torah sh’b’al peh). What the oral law revealed was the playfulness (sha’ashuah) and complex beauty (pilpulah) of the Torah. This is why [God said to Moses] “Congratulations that you broke them.”..............
This may be what inspired Rashi to end his commentary with “Congratulations that you broke them.” This shattering brought forth the existence of talmud torah of the oral law (talmud torah sh’b’al peh) and connected it with: “In the beginning (Genesis 1:1), because of the Torah that is called beginning and because of Israel who are called beginning.” That is, [with the oral law] Israel can be an active participant in Torah. Therefore, the numerical value of “that you broke them” (she’shibarta) is equal to the numerical value (1,202) of In the beginning God created (b’reshit bara elohim).
Containing the Brokenness of Humanity
The broken human voice, and not only the pristine divine letter, is what God wants to hear and perhaps also what God wants us to hear. The voice that cries out “Torah!”, that is, “to help me is Torah,” “to listen to me is Torah,” “to see to my brokenness is Torah,” this is the oral law that was embedded in the shards of the broken tablets that, as tradition teaches, were cherished and placed in the Ark beside the second tablets. Without the shards of the broken law the second law is incomplete because it does not contain the brokenness of humanity. And, I would suggest, a Torah that is not (also) human and a divine that is not (also) human is a divine not worth hearing and a Torah not worth protecting. There is no correlate in Rabbi Shapira’s homily to ” talmud torah of the mouth” that states ” talmud torah of the letter.” This is because study is from the mouth, the human mouth, and study is sacred when it listens to the human mouth, to the voice that calls out and says “help me, I am broken.”
From, The Brokenness (and Sacrality) of the Human Voice: A Response to Aryeh Cohen
Shaul Magid
Jewish Theological Seminary
http://jtr.shanti.virginia.edu/volume-1-number-1/the-brokenness-and-sacrality-of-the-human-voice-a-response-to-aryeh-cohen/
"In Your Blood Live"
We must keep asking the Torah to speak to us in human, this crude jargon studded with constraints and distortions, silences and brutalities, that is our only vessel for holiness and truth and peace. We must keep teaching each other, we and our study partner the Torah, all that it means to be human. Human is not whole. Human is full of holes. Human bleeds. Human births its worlds in agonies of blood and bellyaches. Human owns no perfect, timeless texts because human inhabits no perfect, timeless contexts. Human knows that what it weds need not be perfect to be infinitely dear.
Sacred need not mean inerrant; it is enough for the sacred to be inexhaustible. In the depths of Your Torah, I seek You out, Eheyeh, creator of a world of blood. I tear Your Torah verse from verse, until it is broken and bleeding just like me. Over and over I find You in the bloody fragments. Beneath even the woman-hating words of Ezekiel I hear You breathing, "In your blood, live."
Rachel Adler, Essay in Tikkun Magazine
"Golden Repair"
"There is a Japanese word kintsukuroi that means "golden repair." It is the art of restoring broken pottery with gold so that the fractures are literally illuminated - a kind of physical expression of the spirit. As a philosophy kintsukuroi celebrates imperfection as an integral part of the story, not something to be disguised. The artists believe that when something has suffered damage and has a history, it becomes more beautiful. In kintsukuroi, the true life of an object (or person) begins the moment it breaks and reveals that it is vulnerable. The gap between once pristine appearance and its visual imperfection deepens its appeal." May the cracks become visible and may a golden light shine."
Book review by Georgia Pelligrini of32 Yolks by Eric Ribert
Wall St. J. 5/28/16