BS’D
The 17th of Tammuz is a day of great tragedy for the Jewish people. On that day, Moshe broke the Ten Commandments. Rashi explains that the tablets were made of special sapphire stones, large in size and too heavy for any human to carry, but the Divine light that radiated from the etched Hebrew letters helped ease the burden of carryng such large stones, making them miraculously lighter. However when the letters “witnessed” the sin of the golden calf they “flew off” the tablets returning them to their original weight ultimately causing Moshe to drop them.
Another explanation may be that Moshe broke them in order to discourage G-d from implementing His plan to annihilate the Jewish people for their sin and encourage Moshe to lead a new chosen nation. By breaking the tablets, Moshe was saying to G-d that he was a sinner along with the Jewish people and their demise was his as well.
Through this Moshe saved the Jewish nation even though their emuna was weak and their loyalty to G-d was questionable. Although Moshe had no way of knowing that G-d would later agree to provide a second set of tablets he understood his responsibility as the Jewish people’s leader; stand by your fellow man.
May we all merit to have the emuna and wisdom that Moshe showed on that day and save our nation from tragedies in this merit, Amen.
