Did G-d Give a Cut to Moses?

A little boy was afraid of the dark. One night, his mother told him to go out to the back porch and bring her the broom. The little boy turned to his mother and said, "Mama, I don't want to go out there. It's dark."
The mother smiled reassuringly at her son. "You don't have to be afraid of the dark," she explained. "G-d is out there. He'll look after you and protect you."

The little boy looked at his mother hard and asked, "Are you sure he's out there?"

"Yes, I'm sure. He is everywhere, and he is always ready to help you when you need him," she said.

The little boy thought about that for a minute and then went to the back door, cracked it open a little. Peering out into the darkness, he called, "G-d? If you're out there, would you please hand me the broom?"

In this week’s Torah portion, Eikev, Moses recounts the dramatic tale of how, following the Revelation at Sinai, G-d carved out Two Tablets, engraved them with the Ten Commandments, and presented them to Moses on Mt. Sinai. When Moses descended the mountain, however, he observed that the Israelites had created a Golden Calf as an idol. Moses seized the Tablets and smashed them before their eyes.

After a confrontation with G-d, Moses persuades Him, as it were, to forgive the Jewish people for their betrayal. G-d instructs Moses to carve out a second pair of tablets, to replace the first smashed ones.

In Moses’ own words: At that time, the Lord said to me, "Hew for yourself two stone tablets like the first ones and come up to Me onto the mountain…"

The Sages, always sensitive to nuance, focus on the word "for yourself," which seems superfluous and even misleading, as though these tablets were being carved for Moses himself. The verse could have stated, "Carve two stone Tablets." What does it mean, "Carve for yourself?"

The Talmud deduces that Moses was permitted to keep the chips of the second Tablets, hewed from sapphire. As Moses hewed the stone into Two Tablets, all the leftover chips became his. Indeed, the Hebrew word for hew, also means the leftover chips.  This, says the Talmud, transformed Moses into a very wealthy man.

This is a strange commentary. What is this, in this week’s Torah portion, Eikev, Moses recounts the dramatic tale of how, following the Revelation at Sinai, G-d carved out Two Tablets, engraved them with the Ten Commandments, and presented them to Moses on Mt. Sinai. When Moses descended the mountain, however, he observed that the Israelites had created a Golden Calf as an idol. Moses seized the Tablets and smashed them before their eyes.

After a confrontation with G-d, Moses persuades Him, as it were, to forgive the Jewish people for their betrayal. G-d instructs Moses to carve out a second pair of tablets, to replace the first smashed ones.

In Moses’ own words: At that time, the Lord said to me, "Hew for yourself two stone tablets like the first ones and come up to Me onto the mountain…"

The Sages, always sensitive to nuance, focus on the word "for yourself," which seems superfluous and even misleading, as though these tablets were being carved for Moses himself. The verse could have stated, "Carve two stone Tablets." What does it mean, "Carve for yourself?"

The Talmud deduces that Moses was permitted to keep the chips of the second Tablets, hewed from sapphire. As Moses hewed the stone into Two Tablets, all the leftover chips became his. Indeed, the Hebrew word for hew, this, says the Talmud, transformed Moses into a very wealthy man.

This is a strange commentary. What is this, a business deal? Moses, you carve out the second Tablets, and you get a cut! It seems distasteful that Moses is making money from the sacred Tablets containing the Ten Commandments! If God wanted Moses to be wealthy, He could have found many ways.

Besides, why did Moses need the money anyway? Living in the desert for his entire life, receiving all his needs directly from G-d, did he need savings for a rainy day?

Torah confers upon a human being a richness and royalty. Some 3,400 years ago, at the foot of a lone mountain, the Jewish people received a gift that transformed their life and destiny for eternity. The Torah imbues Jewish life with the dignity of purpose and the grandeur of the infinite. The Torah saturates every moment with ultimate meaning; it grants the Jewish heart, the Jewish home, and the Jewish community, rich and poor alike, a taste of heaven.

Yet the richness of Torah, the wealth that comes along with a Torah life, is merely the "refuse" of Torah, the leftover "chips." It does not capture the essence of Torah. What is the essence of Torah and its Mitzvot? They are the expression of the Divine, the voice of ultimate truth, transcending all material and spiritual benefits of this world or the next world, for G-d transcends and precedes all benefits. Torah is our opportunity to touch the Divine in His essence, to reach beyond all our limitations and unite with G-d. What value is there to the richness that Torah confers upon my life stability, meaning, purpose, consistency, focus, inspiration, discipline, depth, passion, family, faith, conviction, love, etc., to the truth that Torah allows me to go beyond all of existence and touch the Creator Himself?

The physical wealth of Torah pales in comparison to the core truth of Torah itself. The wealth of Torah benefits me, in this world or the next. But what value does that have relative to Torah itself, the ultimate truth that transcends the highest actualization and fulfillment of "I."

We now come to the powerful insight of the Rebbe Rashab.

The second tablet differed drastically from the first. The first Tablets were created by G-d, while the second were hewed by a human being, Moses. He is the one who carved out the stone into Tablets; only then did G-d inscribe on them the Ten Commandments.

This reflected the difference within the Jewish people before and after the creation and worship of the Golden Calf: Initially, the Israelites were heavenly, pristine, and sacred, hence they could receive Heavenly Tablets, crafted in Heaven. After they tasted sin and endured spiritual failure, they could only receive the second set of Tablets, which were man-made and were inferior to the first. In the process of failure and rehabilitation, we confront our darkness, weakness, and vulnerability. We are no longer a clean slate of heaven; instead, we have much refuse, sediments, and filth to deal with.

Comes the Torah and teaches us a powerful life lesson: It is from the "chips" of the second Tablets that Moses acquired his greatest wealth. The first Tablets had no "chips," no refuse and waste. Heaven knows not the pain of failure, the filth of promiscuity, the misery of anxiety, the abyss of addiction. The Second Tablets, in contrast, had many a chip. They represented our confrontation with addiction, shame, and deception.

Moses was a "wealthy" man. But his true wealth came only from the second Tablets from the light and truth that is generated when we confront our darkness, and we transform it into light. When we gaze at our "chips" and turn them into Divine Tablets. It is from the confrontation with our inner gravel and trauma after October 7, that we discover our profoundest richness and our deepest truths, as a strong nation, as a lion, that we grow to discover an inner wealth not available in the heavenly, pure and holy first Tablets given by G-d himself to pure and innocent people.

Despite the unparalleled richness of Moses’ soul, his deepest richness came from dealing with the "pesole," with the refuse, sediments, and gravel of his people. This is the wisdom and depth that emerges from life's "dirt" and grime, from amid struggle and inner strife.

As growing human beings, we must never run from our inner refuse, and from the refuse we see in others. Like Moses, our truest wealth will come when we discover and extract the sparks hidden in the "chips" of the human.

Moses, you carve out the second Tablets, and you get a cut! It seems distasteful that Moses is making money from the sacred Tablets containing the Ten Commandments! If God wanted Moses to be wealthy, He could have found many ways.

Besides, why did Moses need the money anyway? Living in the desert for his entire life, receiving all his needs directly from G-d, did he need savings for a rainy day?

The richness of Torah pales in comparison to the core truth of Torah itself. The richness of Torah is how it benefits me, in this world or the next. But what value does that have relative to Torah itself, the ultimate truth which transcends even the highest actualization and fulfillment of "I."

There is an old story about a criminal who had committed a capital crime.
He was sent to the king for his punishment.
The king told him he had a choice of two punishments.
He could be hanged by a rope.
Or take what’s behind the big, awesome, dark, scary, iron door.
The criminal was hanged on the rope.
As the noose was being slipped on him, he turned to the king and asked: “By the way, out of curiosity, what’s behind that door?”
The king said, “You know, it’s funny, I offer every criminal the same choice, and nearly everyone picks the rope.”
“So,” said the criminal, “Tell me. What’s behind the door? I mean I won’t tell anyone,” he said, pointing to the noose around his neck.
The king paused, then answered: “Freedom, but it seems most people are so afraid of the unknown that they immediately take the rope.”
Alan Watts said it well: “Our lives are one long effort to resist the unknown.”
There are many unknowns in life, some of which are scary. But we have the tools to take the road less traveled, into our Promised Land.

Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Yoseph Geisinsky