Sermon Archives

A Second Telling of a Second Chance

Einstein is frequently credited with the observation that the very definition of insanity is doing the same thing again and again and expecting different results. The authoritative collection of Einstein quotes published by Princeton University Press lists this one in the section of quotes attributed to Einstein by mistake.  But whoever coined the phrase, it has a certain pathos. It reminds me of Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof observing Jewish life as a sort of crazed loyalty to tradition even when it leads to a precarious and unsteady existence. “They tried to kill us, they failed, let’s eat.” Wash, rinse, repeat. 

As the holiday season approaches there is a perennial risk of adopting that same ironic and cynical detachment from the process of repentance and renewal. The moment Yom Kippur ends we will recite the words “VeHu Rahum Yechaper Avon…” as we launch the post-Yom Kippur Maariv prayer by asking God to grant us atonement for our transgressions. What transgressions could we have possibly committed between the end of Yom Kippur and the beginning of Maariv? (Those who skip Maariv to get first on line for the break-fast will have what to atone for…but not those who stay and daven!).

The cycle reminds me of the story of the man who said, “When I was younger I prayed for a bicycle but it didn’t work. So instead I stole a bicycle and prayed for forgiveness…and it worked!”

In Parashat Ekev we read a retelling of the story of the golden calf and Moshe’s heroic shattering of the luchot, the tablets of the law, his prayer for forgiveness, and the creation of a second set of luchot which, the rabbis calculated, all took place at this time of year: Moshe received the first luchot on Shavuot, shattered them on the 17th of Tamuz, ascending once again to Sinai to receive a replacement set on the first of Elul, and came down with the second set of luchot on Yom Kippur. 

When reviewing the Torah’s account in Parashat Ekev of the second telling of the giving of the second set of luchot, Sara and I were struck by the Torah’s emphasis on the ways that the second luchot were the same as the first set. 

פְּסׇל־לְךָ֞ שְׁנֵֽי־לוּחֹ֤ת אֲבָנִים֙ כָּרִ֣אשֹׁנִ֔ים

Carve for yourself two luchot of stone just like the first ones…

וְאֶכְתֹּב֙ עַל־הַלֻּחֹ֔ת אֶ֨ת־הַדְּבָרִ֔ים אֲשֶׁ֥ר הָי֛וּ עַל־הַלֻּחֹ֥ת הָרִאשֹׁנִ֖ים אֲשֶׁ֣ר שִׁבַּ֑רְתָּ

And I will write on the luchot the same words that were on the first set of luchot which you broke.

וָאֶפְסֹ֛ל שְׁנֵי־לֻחֹ֥ת אֲבָנִ֖ים כָּרִאשֹׁנִ֑ים

And I carved two luchot that were just like the first set…

וַיִּכְתֹּ֨ב עַֽל־הַלֻּחֹ֜ת כַּמִּכְתָּ֣ב הָרִאשׁ֗וֹן

And God wrote on the luchot just as was on the first set.

Is this insanity? The luchot were made to look the same. The luchot had the same words. It all ended in disaster the first time. The second set has the same words that were on the first set which had to be shattered because the entire endeavor had collapsed in catastrophic failure. 

Why does the second attempt succeed? Why was the culmination of the teshuvah, repentance, and atonement process a command to try the entire process a second time? Why did God repeat the same words on nearly identical tablets rather than try something different?  It did not work out the first time, why not try something entirely different?  

We can answer this question by posing another question: Why does the Torah undermine the central argument of Parashat Ekev?

The central argument of Parashat Ekev is that our success as a nation depends on our obedience to God. We are told that humanity is not sustained by bread alone but by God’s will. 

כִּ֠י לֹ֣א עַל־הַלֶּ֤חֶם לְבַדּוֹ֙ יִחְיֶ֣ה הָֽאָדָ֔ם 

“...man does not live on bread alone, but that man may live on anything that the LORD decrees.”

We are told that Eretz Yisrael, in particular, is a harsh climate that needs constant Divine attention, or even intervention, to flourish. And the cardinal sin of Parashat Ekev - indeed the sin that Moshe fears most in his speeches in Sefer Devarim  - is summarized by the false belief that:

כֹּחִי֙ וְעֹ֣צֶם יָדִ֔י עָ֥שָׂה לִ֖י אֶת־הַחַ֥יִל הַזֶּֽה׃

“My own power and the might of my own hand have won all of this for me.”

But this message, despite being repeated multiple times, is itself undermined in our parasha. While our success is not the work of our own hands, but is entirely dependent on God, we are also not to assume that our own success is the product of Divine favor. 

לֹ֣א בְצִדְקָתְךָ֗ וּבְיֹ֙שֶׁר֙ לְבָ֣בְךָ֔ אַתָּ֥ה בָ֖א לָרֶ֣שֶׁת אֶת־אַרְצָ֑ם 

“It is not because of your righteousness or that your heart is upright that has caused you to take possession of their land…”

Three times the Torah tells us not to assume we are more righteous or more deserving. Our enemies at times were flagrantly wicked. And, God really loved our patriarchs and matriarchs. 

The common denominator, or shared answer to these two questions is the real risk of  moral complacency. A Jew who is loyal to the Torah is never satisfied by her behavior and never assumes he is living up to the demands of the Torah. 

Sometimes, in the aftermath of a grave sin,  we pick up the pieces and go on to the same thing, with the same words after only a small change, and that is enough to give rise to a transformed outcome. For example, Rabbi Meir Simcha HaKohen of Dvinsk, in his Torah commentary Meshekh Hokhmah, explains that Moshe shattered the luchot when he saw us worshipping the golden calf to teach us that nothing - not even luchot inscribed by the hand of God, has intrinsic holiness. Had the luchot not been shattered we would have abandoned the calf and worshipped the luchot. 

But once we absorbed that pedagogy, there was nothing wrong in the words that were inscribed on the luchot. The words were fine. The words were more than fine; they were Divine. We had the right message. We had the right mission. We needed to change our own perspectives. 

Rabbi Ilai Ofran noticed that, here in Parashat Ekev, when Moshe tells us for the second time about the second set of luchot, he shifts the order in which the aron, the wooden ark in which they are placed, is built.

When the Divine command is given, the ark comes second:

At the beginning of Chapter 10, the Torah says:

בָּעֵ֨ת הַהִ֜וא אָמַ֧ר יְהֹוָ֣ה אֵלַ֗י פְּסׇל־לְךָ֞ שְׁנֵֽי־לוּחֹ֤ת אֲבָנִים֙ כָּרִ֣אשֹׁנִ֔ים וַעֲלֵ֥ה אֵלַ֖י הָהָ֑רָה וְעָשִׂ֥יתָ לְּךָ֖ אֲר֥וֹן עֵֽץ׃

First make the luchot, and then make an ark to contain it.

Two verses later when Moshe describes how he followed these instructions the order is reversed:

וָאַ֤עַשׂ אֲרוֹן֙ עֲצֵ֣י שִׁטִּ֔ים וָאֶפְסֹ֛ל שְׁנֵי־לֻחֹ֥ת אֲבָנִ֖ים כָּרִאשֹׁנִ֑ים וגו׳

“And I made a wooden ark and then I carved two luchot like the first ones…”

This suggests that Moshe understood that the vessel which contains a message is sometimes as important as the message itself. And while the luchot were contained in a wooden ark, ultimately we are the ones who need to contain and convey the words of Torah that we encounter. 

Sometimes a failure  is so catastrophic that everything needs to be wiped away and we start over with a fresh start and try something completely new. This is how Rambam, Maimonides, writes about teshuvah.. A penitent person changes their name and moves to a new city as if to say “I am not the one who committed that sin; I am someone else entirely.”

But more often, the Maimonidean approach is not the most apt. We had the right idea, we had the right instructions, the words we have been trying to learn were the right words, but we need to try again, with a bit more grit, with a shifted perspective, and with some hard earned wisdom and perspective. Trying the same thing and hoping for different results is not insanity, it is the bedrock of tradition.

This should always be a time of year when we confront failures and begin to think about how we want the future to be different from the past and from the present. And, based on my email Inbox, there is a lot of reckoning this year in particular with communal failures. We might have to change some of what we say and find new words in order to act in the world as we should. But we will also need to shift ourselves so that the old words can have the impact that was always intended. 

We are far from perfect. But the Torah can be a source of encouragement and guidance. Moral complacency is the great risk of Parashat Ekev because the task of improvement never ends. The benefit of the Torah and its mitzvot in our lives is not that we are automatically and obviously better, but that we are consistently and perpetually called to become better.