Breaking "The Law"

By YOSEF I. ABRAMOWITZ

Parashat Ki Tissa (Exodus 30:11-34:33)

With the creation of the Golden Calf, we witness a major transgression by the Israelites. Yet they are not the only ones to break the law. Indeed, it is Moses who literally breaks The Law, carved by the finger of God, by smashing the tablets.

Moses goes up to Sinai three times. In the first, he comes down and recites the Ten Commandments before the people. The next two times he ascends, it is to bring down a physical representation of the law. As Moses' teaching method evolves from the spoken to the physical, the desires of the people also move from proclaiming "we will do and we will listen" to expressing a need for something more tangible to anchor their worship.

I am struck by the autonomy that Moses displays by smashing the tablets. He spends 40 days with God on the mountain and is given something of infinite holiness and value. Yet without hesitating, the leader of the Israelites and the messenger of God takes The Law into his own hands and destroys it. Was his act of destruction undertaken in anger, an act of temporary insanity? Or was it deliberate, calculated to bring about a crisis in the community that would ultimately lead to repentance? Did Moses worry that perhaps God would not grant a second set, or was he sure that indeed the tablets could be replaced?

What would it take for any of us to do something dramatic and Jewish? By what authority can we break or amend a law, even The Law?

While there has not been a prophet in Israel who is as great as Moses, Maimonides teaches us, there is still an important message we can learn from this daring act of smashing the law. There are some laws, secular and Jewish, that are not necessarily moral, yet few are willing to openly challenge these laws, and follow in the footsteps of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s challenge to the immoral laws of segregation. While many recognize these laws as unjust, only a few are willing to declare them so and fewer still willing to challenge them.

Yet just as Abraham smashed the idols, and Moses shattered The Law, there are times when we must find the spiritual resources to declare that our vision is indeed inspired and correct.

It is no accident that many of those throughout history who have challenged unjust laws have been religious leaders. Jesus, Rabbi Akiva, the Maccabees, Martin Luther King, Jr., Gandhi, Abraham Joshua Heschel and others come to mind. It can be argued that a strong religious sensibility empowers good people to provide leadership, even though there are plenty of religious people who are either passive or actively part of the problem. But if Moses can break God's Laws, as it were, for a higher purpose, then there is room for personal autonomy in religious and moral decision-making.

The rabbis are actually uncomfortable with Moses having this much autonomy. In a telling midrash, they take the power out of the scene and give it back to God. According to one story, when Moses saw the Golden Calf, the letters of The Law flew off the tablets, no longer maintaining the magical weightlessness of the stones, so that the elderly Moses had to drop what remained of The Law.

We also learn that there were two arks of the covenant: one with the second set of tablets and another with the shattered tablets. And both arks accompanied the Israelites to the Promised Land. By honoring both the tradition that says that the law indeed is set in stone and the tradition that tells us to remember to act morally, even to smash the law, we are empowered to wrestle with what it is that God wants of us. If it is to follow a script, then who will stand up to challenge the script, the law, when they it is wrong or outdated? It will be those who feel empowered religiously who will tackle religious injustice; and it will often be those who feel empowered civic in the civil arena who will tackle secular injustice. The challenge for contemporary religious Jews is to blur the distinction between "secular" and "holy", seeing only opportunities to bring a bit more justice into the world.

In the end the Israelites repent, and Moses brings down the law a second time. There is no difference between the messages conveyed in the first and second set of tablets themselves. But it is only at the second giving that the people are ready to receive the law. May we, Moses' spiritual heirs, have the courage to smash laws for a higher cause, and the blessing to still be faithful servants of the Source of Morality.