(יט) וַֽיְהִ֗י כַּאֲשֶׁ֤ר קָרַב֙ אֶל־הַֽמַּחֲנֶ֔ה וַיַּ֥רְא אֶת־הָעֵ֖גֶל וּמְחֹלֹ֑ת וַיִּֽחַר־אַ֣ף מֹשֶׁ֗ה וַיַּשְׁלֵ֤ךְ מִיָּדָו֙ אֶת־הַלֻּחֹ֔ת וַיְשַׁבֵּ֥ר אֹתָ֖ם תַּ֥חַת הָהָֽר׃
(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.
(ח) ולקח משם את הלוחות והיה יורד והיו הלוחות סובלין את עצמן ואת משה עצמו עמן, וכשראו העגל ואת המחולות ברחו הכתובים מעל הלוחות ...
(8) Moses took the tablets and he descended, and the tablets carried their own weight and Moses with them; but when they beheld the calf and the dances, the writing fled from off the tablets ...
“The Purpose of all prayer is to uplift the words, to return them to their source above. The world was created by the downward flow of letters: Our task is to form those letters into words and take them back to the Creator. If you come to know this dual process, your prayer may be joined to the constant flow of Creation—word to word, voice to voice, breath to breath, thought to thought.” The divine spring is ever-flowing: make yourself into a channel to receive the waters from above.”
(1) Thereupon יהוה said to me, “Carve out two tablets of stone like the first, and come up to Me on the mountain; and make an ark of wood. (2) I will inscribe on the tablets the commandments that were on the first tablets that you smashed, and you shall deposit them in the ark.”
(דברים י, ב) אשר שברת ושמתם בארון תני רב יוסף מלמד שהלוחות ושברי לוחות מונחין בארון
"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). 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.
אָמַר רַבִּי אֲלֶכְּסַנְדְּרִי הַהֶדְיוֹט הַזֶּה אִם מְשַׁמֵּשׁ הוּא בְּכֵלִים שְׁבוּרִים גְּנַאי הוּא לוֹ, אֲבָל הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא כְּלֵי תַּשְׁמִישׁוֹ שְׁבוּרִים, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר (תהלים לד, יט): קָרוֹב ה' לְנִשְׁבְּרֵי לֵב, (תהלים קמז, ג): הָרוֹפֵא לִשְׁבוּרֵי לֵב, (ישעיה נז, טו): וְאֶת דַּכָּא וּשְׁפַל רוּחַ.
Rabbi Alexandri teaches, “If a simple one keeps trying to use a broken vessel it's shameful, but the Holy Blessed One’s vessels are [all] broken ones, as it is written ‘Healer of the broken-hearted’ and ‘[Present] with the lowly and suffering...”.”
Reshit Hochma, R. Eliyahu deVidash, Gate of Holiness 7; 16th C.
The Zohar teaches that the human heart is the Ark. And it is known that in the Ark were stored both the Tablets and the Broken Tablets. Similarly ... a person's heart must be a broken heart, a beaten heart, so that it can serve as a home for the Shechinah. For the Shechinah [divine presence] only dwells within broken vessels.
“The Broken Tablets” by Rodger Kamenetz
The broken tablets were also carried in an Ark.
In so far as they represented everything shattered,
everything lost. They were the law of broken things,
the leaf torn from the stem in a storm. A cheek touched
in fondness once but now the name forgotten.
How they must have rumbled, clattered on the way
even carried so carefully through the wasteland,
how they must have rattled around until the pieces
broke into pieces. The edges softened
crumbling, dust collected at the bottom of the ark
ghosts of old letters, old laws. In so far
as a law broken is still remembered
these laws were obeyed. And in so far as memory preserves
the pattern of broken things,
these bits of stone were preserved
through many journeys and ruined days
even, they say, into the promised land.
"The Broken Tablets," Rodger Kamenetz, 2003, Published in "The Lowercase Jew," Northwestern University Press.
With gratitude to my teachers Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg, "The Particulars of Rapture," Ki Tissa, pages 405 and 424, Dr. Eitan Fishbane, "A Bearable Lightness, https://www.jtsa.edu/torah/a-bearable-lightness/, Jewish Theological Seminary, and Shir Yaakov Feit, "Nothing so Whole: Broken Tablets and Broken Hearts, https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/248694.52?lang=bi&with=all&lang2=en, and "Broken Hearted" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLpZX3xDXVA&t=36s, September 2016
Maggid of Mezeritch, Or Torah, published in Korets in 1804, pages 58b-59a and Ariel Evan Mayse, "Speaking Infinities: God and Language in the Teachings of Rabbi Dov Ber of Mezritsh," May 2020
