The seventeenth of Tammuz is observed with fasting and penitential prayer. The Prophet predicts that this day will be changed to a day of joy, gladness and feasting. (Zecahriah 8:18) How can the tragedy of the shattered Tablets be marked in the future with joy, gladness and feasting?
Moshe Rabenu shattered the Tablets with the consent of the L-rd (Shabbos 87A - Bava Basra 14B) . Avos Drabi Nasson states even further:”He was commanded to do so”. The ultimate consequence of the breaking of the Tablets was the granting of a second set of Tablets after Moshe Rabenu’s third forty-day stay on Mount Sinai (see Deuteronomy Chapters 9 & 10). Moshe Rabenu made a Holy Ark in which he placed both the new Tablets and the remains of the old ones (Bava Basra 14B) . This set a pattern for the future for the ability to repent and to start life afresh. A person with a soul soiled and defiled with greed, lust and vanity can shatter his past and begin a new life bright and pure with intense Torah learning, devoted prayer, loving kindness and charity.
In the 51st Psalm, King David v''g. eloquently set forth a pattern of repentance. Be gracious to me, o G-d, in keeping with your kindness; in accordance with Your abounding compassion, erase my transgressions. For I acknowledge my transgressions and my sin is always before me. Let me hear joy and gladness; then the bones which You have shattered will rejoice.
By ten sayings the world was created . (Ethics 5:1) . This describes the stages of creation found in the first Chapter of Genesis. At the first stage the Torah says: The earth was barren and shapeless. Thereafter, stage by stage: Heaven and earth and all their array were completed. Even though it all could have been brought to completion in one massive stage, it was the will of the Creator to start it formless and gradually conclude it to its final composition. If all were finalized at once, it would never have been possible to recycle anything damaged. Everything would have to remain in its final form. There would have been no way of going back to a shapeless state in order form it all anew.
Upon seeing his people sinning with the Golden Calf, Moshe Rabenu terminated the existing process. Shattering the Tablets started a recycling process. He was afterwards told: Carve for yourself two stone tablets like the first ones. ( Exodus 34:1) Moshe Rabenu was successful in evoking atonement by utilizing the recycling process.
With fasting and praying penitently we can follow the method of Moshe Rabenu and we will be just as successful as he was. We shatter whatever bad pattern formed by our guilt. We then have the opportunity to remake our souls into holiness and purity.
Transform the seventeenth of Tammuz for us to a day of salvation and consolation (Selichos)
Ohev Shalom Voice
