Shavuos Morning Sermon 5786/2026
In looking over some material that I used many years ago, I came across a question that had never bothered me. But now it actually bothers me.
Before I share the question, let us consider a little bit of background information.
Background
We read this morning that the Bnei Yisrael arrived at Sinai at the beginning of the third month. Even though there are other ways to read it – such as “בחדש השלישי לצאת בני ישראל מארץ מצרים” – “in the 3rd month after they left Egypt, meaning now into the 3rd month since traveling, sixty days into the journey – they came to Sinai.” This would put their arrival there at the 15th of Sivan the earliest, with Matan Torah coming a few days after that.
While that is a legitimate reading of the text, it is essentially universally accepted that they arrived at Sinai at the beginning of the 3rd month on the calendar, which we now call Sivan. They received the Torah a few days later – though the Talmud records a debate as to whether it was the 6th or 7th of Sivan.
And while I know I just said “received the Torah” – technically they heard the Aseres HaDibros. They said נעשה, and in Mishpatim we hear about their saying נעשה ונשמע, and in Va’Eschanan the version we hear is ושמענו ועשינו. And over the next 40 days Moshe Rabbenu had a Chavrusa with Hashem during which time he was told the Mishpatim of Parshas Mishpatim, and perhaps even all the Mitzvos of the Torah, but the people weren’t really exposed to it until Moshe came down with the 2nd set of Luchos. So when the people received the Torah is a matter of perspective or preferred point of view.
And the delay was because of that little incident we refer to as “the Golden Calf.”
So, to state the obvious: The Luchos Moshe was given after Revelation and all that נעשה ונשמע experience were then broken 40 days later, an event we note on 17 Tammuz. And Moshe carved out his own stones which he brought up on Rosh Chodesh Elul, which God then inscribed, and Moshe brought them back down to the people on Yom Kippur.
That’s the background. Now to the question.
The Question
It is raised in a compendium for Daf Yomi, and is presented in the name of Rabbi Avraham Noach Klein: Since the second tablets were the ones that survived, and since they were presented on Rosh Chodesh Elul, the Bnei Yisrael should really celebrate that date as Zman Matan Toraseinu (assuming you don’t want to wait until Moshe brings it down… on Yom Kippur)
The answer presented there notes that the Sages warned about a זקן ששכח תלמודו (an elder who has forgotten his Torah knowledge), a notion mentioned in the Gemara Brachos, for which the Yerushalmi in Moed Katan explains רבי יעקב בר אביי בשם רבי אחא זקן ששכח תלמודו מחמת אונסו נוהגין בו כקדושת ארון – we nevertheless treat that man with the respect of the holiness we give to the Holy Ark/Aron. And we learn this from the fact that the second Luchos were placed alongside the broken first Luchos in the same Aron. The broken Luchos are a metaphor for the זקן that has forgotten what he once knew.
He (in Daf al HaDaf) takes it a step further suggesting that Klal Yisrael is like the broken Luchos, for we, ourselves, are not experts in Torah, as there are many gaps in our knowledge, and much broken and missing. And thus WE celebrate the giving of the Torah on the 6th of Sivan, to hint to HKBH that even though we are broken in that way, we still hang on to the Torah, and are joyous over having received it on that day in that way.
A little earlier in that same book, the opinions over whether the Torah was given on the 6th or 7th of Sivan are addressed from that page in שבת פו, and they quote the Beis HaLevi who said that on the first Luchos, somehow, ALL of the Written Torah, and ALL of the Oral Torah were written on them. He says this based on the Pasuk מזה ומזה הם כתובים – they are written on all sides. Somehow scrunched in between the letters of the Luchos themselves is all of the written and oral Torah.
This would imply that even if the Luchos were broken, we WERE GIVEN ALL OF THE TORAH AT THAT TIME (6/7 Sivan). AND SO NOW IS AN APPROPRIATE TIME TO CELEBRATE ZMAN MATAN TORASEINU.
The editor is Mesupak, however, because, who knows? Meaning, we can agree that the first Luchos, are, as the Pasuk testifies מעשה אלהים המה (the work of God). So it is possible that we don’t understand what was really on them, no matter how we look at it. So it may have been given that way. But… we don’t really know. All we know is that Moshe had them for a short period of time. And whatever was on them was lost. אותיות פורחות באוויר
But still – I think the question is a good question. And the question on the answer given raises even more questions.
Could it be that the holiday we are celebrating is based on a hint we are trying to give God? The Luchos were broken, and we are broken… let’s have a holiday! I know the Luchos weren’t broken on Shavuos. But the argument otherwise is that because those Luchos, given on 6 or 7 Sivan, were broken in the end, that should undo the celebration of Matan Torah that is associated with THOSE LUCHOS.
The answer is very simple. And it’s one many of us have likely heard. It’s a very short passage in the Talmud, the bottom of Pesachim 87b תנא: לוחות נשברו ואותיות פורחות.
That the Luchos were broken – yes, that is true. But the letters flew off, suggesting that they endured. Which is perhaps enough of a reason to celebrate.
But R Yechezkel Landau – famous as the Noda B’Yehuda for his Sheilos U’Tshuvos – has a commentary on the Talmud called the צל"ח – ציון לנפש חיה – in which he suggests something so obvious, yet so profound and beautiful. That not only answers our question, but I think can be a message that, if we internalize, can help transform our lives and our attitudes toward any failures and setbacks.
This is what he writes: Since the letters floated heavenward, they were not subject to breaking. Only the physical stones broke. But maybe those exact letters returned on the Second Luchos! And perhaps this is what God was hinting to when He told Moshe, פסל לך וגו' וכתבתי על הלוחות את הדברים אשר היו על הלוחות הראשונים אשר שברת. – You will get NEW stones, but I will write upon the stones EXACTLY what was on first stones, or USING the letters from the first stones. [This is not the time to go into the discrepancies between the Aseres HaDibros in Yisro v Va’Eschanan. I am acknowledging that – but for the purposes of today’s message, it is irrelevant.]
Did you hear it? את הדברים אשר היו על הלוחות הראשונים! In other words, the Ruchnius of the first Luchos, their spirit, was NEVER BROKEN. The Bnei Yisrael didn’t realize this because of all the trouble caused by the Eigel. They thought – per the message Moshe wanted to convey to them – that the Luchos were broken forever. But it was not so. The stones were broken. But their content endured.
AND SO – to answer our question – this is a FINE DAY to celebrate זמן מתן תורתינו.
Whatever “destruction” was on a physical item. But the spirit remained.
I remember when I was a teenager and in college, whenever something bad happened – a car accident of whatever degree, or something of similar caliber. I’d always call my father. Making my mother nervous and worried was not a good combination of ingredients. But my father was always very practical. Are YOU OK? Yes. Everything else is just money. In my now being at a similar stage of life as they were then, I’ve added a small criteria. Was it an accident? Or were you being stupid? An accident is fine. It happens. But if you were being stupid, let’s ALSO learn the lesson and don’t do THAT again. But still – everything else is just money.
Anyway, we would do well to understand what Moshe Rabbenu understood. Physical things don’t matter. Stones? No big deal. We’ll replace them. We shouldn’t be too attached to physical things anyway. But the letters, the gist, the message, will float in the air. The Ruchnius will live on, and will find another landing pad. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. But it is there, waiting to return at the right place and at the right time.
That attitude can serve us well when we have setbacks, or things break, or things don’t turn out as we hoped or as they should. As long as our spirit and hope can remain intact, we will move on, and we will live to see a better day.
There are a number of people in our shul who have children who have, in one way or another, rejected some aspects of the way of life in which they were raised. In whatever way, they aren’t observant in the way their parents are. I am unaware of anyone who has converted out, but that’s very uncommon anyway. Jews are more likely to not observe than to embrace another faith. Until recently (and this is more common with college age students TODAY, many of whom have been brainwashed to support anti-Israel and anti-Jewish narratives) these people would identify with the Jewish people. Would certainly identify with the plight of Jews in Israel who are under the threat of terrorism.
Maybe he stopped wearing tefillin. Maybe she stopped keeping Shabbos. Some even marry a non-Jew. Torah observance in the traditional sense is no longer a value.
But the other side of the reports I always get are “But he’s a good son. She’s a fantastic daughter. Respectful. Loves the family. Follows are rules when in our house. Even comes to shul with us when it is Shabbos or Yom Tov.”
I won’t say their physical is broken. Or even that their spirit is broken. They probably fulfill many mitzvos because they are good people, and many mitzvos happen to finetune goodness in people.
The physical connection to Torah – as we are not aware of conscientious Mitzvah observance – that is what might be broken. But someone who has not abandoned the Jewish people, that spirit is like the letters floating in the air. They are waiting for the right moment to latch on to something.
While it’s not the greatest example – it’s a famous example. Perhaps you’ve heard of Isser Danielovitch, better known as Kirk Douglas. Who was not connected to Judaism most of his long life of 103 years. In an obituary about him in Times of Israel it noted some of his Hollywood-accomplishments. And noted that at his 50th anniversary his wife converted to Judaism saying [I don’t use this term but this is a quote] “Kirk has been married to two shiksas and it’s about time he married a nice Jewish girl.” She was referring to herself, the second one of those “shiksas.”
But he always had a small connection “I always fasted on Yom Kippur,” he told a reporter. “I still worked on the movie set, but I fasted. And let me tell you, it’s not easy making love to Lana Turner on an empty stomach.”In his later years, Douglas would come to embrace his Jewishness, a shift he dates to a near-fatal collision in 1991 between his helicopter and a stunt plane in which two younger men died. The crash compressed his spine by three inches. While lying in a hospital bed with excruciating back pain, he started pondering the meaning of his life.“I came to believe that I was spared because I had never come to grips with what it means to be Jewish,” he said.Douglas embarked on an intensive regime of Torah study with a number of young rabbis and celebrated a second bar mitzvah at age 83, telling the Hollywood luminaries crammed into the 200-seat chapel at Sinai Temple for the occasion: “Today, I am a man.”
If a man who lived THAT kind of life can return to his routes, and explore the meaning of life through the Torah and rabbinic traditions, there is hope for ANY ONE.
This day is Zman Matan Toraseinu because the gift given to our people on this day, 6 Sivan, is the gift that has endured. It endured Broken Tablets. And it has endured much physical brokenness in 3,000+ years. But the spirit of the Jew – whether we are the Talmidei Chachamim we could or should be, or whether we have a way to go – that remains alive and well. Hopefully it is always growing! But even when, like the letters, it goes away for a short while, there is always the possibility that it will latch on to something that will reenergize and rejuvenate it so the spirit can reach its highest heights in this world.
