The situation was therefore that Bnei Yisrael had become so deeply immersed in impurity that they could not return in teshuvah through their own powers; but they were not worthy of the Torah, about which Chazal say, “The light within it returns a person to the proper path.” How, then, could they be saved if they had neither the Torah nor the ability to elevate themselves on their own?

Moshe devised a way to awaken them to teshuvah

  Teshuvah must come through the choice of the baal teshuvah (penitent) himself. Therefore Moshe, acting as the conscience of Klal Yisrael and as their shliach tzibbur (representative), had to devise a solution on his own. He found a way to awaken them to teshuvah through an external stimulus, which was what they needed. He thus shattered the Luchos, sending them into a state of shock, in order to awaken them through this dramatic and shocking act. The Luchos symbolize the heart of the Jewish people, as it says:כָּתְבֵם עַל־לוּחַ לִבֶּך “Write them upon the tablet of your heart” (Mishlei 3:3). The very breaking of the Luchos was intended to break the hearts of Bnei Yisrael and bring them back to teshuvah, as it says:לֵב נִשְׁבָּר וְנִדְכֶּה אֱלֹקִים לֹא תִבְזֶה “A broken and crushed heart, O G-d, You will not despise.” And as the Kotzker Rebbe, zatzal (of saintly memory), taught: “There is nothing more whole than a broken heart.”

  By breaking the Luchos, Moshe caused the people to turn and look toward him and toward Har Sinai. They recalled that great event of the giving of the Torah, which they had forgotten. This is the meaning of וָאֲשַׁבְּרֵם לְעֵינֵיכֶם “And I shattered them before your eyes.” This change of perspective is hinted at in the words לעיני כל ישראל “before the eyes of all Israel.” Through the breaking of the Luchos, Moshe caused them to look toward Har Sinai and remember Maamad Har Sinai (the event at Sinai), and through this they were aroused to complete teshuvah.

Moshe’s gamble

  In truth, Moshe Rabbeinu feared that after his passing he would be called to account, for having broken the Luchos HaBris (Tablets of the Covenant) of his own accord. The Luchos were not his personal property but literally the Luchos of Hashem, written with the finger of G-d, and containing open miracles (such as the letters mem and samech, which hovered miraculously), How could it have entered his mind to shatter them? Such an act would seem to be a desecration of the holy and an erasure of the holy Names, no different from, Heaven forbid, burning a Sefer Torah (Torah scroll)

  In my humble opinion, however, Moshe knew very well that “the Luchos were the work of G-d, and the writing was the writing of G-d…,” that the mem and samech hovered miraculously, and that their entire existence was above the natural order. He therefore reasoned that harm would not necessarily result from breaking the Luchos. On the contrary, since his entire intention was leshem Shamayim (for the sake of Heaven), to bring Bnei Yisrael back to teshuvah, he prayed that Hakadosh Baruch Hu would not allow any harm to result from the breaking of the Luchos, but only benefit.

The entire breaking of the Luchos was only before the eyes of the Jewish people

  It occurred to me that perhaps the entire breaking of the Luchos existed truly only “before the eyes of Yisrael,” but not in all dimensions of reality.  For this reason, שברי לוחות מונחים בארון  “the broken Luchos were placed in the Aron,” and that very Aron, containing the broken Luchos, would go out with Bnei Yisrael to war, and through it they would be victorious. This shows that the Luchos’ power remained!

After developing this idea of the unbreakable dimension of the Luchos, I was privileged to discover that I had arrived at the understanding of great Torah authorities. Several sources document an awesome and wondrous episode involving Rabbeinu (our teacher), the Beis Yisrael of Ger, zatzal, wanting to comfort a Holocaust survivor who had literally lost everything during the years of wrath. The Beis Yisrael, who had also lost family in the Holocaust, said to that survivor: “It is written regarding the breaking of the Luchos, ‘And I broke them before your eyes,’ and ‘before the eyes of all Israel.’ Why is this so? It is based on what Chazal expounded on the verse, ‘And he bound him before their eyes’ (Bereishis 42:24; see Rashi there), that the entire imprisonment of Shimon was only a display before the brothers, while Shimon himself received royal honor in Yosef’s ‘imprisonment.’ So too, the breaking of the Luchos was only before the eyes of Yisrael, but the first Luchos themselves remain whole.” The Beis Yisrael concluded: “So too, we must believe that everything we lost in the Holocaust was only ‘before our eyes,’ while in truth everything remains whole in its place…”

  Hakadosh Baruch Hu then comforted Moshe and informed him that he would not be punished for what he had done. On the contrary: Chazal said of the words אשר שברת  “asher shibarta,” (“which you broke)” that Hashem said to Moshe in reference to the breaking of the Luchos that it can be read as יישר כחך ששברת  “yasher [kochacha] sheshibarta” (“Thank you for breaking them”). Hashem promised Moshe that he would be the leader of the Jewish people even after the generation of the wilderness—in every generation, and even in the days of Moshiach. This is the secret of our existence. We atone for the sin of the Eigel through every calamity that falls upon us throughout the generations, until in the future no trace will remain of that terrible sin.

At Mei Merivah, his mission was not successful

However, about forty years later:

קַח אֶת הַמַּטֶּה וְהַקְהֵל אֶת הָעֵדָה אַתָּה וְאַהֲרֹן אָחִיךָ וְדִבַּרְתֶּם אֶל הַסֶּלַע לְעֵינֵיהֶם וְנָתַן מֵימָיו… וַיָּרֶם משֶׁה אֶת יָדוֹ וַיַּךְ אֶת הַסֶּלַע בְּמַטֵּהוּ פַּעֲמָיִם וַיֵּצְאוּ מַיִם רַבִּים… וַיׄאמֶר ה’ אֶל משֶׁה וְאֶל אַהֲרֹן יַעַן לֹא הֶאֱמַנְתֶּם בִּי לְהַקְדִּישֵׁנִי לְעֵינֵי בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל לָכֵן לֹא תָבִיאוּ אֶת הַקָּהָל הַזֶּה אֶל הָאָרֶץ אֲשֶׁר נָתַתִּי לָהֶם

“Take the staff and assemble the congregation, you and Aharon your brother, and speak to the rock before their eyes, and it shall give forth its water… Moshe raised his hand and struck the rock with his staff twice, and abundant water came forth… Hashem said to Moshe and to Aharon: Because you did not believe in Me to sanctify Me before the eyes of Bnei Yisrael, therefore you shall not bring this congregation into the land that I have given them” (Bamidbar 20:8–12)

  Moshe, according to his exalted level, failed in the mission to speak to the rock before the eyes of the people and thereby sanctify the Name of Heaven. By striking the rock before the eyes of the people, there was a chilul Hashem (Desecration of G-d’s Name), and therefore it was decreed upon him that he would die in the wilderness and not merit to enter Eretz Yisrael.

Rabbi Shimon said… “Is it possible that a Sefer Torah is missing even one letter, when it is written, ‘Take this Sefer Torah’? Rather, until this point Hakadosh Baruch Hu would dictate and Moshe would repeat and write; from this point onward, Hakadosh Baruch Hu dictated and Moshe wrote with tears” (Bava Basra 15a).

  There is no doubt that when Moshe wrote the pesukim describing his death and burial outside Eretz Yisrael, he shed tears over his failure in striking the rock before the eyes of the people, which is what caused him to die outside the Land, according to everything he was writing from the mouth of the A-lmighty at that time.  

    Hakadosh Baruch Hu comforted Moshe at the very sealing of the Torah with the words לְעֵינֵי כָּל יִשְׂרָאֵל “before the eyes of all Israel,” as if to say to him: Moshe! There was another time when you struck stone before the eyes of the people, and through that you saved them forever. This is the gemar chasimah tovah (good final seal) of the eternal Torah and the eternal people.

  For how did we merit the possibility of attaining complete kapparah (atonement) without the destruction of the nation, G-d forbid? That came about when Moshe shattered the stone Luchos before our eyes, awakening us to look toward Sinai and remember Maamad Har Sinai. This opened the gates of teshuvah for us and saved us from annihilation, placing us on the path to merit complete atonement, speedily in our days. Amen, may it be His will.

Connection between Parashas Pinchas and the fast of Shiva Asar B’Tammuz

  The fast of the Seventeenth of Tammuz falls close to the reading of Parashas Pinchas. Based on what we have written, one may suggest a fitting explanation for the proximity of these two matters. The tremendous shock brought about by Pinchas’ act of zealotry, which lay outside the  judicial framework of the beis din (rabbinical court), and in which it appeared as though Pinchas had rendered a halachic (Torah law) ruling in the presence of Moshe Rabbeinu himself, and above all, slew a nasi (tribal leader) of Yisrael before the eyes of the people in general, and before the members of that nasi’s tribe in particular—this shocking act, which Pinchas performed with mesiras nefesh (self-sacrifice), brought about kapparah and teshuvah for Bnei Yisrael, very much like the breaking of the Luchos, in my humble opinion.

Reflections in the wake of the events of Simchas Torah 5784

  I was privileged to develop the divrei Torah (Torah insights) in this essay more than six years ago, as an essay for Simchas Torah. However, in the wake the terrible tragedy that occurred this year (5784) on Simchas Torah, when our enemies fell upon us and carried out a massacre, together with every form of torture the likes of which we have not seen in cruelty and in the number of casualties since the awful Holocaust eighty years ago, I feel compelled to add a few words. This thought conveys an important message that must be presented “before the eyes of all Israel” in every generation, and all the more so in our own generation, which experienced Simchas Torah 5784:

  We merited to uncover the hidden meaning alluded to by Rashi, and the message that emerges is that even within the greatest crises lies the awakening and the strength to return in teshuvah, to rise, to take courage, and to continue—not merely with joy, but from joy; that is, with the joy that follows teshuvah me’ahavah (out of love). This is the secret of why we read this section on Simchas Torah. And it is through its power that we proclaim, “Chazak, chazak, venischazek!” (“Be strong, be strong, and let us strengthen one another!”) and continue to a new beginning with the profoundly meaningful reading of Bereishis, as we begin the Torah anew.

  And who knows whether, in this explanation, I haven’t perhaps captured even a small part of what my revered father and teacher, zatzal, intended when he concluded the letter that he wrote from the depths of the valley of tears, at the height of the horrors of the Holocaust, in which he documented all the cruelty that befell our people, with the words: לְעֵינֵי כָּל יִשְׂרָאֵל

 (The complete letter, together with a Hebrew translation, appears in Nechamos Shai, and in the appendix to Chamudei Shai on Sefer Shemos.)