The final verse of the Torah reads, “And for all the great might and all the awesome power that Moshe performed לעיני כל ישראל – before the eyes of all Israel” (Devarim 34:12). Rashi comments on the phrase, "לעיני כל ישראל" “before the eyes of all Israel”:

[This alludes to the time that Moshe’s] heart stirred him to break the Luchos before the eyes [of the Jewish people]. As the verse states, “And I broke them לעיניכם before your eyes” (Devarim 9:17). And Hashem gave His approval. Thus, [when Hashem told Moshe,], “that you broke” (Shemos 34), [He meant], “You did well to break them!” (Shabbos 87a).

The reason that the Torah concludes with an allusion to the breaking of the Luchos

On Simchas Torah, which is part of Shemini Atzeres, we complete the final portion of the Torah, which we read publicly in weekly installments over the course of a whole year. This is a day of great celebration above and beyond the fact that it is one of the biblical festivals. The celebration of Simchas Torah is particularly significant because it honors the achievement of continuous and communal Torah study.On its face, Rashi’s comment is a very sad way of interpreting the final verse of the Torah. Why did Rashi choose to apply these words of the Sages to conclude the Torah?

The Gemara states (Shabbos 87a) that Moshe decided to break the Luchos after the chet ha’egel (the sin of the golden calf) based on a kal vechomer argument, which belongs to the realm of the oral Torah. He reasoned as follows: if the Torah forbids an apostate to eat the Korban Pesach, which is only one of the 613 mitzvos, how much more so were the people of Israel, who were at that moment apostates, forbidden from receiving the Luchos, which represent the entire Torah (Shabbos 87a).

Tosafos states that this is not a flawless kal vechomer, because although the Korbon Pesach is forbidden to an apostate, in this case Moshe should have given the Jewish people the Torah which would have brought  them to repent.

When the Jewish people engaged in chet ha’egel, they lost their spiritual crowns, and they were immersed in sin

One may respond to Tosafos’s argument by saying that the Jewish people had turned their back on the great and awesome event at Mount Sinai where they heard Hashem declare “I am Hashem your God.” In other words, they were so immersed in the sin of worshipping the egel that they could not repent. They were no better than “a person who immerses in a mikveh [to purify himself] while holding a lizard, [which keeps him impure].”

As a result of having served the golden calf, the Jewish people cast off the yoke of accepting the Torah and lost the crowns they received for having accepted the Torah without preconditions through their declaration of "נעשה ונשמע" (“We shall do and we shall hear” [Shabbos 88b]). They had plummeted so far that they could not even begin to repent. That is, they were too immersed in evil, without the Torah to protect them. The Ohr Hachaim tells us (Parashas Shemos) that a person who has reached the fiftieth gate of impurity cannot repent without the power of the Torah. Similarly, the Chasam Sofer writes (at the end of Yoma) that a person who has reached the fiftieth gate of impurity cannot repent on his own but only with the help of heaven.

The Jewish people wereso deeply immersed in the depth of impurity that they could not repent on their own. However, they were undeserving of the Torah, “the light of which impels a person to improve.” How then could they elevate themselves? And how would they be saved from their spiritual plight?

Moshe took action to arouse the Jewish people towards repentance

The source of repentance must come from man. Therefore, Moshe, acting as the conscience and representative of the people of Israel, had to devise his own plan. That plan was to inspire the Jewish people to repent. The catalyst for this plan was the dramatic act of breaking the Luchos, which would shock them into an awakening. The Luchos represent the heart of Israel, as in the verse, “Write them upon the tablet (the luach) of your heart” (Mishlei 3:3). The essential purpose in the breaking of the Luchos was to break the hearts of the Jewish people and bring them to repentance, as in the verse, “Hashem will not despise a broken and oppressed heart” (Tehillim 51:19). This is in keeping with the statement of the Kotzer Rebbe, “Nothing is as whole as a broken heart.”

When Moshe broke the Luchos, the Jewish people turned their eyes toward him and toward Mount Sinai, and they recalled the great event of giving of the Torah, which they had forgotten. By breaking the Luchos, Moshe caused the Jewish people to pivot from the egel, face Moshe and Mount Sinai, confront the gravity of their sin,   and were moved to repent.

Moshe’s gamble

In truth, Moshe was concerned that after his death he would have to give an accounting for this act. Moshe had broken the Luchos, based completely on his own judgement that he had broken the Luchos, which were not his, but belonged to Hashem. The Luchos were written with the finger of Hashem, and embodied miracles and wonders (such as the final mem and the samech standing in their place miraculously). How could Moshe even consider breaking them? Seemingly, breaking them would constitute a desecration of the sacred and the erasure of Divine names, and would be similar to dropping a Torah scroll!?

  I suggest that Moshe knew well that the Luchos were the work of Hashem and the writing was the writing of Hashem, , and that the Luchos were miraculous and that their entire existence was higher than nature. And it was because he knew that, that he concluded it was not necessarily the case that anything negative would result from his breaking them. Moshe prayed that because his entire intent was for the sake of heaven, to bring the nation of Israel to repent, Hashem would not allow any evil to emerge from this act, but only good.

The entire essence of Moshe’s breaking the Luchos was only “in the eyes of Israel”

Perhaps the entire episode of the breaking of the Luchos existed only “before the eyes of Israel” on a physical dimension, but the Luchos remained intact in other dimensions of reality. This would explain why the fragments of the Luchos were placed in the aron kodesh. These fragments accompanied the people of Israel to war, to help them vanquish the enemy. The heavenly power of the shattered Luchos continued to exist.

The unbreakable dimension of the Luchos is in line with an awesome and wondrous story told about Rabbi Yisrael, the Beis Yisrael of Gur, tried to console a survivor of the Shoah who had lost everything. The Beis Yisrael, who had also lost his family in the Shoah, told him, “It is written about the breaking of the Luchos, ‘I broke them before your eyes’ and ‘before the eyes of all Israel.’ This is in keeping with the Sages’ comment quoted by Rashi on the verse, ‘[Yosef] imprisoned [Shimon] before their eyes…’ (Bereishis 42:24) that Yosef only imprisoned Shimon before [the brothers’] eyes, but when they left, he freed him and fed him and gave him to drink. Similarly, it is only before the eyes of the Jewish people that the first Luchos are broken; in reality, however, the Luchos remain whole.” The Beis Yisrael concluded: “Similarly, we must believe that everything we lost in the Shoah was only ‘before our eyes,’ and everything still truly exists.”

Referring to the original question as to why Rashi would end his commentary on the Torah, interpreting the last three words of the Torah on a sad note, we can now understand that Rashi’s uplifting message. Hashem consoled Moshe and informed him that he would not be punished, but on the contrary, “You did well to break them.” He promised Moshe that he would be the leader of the people of Israel not only for the generation __ of the desert, but for every generation – and that power of repentance is the secret of our existence. We continue to atone for the sin of the golden calf  throughout the generations, until in the future, in the days of Moshiach, no trace of that terrible sin will remain.

The Mei Merivah waters and their connection to the breaking of the Luchos

The Torah tells that about forty years after Moshe’s breaking of the Luchos…

Hashem spoke to Moshe, saying:

“Take the staff and gather the congregation, you and Aharon your brother, and speak to the rock לעיניהם before their eyes so that it will give forth its water….”

Moshe raised his hand and struck the rock with his staff twice, and much water came forth….

And Hashem said to Moshe and to Aharon: “Because you did not believe in Me to sanctify me לעיני בני ישראל in the eyes of the Jewish people, therefore you will not bring this congregation to the land that I have given them.”

Bamidbar 20:8-12

Hashem instructed Moshe to speak to the rock before the “eyes of the nation.” Had Moshe performed the action as instructed it would have sanctified the name of heaven. When instead Moshe struck the rock before klal Yisrael, he deprived them of this opportunity to glorify Hashem and increase their Emunah. Hashem therefore decreed that Moshe would not enter the land of Israel.

This ties in to the last verse in the Torah. The Talmud discusses how the entire Torah could have been written by Moshe, since the final verses tell of his death and onwards. Rabbi Shimon states: “Until the point [that Moshe was about to die], Hashem would dictate, and Moshe would repeat and write. At that point [where Moshe was about to die], Hashem dictated, and Moshe wrote with tears” (Bava Basra 15a).

There is no doubt that when Moshe wrote the verses that describe his death and burial outside the Land, the reason he shed tears was that he recalled having hit the rock before the eyes of the nation, since that is what caused him to die outside the Land.

Hashem consoled Moshe at the very conclusion of the Torah with the words, ״לעיני כל ישראל״” “before the eyes of all Israel.” This phrase hints at the time that Moshe broke the Luchos before the eyes of all Israel, and in so doing saved them forever. That is a fine conclusion for the eternal Torah and an ultimate message for the eternal nation.

How is it that we attained complete atonement so that we were not destroyed? That came about when Moshe broke the Luchos before our eyes and thus caused us to look toward Mount Sinai and recall the giving of the Torah. That opened the gates of repentance, saved us from destruction, and placed us on the road to complete atonement.

We completed an analysis of the significance of the last three words of the Torah, and how Moshe ensured the survival of Klal Yisroel and the Torah. With the security of the Torah established, we can now proceed to study the Torah from the beginning again.