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D'VAR TORAH | 
New Words Inscribed on Old Tablets
Jonathan E. Blake
Parashat Eikev presents itself as a sermonic address by Moses to the Israelites, whose principal theme is a reaffirmation of the Sinai covenant. At the center of this address, Moses narrates a version of the events that transpired at Sinai: how he went up the mountain for forty days and forty nights to retrieve God’s tablets; how, upon descending, he encountered the molten calf and in his rage smashed the tablets; how—putting his anger aside—he convinced God not to destroy the people, despite their defiance.
“Thereupon the Eternal One said to me,” Moses continues, “‘Carve out two tablets of stone like the first, and come up to Me on the mountain; and make an ark of wood. I will inscribe on the tablets the commandments that were on the first tablets that you smashed, and you shall deposit them in the ark’” (Deuteronomy 10:1–2).
Commenting here, the thirteenth-century Spanish exegete Nachmanides (RaMBaN) interprets Moses’s meaning: “After I cast myself down [in supplication] before the Eternal One for forty days and forty nights, [God] was acquiescent to me that that I should write the second tablets. However, the first ones were the work of God, and ‘the writing was God’s writing’ (Exodus 32:16), whereas with these, God instructed me that they should be hewn by my hands, and the writing should be like the original writing which was by God’s finger” (Nachmanides, ad loc.,translation by Jonathan E. Blake, emphasis added).
Nachmanides is clear: God inscribed the first set of tablets; but a mortal, Moses, carved the second. God specifically charged Moses to make the second tablets like the first, but Moses would guide the chisel. Human hands would now reify God’s thoughts.
Moses’s tablet-making provides an apt metaphor for our own religious enterprise.
Reform Judaism recognizes the age-old impulse in Judaism not only to preserve ancient wisdom but also to apply mortal hands to its evolution. That a text or tradition must undergo scrutiny in every age is a standard cherished in Reform Judaism. Each new generation inscribes its wisdom on the tablets of the old. Text and commentary, intertwined one after another, constitute the warp and woof of our Jewish tapestry.
In some cases we have deemed ancient laws outmoded and thus dispensable. We have, as it were, smashed old tablets. Such trends we can observe even in the Bible itself. It is clear, for instance, that when the Torah says, “Parents shall not be put to death for children, nor children be put to death for parents: one shall be put to death only for one’s own crime” (Deuteronomy 24:16), this ruling “indicates the need for counteracting certain then-prevailing conditions [the likes of which the Bible elsewhere records]” ( The Torah: A Modern Commentary, rev. ed, ed. W. Gunther Plaut [New York: URJ Press, 2005], p. 1,340). The Torah demolishes old norms of collective punishment and inscribes in their place a new principle.
Rabbinic literature is littered with the detritus of biblical dicta no longer functional. Rules pertaining to the sacrificial cult, for instance, are explained away as impossible to implement so long as the ancient Temple lies in ruins and the priesthood remains relegated to ceremonial functions.
Reform Judaism has also smashed once-sturdy tablets. In November of 1885, Rabbi Kaufmann Kohler of New York convened a delegation of Reform rabbis, with Isaac Mayer Wise presiding. At this meeting in Pittsburgh, the leaders adopted a seminal text (now informally known as the “Pittsburgh Platform”). The following passage illustrates how Reform Judaism, at certain stages of its development, has unabashedly rejected old norms:
“We hold that all such Mosaic and rabbinical laws as regulate diet, priestly purity, and dress originated in ages and under the influence of ideas entirely foreign to our present mental and spiritual state. They fail to impress the modern Jew with a spirit of priestly holiness; their observance in our days is apt rather to obstruct than to further modern spiritual elevation” (see www.ccarnet.org/articles and search for “Pittsburgh Platform”).
Sometimes, it should be noted, we have put the pieces of the old tablets back together again! Witness how many Reform Jews of late have adopted Jewish dietary practices and the wearing of tallitot, kippot, and even t’fillin ,in sharp distinction to the nineteenth-century attitudes espoused above!
Evoking Moses on the mountain, our ever-evolving faith has also seen fit to inscribe new meanings upon old tablets. The ancient Rabbis famously interpreted the Bible’s harsh “eye for an eye, life for a life” legislation of retribution ( lex talionis )to mean that a person would owe money for inflicting a wound (“an eye’s worth for an eye,” and so on)—but that God forbid one should pay with his limb or his life for an injury! This radical reinterpretation of biblical law is a hallmark of the Rabbinic imagination.
So it is too in Reform practice. These words from another gathering of Reform rabbis, again in Pittsburgh, in 1999, speak to our endeavor: “We are committed to the ongoing study of the whole array of mitzvot and to the fulfillment of those that address us as individuals and as a community. Some of these mitzvot , sacred obligations, have long been observed by Reform Jews; others, both ancient and modern, demand renewed attention as the result of the unique context of our own times” (see www.ccarnet.org/articles and search for “Pittsburgh, 1999”).
In particular, our Movement’s egalitarian emphasis has made it necessary to write a new layer of sacred interpretation upon the old norms. We embrace ceremonies to welcome baby girls into the covenant of the Jewish people, the ordination and investiture of women as rabbis and cantors, and the newly published The Torah: A Women’s Commentary ,which exemplifies our thoughtful interweaving of ancient concerns and modern demands.
There are no stone tablets anymore. We have only parchment scrolls and fragile books—all deservedly revered for the wisdom they offer. But they don’t get the last word. By engaging in Torah study you become part of the story. You, dear reader, are already participating in the next chapter, soon to be written upon the old.
Rabbi Jonathan E. Blake is associate rabbi of Westchester Reform Temple in Scarsdale, New York. A graduate of Amherst College (1995), he was ordained at Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion in 2000 and was a regular contributor to 10 Minutes of Torah in 2005–2006. You can send feedback directly to Rabbi Blake at office@wrtemple.org.
DAVAR ACHER | 
The Crux of the Jewish National Spirit: Autonomy
Zach Newburgh
Rabbi Blake’s interpretation of Parashat Eikev teaches us that we must be actively engaged in the progression of a Judaism that has, and must, continue to evolve throughout the ages. He suggests that our ability to scrutinize our sacred texts is a right contained within the very essence of Reform Judaism. Further, Rabbi Blake proposes that our engagement with Torah is one that allows us to participate in supplementing our already extensive commentary so that we may provide additional meaning to the texts that we hold so very dear to our hearts.
The beauty of Torah stems from the variety of interpretations that can be surmised from its words. God’s wonder and majesty are exemplified within each individual’s commentary, and it would thus be offensive to suggest that only one interpretation of God’s word is valid. The Talmud exemplifies this basic theme, which depicts our basic right to interpret Torah, communicated; namely, that Jewish law is not contained within the heavens, but in the hands of the people ( Bava M’tzia 59b).
However, in whose hands does interpretation reside? Similar to the organization of secular society, tradition states that the majority creates and interprets the laws by which the whole must live. Yet with regard to Torah, tradition suggests that God spoke not only to the entire community, but also to each individual standing at the base of the mountain. We were each given the Torah at Sinai, and we are thus each entitled to own and interpret for ourselves each of God’s words. But in interpreting Torah for ourselves we must also consider the interpretations of the past.
As Rabbi Blake explains, Moses’s speech to the Israelites in Parashat Eikev is centered not solely on the journey ahead, but also on recounting the details of this historic forty-year trek. Moses teaches us an important lesson in this week’s parashah . Like Moses, we must “know from whence [we] came, [and] to where [we] are going” (Akavya ben Mahalalel in Pirkei Avot 3:1).
As the president of NFTY, the official youth movement of the Union for Reform Judaism, this concept of generational leadership has been central to my term on board. Although my term has come to a close, I am confident that this concept will guide the choices I make throughout my life. Whether I am struggling with what to do during my university career or whether I am unsure of how to remedy a situation during parenthood, I am sure that I will look first toward the past in order to determine the path ahead.
Although we have been blessed with the ability to discern for ourselves how we wish to practice Judaism, we are also burdened with a responsibility. We carry the obligation, in all that we do, to engage with the past, so that we too may “know from whence [we] came” and thereby determine to where we are going. Like Moses, it is only with this in mind that we will be enabled to successfully trek through our own deserts and achieve refuge in our own lands of milk and honey.
Zach Newburgh is currently a student at the University of Toronto studying International Relations/Peace and Conflict Studies with a concentration on the Middle East. Prior to serving as NFTY’s fifty-eighth North American president, Zach served NFTY’s Northeast Lakes Region as its regional president and religious and cultural vice president in his senior and junior years, respectively. In Zach’s spare time, he enjoys reading Bradley Burston’s “Special Place in Hell” section of www.haaretz.com , fiddling with his guitar, and jump-starting an athletics program at Kutz : NFTY’s Campus for Reform Jewish Teens.
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