Moses' Greatest Moments

Rabbi Melanie Aron

October 6, 2001

The Torah reading designated for Succot has always been a bit of a mystery to me. If Succot is the festival on which we are commanded to be ach sameach, only joyous, why is our Torah reading from the parashah which tells of the people sinning with the Golden Calf. Surely there was a happier section of the Torah that could have been chosen, especially as we are already reading out of order.

This year in looking at the reading for Simchat Torah, I found a clue to a possible understanding of this Succot reading.

On Simchat Torah we read the very last verses of the Torah which describe Moses death. The text praises Moses and concludes: "and for all the great might (yad chazakah ) and awesome power ( morah hagadol) that Moses displayed before all Israel". To what exactly does this refer? Some commentators say that yad chazakah refers to the splitting of the sea and hamorah hagadol refers to the giving of the Torah on MT Sinai , but Rashi disagrees. He says that yad chazakah refers to the giving of the Ten Commandments and hamorah hagadol refers to the breaking of the tablets. How curious. This is Rashi's very last comment on the Torah. What was he trying to say? Why should the breaking of the tablets be recalled as one of Moses's great moments and why should it be called to mind at the conclusion of the reading of the Torah?

Rabbi Morderchai Kamenezky ties Rashi's remark to a famous story about Rabbi Israel Lipkin of Salant often called the Salanter. It was during a typhus epidemic and Rabbi Israel was responsible for a group of students. As Yom Kippur approached a debate broke out, between those who argued that only those who are sick with typhus should eat, and those who felt that everyone in the community should eat, lest they weaken themselves and become more likely to get ill. On the morning of Yom Kippur, Rabbi Salanter went up in front of the congregation following the Shacharit morning service. He made kiddush, drank wine and ate a piece of cake. Rabbi Kamenetzky ties this action to our text and says this was Moses greatness, knowing how to accept the Ten Commandments and knowing when to smash them as well.

That's an interesting commentary for an Orthodox rabbi, but I am not convinced that it was what Rashi had in mind. I think it more likely that Rashi was relating to the breaking of the tablets as a cause of the people's repentance. Moses recognized that in the face of widespread disobedience he could not temporize as Aaron had done. He couldn't look at the Golden Calf and say- chag L'Adonai machar, let's have a festival of Adonai tomorrow. He had to respond dramatically to call the people to their senses, to use this as a teaching moment.

Part of Moses' greatness was leading people out of physical enslavement in Egypt, but another aspect of his mission was redeeming them from spiritual bondage. His goal was to free them of their dependence upon idols of clay, wood, and metal and bring them to an understanding of this God they could not see or touch. In the accomplishment of this task, the smashing of the tablets was a pivotal moment, one that lead to the liberation of the Israelites from spiritual servitude.