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When Moses came down from Sinai carrying the tablets of God’s law,
The holy words engraved upon the physical stones,
He heard his people singing songs of jubilation
In their camp at the foot of the mountain.

They had gathered up their stores of precious gold
And made a tangible idol to worship,
A beautiful thing to see and touch,
To still their fears that Moses might never return
From the fiery mountaintop.

Moses flew into a rage beyond all controlling.
He threw down those precious tablets,
The Divine words shattered at his feet.
And Moses tore down the golden idol,
Broke it into pieces,
Burned the pieces in a furnace,
Mixed the ashes with water,
And made the people drink it.
The taste bitter in their mouths,
A reminder of the bitter years of slavery
They had so soon forgotten.

Then Moses went up a second time to Sinai.
He carved new stones and engraved again the words
That God had told him once before.
And when, at last, he came down from the mountain,
His face was radiant like the rising sun.

The people put those holy tablets in an Ark
To carry with them throughout their travels.
They wrote the words upon their hearts,
And became a light for all the nations.

The Bible never tells what happened to those broken tablets,
The fractured remnants of God’s first teaching.
Did the people leave them in the desert?
Are they still out there, waiting for history to find?

The Rabbis teach that the people gathered up those broken pieces
And placed them lovingly in the Ark – side by side with the whole ones.
Wherever they went, those shards reminded them
Of their past failings and lack of faith at the foot of Sinai,
And that God had let Moses go up the mountain another time.

Our lives are not so different now
Though many centuries removed from the camp at Sinai.
We, too, carry a load of broken pieces in our hearts,
Precious gifts we once had squandered,
Things of value that were neglected,
Trifles we once had cherished,
And opportunities that were lost.

We are each a mingling of the broken and the whole.
Those shattered pieces help make us what we are.
The pain and loss, the memories and the longing
For what will never come again.
Yet even in our grief we must always remember
The greatest gift of all God’s bounty
Was a second chance.
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