The First Tablets

Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah says: On the eve of the Sabbath, on the sixth of the month, in the sixth hour of the day, Israel received the Ten Commandments, and in the ninth hour of the day they returned to their tents. Rabbi Yehoshua ben Korhah says: Forty days Moses spent on the mountain, reading the written Torah by day and repeating the written Torah by night. And after forty days he took the tablets and went down to the camp, and on the seventeenth of Tammuz he shattered the tablets.

רַבִּי אֶלְעָזָר בֶּן עֲזַרְיָה אוֹמֵר: עֶרֶב שַׁבָּת, בְּשִׁשָּׁה לַחֹדֶשׁ, בְּשֵׁשׁ שָׁעוֹת בַּיּוֹם קִבְּלוּ יִשְׂרָאֵל אֶת הַדִּבְּרוֹת, וּבְתֵשַׁע שָׁעוֹת בַּיּוֹם חָזְרוּ לְאָהֳלֵיהֶם. רַבִּי יְהוֹשֻׁעַ בֶּן קָרְחָה אוֹמֵר: אַרְבָּעִים יוֹם עָשָׂה מֹשֶׁה בָּהָר, קוֹרֵא בַּדָּת מִקְרָא בַּיּוֹם וְשׁוֹנֶה בַּדָּת מִקְרָא בַּלַּיְלָה. וּלְאַחַר אַרְבָּעִים יוֹם לָקַח אֶת הַלּוּחוֹת וְיָרַד אֶל הַמַּחֲנֶה, וּבְשִׁבְעָה עָשָׂר בְּתַמּוּז שִׁבַּר אֶת הַלּוּחוֹת.

Commentary

Some say that all the commandments on the first set were positive, while more than half of those of the second set are negative. For God saw that people could not be trusted to follow positive commandments, and therefore He put in the negative ones. Also, great secrets were revealed to Israel when the first tablets were given. But after the sin of the golden calf, Israel was no longer worthy of knowing those secrets. Therefore, they were forced to forget them. There are those who say that the first tablets were not engraved, but the letters fluttered on them in black fire superimposed on white fire. So that the instant Moses threw down the tablets, the letters took flight before the tablets broke against the ground. Others say that the letters took flight as Moses approached the border of the camp, where the golden calf was being worshipped, a place of defilement and transgression. Thus the letters took flight even before Moses cast down the tablets.

Themes

Biblical References

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