Nothing So Whole: Broken Tablets and Broken Hearts

Healer of the broken-hearted
Binder of our wounds
Counter of uncountable stars
You know who we are

(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.

And from where do we derive that the Holy One, Blessed be He, agreed with his reasoning? As it is stated: “The first tablets which you broke [asher shibarta]” (Exodus 34:1), and Reish Lakish said: The word asher is an allusion to the phrase: May your strength be true [yishar koḥakha] due to the fact that you broke the tablets.

(1) ...[Moses] started feeling bad that he broke the tablets, G-d 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 Halacha, Midrash, and Agadah, this is what is said: (Job 11): I will tell you hidden wisdom for it shall be double comforting...

Rabbi Alexandri teaches, “If the simpleton keeps trying to use broken vessels, it's shameful, but the Holy Blessed One’s vessels are [all] broken ones [and it's not shameful], as it is written ‘Healer of the broken-hearted’ and ‘[Present] with the lowly and suffering...”.”

...Rabbi Shimon ben Yoḥai says: This teaches that the ineffable name of God and all of His appellations were placed in the Ark. The Gemara inquires: And doesn’t the other Sage, Rabbi Meir, also require it for that? The Gemara answers: Yes, it is indeed so. Rather, from where does he derive that the broken pieces of the first set of tablets were placed in the Ark? The Gemara expounds: He derives this from that which Rav Yosef taught, as Rav Yosef taught a baraita: The verses state: “At that time the Lord said to me: Hew for yourself two tablets of stone like the first…and I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke, and you shall put them in the Ark” (Deuteronomy 10:1–2). This teaches that both the second set of tablets and the broken pieces of the first set of tablets were placed in the Ark.

Rav Yosef teaches a baraita: This verse teaches that both the tablets of the Covenant and the pieces of the broken tablets are placed in the Ark. One should learn from here that with regard to a Torah scholar who has forgotten his Torah knowledge due to circumstances beyond his control, e.g., illness, one may not behave toward him in a degrading manner. Although the first tablets were broken it is prohibited to treat them with disrespect, due to their sanctity. A Torah scholar who forgot the Torah knowledge he once possessed is likened to these broken tablets.

(1) The first letters of “Zikhru Torat Moshe (be mindful of Moshe’s Torah)” (Malachi 3:22) spell TaMmuZ without the vav. This is because it is then, in Tammuz, that we must elicit mindfulness in order to rectify forgetfulness. For it was then that forgetfulness came into existence; as a result of the Tablets being broken in the month of Tammuz, forgetfulness came into being. As our Sages, of blessed memory, said: Had the first Tablets not been shattered, the Torah would not have been forgotten in Israel (Eruvin 54a).

(2) Thus, the vav is missing from Tammuz, as mentioned above. This is because as a result of the Tablets having been broken, the vav departed. For the Tablets are the aspect of vav, as our Sages, of blessed memory, said: The Tablets were vav handbreadths long by vav handbreadths wide (Bava Batra 14a).