When the stakes are high, the best strategy may be to give things a rest

Ekev

Deuteronomy 7:12–11:25

Isaiah 49:14–51:3

It is every athlete’s nightmare: dropping the ball at an important moment of a big game. Whether fumbling a last-minute pass in the end zone at the Super Bowl or bobbling the ball on what would have been the final out of the World Series, it is errors such as these that can forever haunt a professional athlete and tarnish public memories of a career. (By way of example, if I asked anyone about Bill Buck-ner’s career I am confident the first thing that would come to mind is his error in game six of the 1986 World Series, despite having been a very positive force for his team that season.)

In this week’s Torah portion, when the second set of tablets is given, HaShem seems determined to prevent a repeat breakage of the Ten Commandments.

“Make yourself a wooden ark. I will write on the tablets the words which were on the first tablets that you broke, and you shall place them in the ark” (10:2). As if Moshe (or the biblical reader) could possibly forget an earlier fateful moment, the point is made quite clear: Moshe was responsible for their loss the first time, but this time he is being given explicit directions on exactly what to do with the tablets. Place them in the ark, and nowhere else.

Moshe was no dense person. He possessed one of the great minds in Jewish history, and yet here he is being spoken to as if unable to fill in the blanks himself. He already knows the tablets are headed for the ark! It is not as if there was no prompting for his actions; last time around the people were in the midst of worshipping a golden calf when he descended from the mountain. So why painstakingly spell it all out?

Yet this is precisely the explanation offered by the prominent 13th century French exegete known as Chizkuni; that HaShem directs Moshe so he won’t carry the new pair of etched stones and break those, too. Moshe labored up there on the mountain for 40 days and 40 nights, studying endlessly, carving and carrying the weight of so many pounds of inscribed rock. By the time he is finished he has the sense of having acquired both their contents and form, and destroys them dramatically before a people unready to live by their word.

But now, at the time of second chances, HaShem emphasizes in no uncertain terms that things have to be different. These tablets are for sharing and learning with the people, whether rebellious or ready to commit. These aren’t Moshe’s tablets; they belong to the people of Israel.

This description applies to so many of us as well. Sometimes, if we “carry” something (or someone) long enough, we develop a proprietary sense as if it belongs to us. We try, often too hard, to control it and get it to go the way that we want it to go. And when it doesn’t, we feel like we are “done” with it and conclude that we have the right to break it if we want to do so.

However, our efforts to carry and support weight do not necessarily lend us the rights of ownership. Ultimately, life’s missions belong to HaShem and are handed to us. Even if we think they are proprietary, that is in fact not the case. So HaShem sends a clear message to Moshe and to the people forever after to take a bit of distance when needed, and put the proverbial tablets into the ark to rest.

When the people and the projects in which we have poured our energies don’t proceed as planned, we are instructed to let it all rest so that we don’t give up and break them. The Great Coach Above reserves the right to bench even the best players and make them give it a rest, when the tensions in the game are too high for successful performance.

Shabbat Shalom.

Rabbi Judah Dardik is the spiritual leader at Orthodox Beth Jacob in Oakland. He can be reached at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).