The Tablets were Shattered, but not the Future

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 The unthinkable happened. 40 days earlier the Jewish people had seen the great revelation at Sinai and each of the millions of people present had heard the voice of Hashem saying “I am G-d… do not have any other gods before me.” Moshe was coming down from his 40 days on Sinai where he lived like an angel and received the unique gift of the two Tablets made by Hashem Himself and engraved with the words of the Ten Commandments. Imagine his horror when he saw the people worshipping a golden calf. He dropped the Tablets and they shattered into pieces.

How low could the people fall? The great plan of taking a slave nation and turning them into Hashem’s ambassadors on earth, bringing morality, ethics, holiness and goodness to the world, seemed to have failed. In fact Hashem told Moshe that he would just wipe them out and make Moshe’s family a great nation in their place. But Moshe, the great advocate and lover of his people, was listening carefully and heard Hashem say: “Leave me alone and I will wipe them out,” and in one of the greatest Talmudic style deductions of all time, he figured that if he didn’t leave Hashem alone, He would not wipe them out.
So he prayed, for 40 days and nights. As is described in the Parsha we read this week, Eikev, Hashem accepted his prayer and the repentance of the people and lo and behold, He agreed to inscribe another set of Tablets. This time Moshe hewed the sapphire, but Hashem once again engraved the words. Our Sages taught that with the second Tablets Hashem gave Moshe a great deal of additional oral teachings, including Midrash and much more. To the extent that the amount of Torah given with the second tablets are described as double what was given with the first!
This is the power of Teshuvah. The day Moshe brought the second Tablets, representing Hashem’s forgiveness, down from Sinai was the tenth of Tishrei, and it was therefore established as a Day of Atonement forever.
We are all human and we all make mistakes. The question is what do we do after the mistake. We may think that since we messed up there is no going back and we might as well give up. But the story of the Tablets teaches us otherwise. Prayer and repentance not only gets us forgiveness, but we attain even greater heights than before.
This is true no matter the transgression. If we have wronged someone, if we take full responsibility and take it upon ourselves to repair the damage, (yes, sometimes that is a big if,) chances are the other will forgive us and the relationship can be rebuilt and even strengthened. The same certainly applies to our relationship with Hashem. Whatever our past holds, we can go forward with faith and joy in the knowledge that we can have a great future ahead of us.

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