Parshas HaShavua Ki Sissah

Parshas Ki Sissah

Are the second tablets of the law greater than the first?

by Rabbi Efraim Sprecher, Dean of Students, Diaspora Yeshiva, Jerusalem

"Hew out the two tablets of stone for yourself, like the first ones"
(Exodus 34:1)

The first tablets of stone were shattered, but the second tablets endured.
Why their different fate? Perhaps the date on which Moses descended with the
second tablets was the more auspicious because, according to the tradition,
God told him to ascend Mount Sinai on the first of Elul and he came down
with them on Yom Kippur. However, there are also two differences, which
might account for the failure of the tablets and the success of the second.

The second tablets of stone were given to Moses by God privately and without
ceremony. The first tablets were given which much publicity amidst thunder
and lightning. When the first tablets were given, G-d said that the people
should stand at the foot of the mountain, but with the second tablets, He
said that no man should be around the entire mountain. On the first
occasion, animals were permitted to graze opposite the mountain but not on
the second occasion. Moreover, Aaron and two of his sons and seventy elders
of Israel ascended the mountain when the first tablets were given (Exodus
24:1), whereas in the case of the second tablets it is explicitly stated:
"And no man shall come up with you" (Exodus 34:3). Commenting on this verse,
Rashi, quoting the Midrash says that there is no finer quality than to be
unostentatious. In life, what is done quietly and without fanfare usually
stands a greater chance of success than what is done with much noise and
publicity.

A striking Biblical parallel is the difference between the mission to spy
out the Holy Land in the time of Moses and that in the time of Joshua. In
the time of Moses twelve spies, leaders of the people, were sent out
publicly; and their names are prominently listed in the Torah (Numbers
13:4ff). The majority brought back an evil report, and the Israelites
wandered in the desert for forty years until the generation had died out.
Joshua, on the other hand, sent out only two men secretly (Joshua 2:1), and,
following their report, the Israelites successfully entered the country and
overcame the inhabitants. In this case, their names are not stated and they
concealed their identity.

Another difference between the two sets f tablets of stone is that whereas
the former were the work of G-d (Exodus 32:16) the latter were hewn out by
Moses himself. The Hebrew word lecha in the Divine command "Hew out for
yourself" implies that the hewing was to be for Moses' benefit. What a
person does himself may be more effective than what is done by G-d alone.
G-d's work may appear to man to be distant and impersonal, but if a man
co-operates with G-d, if he is a partner with Him in the functioning of the
world, what is achieved may be more enduring. Man's pride in his work, his
personal striving and involvement, bring their won reward. Man cannot have
the sense of satisfaction and achievement in G-d's work that he gains from
his own endeavors. In the case of the second tablets, G-d had dictated the
words, but Moses had carved out, chiseled, and shaped the sapphire like
stone with his own hands.

In hewing out two new tablets of stone, Moses repaired what he had broken
and rebuilt what he had destroyed. In life, man's failures and mistakes need
not always be final and irreversible. He can rebuild, repair and try again.
And he does not always have to start from scratch. The memory, the previous
experience and the precious pattern remain; and it is on those foundations
that a man may be able to build. The tablets which Moses was instructed to
carve our were not completely new. They were "like the first ones".