The Return of Hope

The Return of Hope – Parashat Va’etchanan 

Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz, Rabbi of the Western Wall and Holy Sites

The weekly Torah portion of “Va’etchanan” is read every year after the fast of Tisha B’Av, according to the customary Torah reading cycle of the Jewish people. This is not a random occurrence but has a fundamental reason. As the Rambam (Maimonides) writes in his halachic work Mishneh Torah: “The simple custom is to read… Va’etchanan after Tisha B’Av” (Hilchot Tefilah, Chapter 13). The Rambam does not provide a detailed explanation for this custom, and throughout the generations, scholars and commentators sought to understand the connection between Parashat Va’etchanan and Tisha B’Av.

The fundamental understanding of this matter is related to the perception embedded in the words of our Sages who consider the days after Tisha B’Av as days of comfort. Following the period of “Between the Straits,” the three weeks between the seventeenth of Tammuz and Tisha B’Av, during which we mourn the destruction of the Temple, we enter days of consolation – days when we focus on comforting the loss, reinvigorating our hopes for redemption and rebuilding. Parashat Va’etchanan is connected to this hope, and that is why it is read immediately after Tisha B’Av.

Let us delve into the explanation provided by Rabbi Yitzchak Hutner (1906-1980), a prominent scholar and deep thinker who lived in the United States and Israel. Rabbi Hutner pointed out the Ten Commandments written in this parasha and argued that they offer an explanation for connecting the parasha to Tisha B’Av.

As we all recall, at the Revelation at Mount Sinai, Moses ascended Mount Sinai and stayed there for forty days and nights. At the end of this period, he descended with the Tablets of the Covenant on which the Ten Commandments were written. In the Book of Exodus, it is described that when Moses descended from the mountain and approached the Israelite camp, he heard sounds from within. As he got closer, he saw that in his absence, the Israelites had created a golden calf and were treating it as a deity, dancing around it and calling, “This is your god, O Israel.” Moses’ immediate reaction to seeing the golden calf was extreme; he threw the Tablets from his hands, breaking them (Exodus 32:19).

Breaking the Tablets was an extreme act, as they were given to Moses by G-d. Can a person, no matter how great, be allowed to break the Tablets bestowed by G-d to the children of Israel? Our Sages relate that G-d praised Moses for this action and said to him, “Well done for breaking [the Tablets].” But even according to them, G-d did not instruct Moses to break the Tablets. It was an independent and justified decision by Moses who realized that there was no point in giving the Tablets to the people of Israel, who were deeply immersed in idol worship.

However, the story of the Tablets does not end there. Afterward, Moses pleaded before G-d to forgive the sin of the golden calf, and as a result of his prayer, the Israelites were given new Tablets, replacements. The first Tablets were broken, but the second Tablets remained and were preserved in the Tabernacle and later in the Temple.

Were there any differences between the first and second Tablets? When we read the Ten Commandments written in the Book of Exodus and compare them to the ones in Parashat Va’etchanan, we find slight variations between the two versions. According to an accepted interpretation in the Babylonian Talmud (Bava Kama 55b), these differences represent the variations between the first Tablets, which were broken, and the second Tablets, which were preserved.

Thus, we find that in Parashat Va’etchanan, we read the text on the second Tablets. The second Tablets represent the possibility of repair. After the sin of the golden calf and the breaking of the Tablets, it seemed all hope was lost for the Jewish nation to merit receiving the divine Tablets. But after Moses’ prayers, the second Tablets were given, expressing G-d’s forgiveness and the children of Israel’s repentance.

The second Tablets are an expression of repair, even in the worst circumstances. Just as the sin of the golden calf was rectified, and the connection between G-d and the Jewish nation was restored through the second Tablets, we also believe that a complete redemption will come and the manifest and close relationship between G-d and the people of Israel will be restored; a relationship that we will express by following G-d’s ways, and will be expressed by Him by bequeathing spiritual and material success to the Jewish nation, as it is written before the Revelation at Mount Sinai: “And now, if you obey Me and keep My covenant, you shall be to Me a treasure out of all peoples.”