This week we have turned a corner in the Jewish ritual calendar: Tisha b’Av, the day we mourn the destruction of the First and Second Temples is behind us. It is the lowest point of the Jewish year.
We now begin a long, seven week ascent toward the High Holy Days. For the next seven Shabbats, we read special Haftarah selections of consolation. In two weeks, we enter the month Elul, which is traditionally spent in self-reflection as preparation for the Ten Days of Repentance from the beginning of Rosh Hashanah to the end of Yom Kippur.
Repentance, or teshuvah, is essential to Judaism because our tradition does not expect perfection. Jewish religion understands that we are all imperfect, but we are also capable of growth and change.
This is illustrated in this week’s Torah portion, where Moses relates the story of how Moses, in his rage over the sin of the Golden Calf, destroyed the first two Tablets of the Law. He then went back up Mt. Sinai and he goes on to say, “ADONAI inscribed on the tablets the same text as on the first, the Ten Commandments that He addressed to you on the mountain out of the fire on the day of the Assembly; and the LORD gave them to me. Then I left and went down from the mountain, and I deposited the tablets in the ark that I had made, where they still are, as the LORD had commanded me.” (Deuteronomy 10:4-5)
But what happened to the first set, the broken tablets? The Talmud Yerushalmi relates, that the broken tablets were kept in the Ark along with the new, whole tablets and both remained with Israel (Talmud Yerushalmi, Shekalim 1:1)
Like the Ark, which contained a shattered set and a complete set of tablets, we carry our weaknesses and our strengths, our imperfections and our goodness within us. As we enter this time of teshuvah we can learn how to embrace our brokenness to help us grow and become more whole.
We will never be perfect, but we can become better people. That is the lesson of the two tablets.
Eikev, Deuteronomy 7:12-11:25 – Parashat ha Shavuah for Saturday, July 31, 2021
July 30, 2021 by Dean Kertesz • Drashot
This week we have turned a corner in the Jewish ritual calendar: Tisha b’Av, the day we mourn the destruction of the First and Second Temples is behind us. It is the lowest point of the Jewish year.
We now begin a long, seven week ascent toward the High Holy Days. For the next seven Shabbats, we read special Haftarah selections of consolation. In two weeks, we enter the month Elul, which is traditionally spent in self-reflection as preparation for the Ten Days of Repentance from the beginning of Rosh Hashanah to the end of Yom Kippur.
Repentance, or teshuvah, is essential to Judaism because our tradition does not expect perfection. Jewish religion understands that we are all imperfect, but we are also capable of growth and change.
This is illustrated in this week’s Torah portion, where Moses relates the story of how Moses, in his rage over the sin of the Golden Calf, destroyed the first two Tablets of the Law. He then went back up Mt. Sinai and he goes on to say, “ADONAI inscribed on the tablets the same text as on the first, the Ten Commandments that He addressed to you on the mountain out of the fire on the day of the Assembly; and the LORD gave them to me. Then I left and went down from the mountain, and I deposited the tablets in the ark that I had made, where they still are, as the LORD had commanded me.” (Deuteronomy 10:4-5)
But what happened to the first set, the broken tablets? The Talmud Yerushalmi relates, that the broken tablets were kept in the Ark along with the new, whole tablets and both remained with Israel (Talmud Yerushalmi, Shekalim 1:1)
Like the Ark, which contained a shattered set and a complete set of tablets, we carry our weaknesses and our strengths, our imperfections and our goodness within us. As we enter this time of teshuvah we can learn how to embrace our brokenness to help us grow and become more whole.
We will never be perfect, but we can become better people. That is the lesson of the two tablets.