Our tradition is founded on the conviction that we live in relationship with God, and that our Jewish relationship with God is reflected and expressed through the Torah. It follows from this that our Torah cannot be a simple record of God’s words. The Torah depends on Israel’s (our) reception of the Torah and our collaboration in keeping the Torah – our relationship – alive.

 

Thus we view the Torah as having two equally sacred aspects: We have a Written Torah, eternally preserved in our scroll, and we have the Oral Torah, the eternally changing and growing process of our interpretation of the Torah.

 

These fundamental perspectives are powerfully evident in this week’s Torah portion.

 

God sends Moses down Mount Sinai with two tablets inscribed with the Ten Commandments. But, when Moses sees that Israel is dancing around a golden calf, he smashes God’s tablets to smithereens!

 

This should have been the point when our relationship with God was also smashed to smithereens. But, thankfully, this did not happen. Moses pleads with God to restore their relationship and God agrees.

 

Significantly, God instructs Moses that God will give a second set of tablets, with the Ten Commandments engraved on them again. But, these tablets had to be carved out by Moses’s own hand. And it was these tablets, not the ones made by God,  that were to survive and endure.