There are moments in Jewish history when it feels as though the tablets have shattered all over again.

October 7 was such a moment.

The images.The names.The unbearable stories.

And now, as another war unfolds, as rockets fall and threats multiply — from Hamas to Hezbollah, from the Ayatollahs in Tehran to the ancient hatred that wears new uniforms — it can feel as though our national story is once again being written in shards.

But Parashat Ki Tissa insists that shattered tablets are not the end of the story.

They are the beginning of the second ones.

The Sound of Stone Breaking

The Torah describes the moment with devastating simplicity:

“וַיְהִי כַּאֲשֶׁר קָרַב אֶל הַמַּחֲנֶה… וַיַּשְׁלֵךְ מִיָּדָו אֶת הַלֻּחֹת וַיְשַׁבֵּר אֹתָם תַּחַת הָהָר.”“And when he drew near to the camp… he cast the tablets from his hands and shattered them beneath the mountain.” (Exodus 32:19)

“וַיְהִי כַּאֲשֶׁר קָרַב אֶל הַמַּחֲנֶה… וַיַּשְׁלֵךְ מִיָּדָו אֶת הַלֻּחֹת וַיְשַׁבֵּר אֹתָם תַּחַת הָהָר.”“And when he drew near to the camp… he cast the tablets from his hands and shattered them beneath the mountain.” (Exodus 32:19)

Moshe sees the Golden Calf. The covenant in his arms meets a people in betrayal.

And he breaks the tablets.

Rashi, citing the Midrash, offers a daring interpretation. Moshe reasons: if Israel, who are commanded in 613 mitzvot, have violated the covenant so quickly, how can they be worthy of the tablets? He breaks them to protect the people — like a groom who tears up a marriage contract before presenting it to a bride who has already betrayed him. And astonishingly, God later says to Moshe: “יישר כוחך ששיברת” — “Well done for breaking them.”

There are moments when breaking is not destruction but protection.

There are moments when the illusion must shatter before something deeper can emerge.

October 7 shattered illusions.

Illusions of safety.Illusions of moral clarity.Illusions that hatred had faded into history.

The sound of stone breaking echoed again.

We Cannot Let Our Enemies Write Our Tablets

Jewish history has too often been catalogued by catastrophe: Egypt, Babylon, Rome, Crusades, Inquisition, pogroms, Shoah, terror.

Haman rises. Amalek attacks. Ayatollahs threaten. A new war erupts.

If we are not careful, we allow those who hate us to dominate the narrative. Our identity becomes reactive — forged in opposition, shaped by trauma.

But Ki Tissa refuses that script.

After the breaking comes a command:

“פְּסָל־לְךָ שְׁנֵי לֻחֹת אֲבָנִים כָּרִאשֹׁנִים.”“Carve for yourself two tablets of stone like the first ones.” (Exodus 34:1)

“פְּסָל־לְךָ שְׁנֵי לֻחֹת אֲבָנִים כָּרִאשֹׁנִים.”“Carve for yourself two tablets of stone like the first ones.” (Exodus 34:1)

The first tablets were entirely divine — “מַעֲשֵׂה אֱלֹהִים.” The second required human carving.

The Ramban notes that the second covenant, sealed with the Thirteen Attributes of Mercy, is in some ways deeper than the first. The first was innocence. The second was relationship tested and restored.

The Malbim suggests that the second tablets reflect a partnership — God provides the words, but Moshe must prepare the stone.

History is not only what happens to us.

It is what we carve from what happens.

Brokenness in the Ark

The Talmud (Bava Batra 14b) teaches that both the whole tablets and the broken tablets rested in the Ark.

The Sforno explains that the second tablets endured because they were forged through human effort; they were more sustainable. They were integrated.

The broken tablets were not discarded.

We carry the fallen soldiers.We carry the hostages.We carry the unbearable grief of parents and children.

But we do not let it define the entirety of who we are.

Rabbi Lawrence Kushner writes that when the tablets broke, the letters flew back up into heaven. The stone fell, but the words did not die. Holiness is never fully destroyed; it waits to be rewritten.

Abraham Joshua Heschel taught that Judaism is not about survival alone. It is about sanctifying time, about building a world that reflects divine concern. If we reduce our identity to endurance in the face of hatred, we shrink the covenant.

Martin Buber spoke of the “I–Thou” encounter — the insistence that relationship, not reaction, defines human existence. If our history becomes only an “I–It” struggle against enemies, we lose the deeper “Thou” — the divine voice calling us to something greater.

And Mordecai Kaplan argued that Judaism is a civilization. Civilizations are not sustained by fear. They are sustained by creativity, ethics, learning, and shared destiny.

The Danger of Becoming What We Fight

War is sometimes tragically necessary. Self-defense is sacred. The Torah does not romanticize vulnerability.

But the greater danger is internal: that we become so defined by our enemies that we forget who we are without them.

Haman wanted to annihilate us.The Ayatollah wants to eradicate us.Terrorists want to terrorize us into fear and fragmentation.

If our story becomes solely a chronicle of their hatred, then they have already shaped our tablets.

Ki Tissa teaches otherwise.

The breaking was not the end.

The carving was not done by Amalek.

It was done by Moshe.

Our history must be written by us — not by those who despise us.

What does it mean to carve new tablets in a time of war?

It means investing in Jewish education when the world feels hostile.

It means strengthening community when fear tempts isolation.

It means building families, institutions, art, scholarship, acts of kindness.

It means refusing to let the headlines dictate our identity.

The Sfat Emet teaches that the second tablets represent Torah that emerges from within the people. The first were given; the second were earned.

Perhaps that is our task now.

Not merely to survive this war.

But to emerge from it with deeper clarity about who we are.

We are the people of covenant.

We are the people who argue with God and yet cling to God.

We are the people who build hospitals and universities even while defending ourselves on the battlefield.

We are the people who bless our children on Friday night while sirens wail in the distance.

That is writing new tablets.

The Refusal to Be Defined by Hatred

There is a chilling temptation in times of trauma to become consumed by rage.

Rage is understandable.

But it cannot be our only language.

Heschel warned that the opposite of good is not evil; it is indifference. We must never be indifferent to injustice. But neither can we allow injustice to eclipse our calling to goodness.

If October 7 becomes the defining chapter of Jewish existence, then we risk shrinking our destiny to victimhood.

But if October 7 becomes the moment that propels us to greater unity, deeper faith, renewed purpose — then it becomes part of the second tablets.

The Courage to Climb Again

Moshe does something extraordinary after the breaking.

He climbs the mountain again.

Can you imagine the courage that required?

To return to the place of failure.

To stand again before God.

To carve stone with hands that had just thrown stone in despair.

That is covenantal maturity.

We too must climb again.

After funerals.After shiva.After sleepless nights watching the news.

We must climb toward schools filled with children learning Torah.Toward synagogues filled with prayer.Toward a State of Israel that embodies not only strength but moral aspiration.

Our history cannot be a museum of shattered tablets.

It must be a workshop of new ones.

Not Just Surviving — Sanctifying

Rabbi Kushner imagines that when Moshe shattered the tablets, it was not an act of rage but of love — refusing to let a brittle covenant condemn a flawed people.

Perhaps now we must refuse to let a brittle narrative condemn a vibrant civilization.

Yes, we fight when necessary.

Yes, we defend our people.

Yes, we confront Haman in every generation.

But our essence is not war.

Our essence is Torah.

Our essence is Shabbat.

Our essence is the stubborn insistence that life is sacred and that history bends not toward annihilation but toward redemption.

The Tablets We Choose to Write

The first tablets were God’s gift.

The second were a collaboration.

History will always bring moments of shattering.

The question is what we carve next.

Will we carve only memorials to hatred?

Or will we carve schools, songs, laws, communities, acts of compassion?

Will we allow Ayatollahs and terrorists to dominate our imagination?

Or will we write a future in which Jewish creativity, morality, and covenantal courage take center stage?

The Torah’s answer is clear.

“פסל לך” — Carve for yourself.

Take the stone of this broken moment.

Because shattered tablets are part of our story.

But they are never the final chapter.

The final chapter is always written by hands willing to climb again.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)