Smashing the Tablets and Skillful Anger

Moses did three things based on his own perception, and the Holy One, Blessed be He, agreed with him. He added one day to the days of separation before the revelation at Sinai based on his own perception. And he totally separated from his wife after the revelation at Sinai. And he broke the tablets following the sin of the Golden Calf. The Gemara discusses these cases...

And he broke the tablets following the sin of the Golden Calf. What source did he interpret that led him to do so? Moses said: With regard to the Paschal lamb, which is only one of six hundred and thirteen mitzvot, the Torah stated: “And the Lord said unto Moses and Aaron: This is the ordinance of the Paschal offering; no alien shall eat of it” (Exodus 12:43), referring not only to gentiles, but to apostate Jews as well. Regarding the tablets, which represented the entire Torah, and Israel at that moment were apostates, as they were worshipping the calf, all the more so are they not worthy of receiving the Torah.

And from where do we derive that the Holy One, Blessed be He, agreed with his reasoning? As it is stated: “The first tablets which you broke [asher shibarta]” (Exodus 34:1), and Reish Lakish said: The word asher is an allusion to the phrase: May your strength be true [yishar koḥakha] due to the fact that you broke the tablets.

(Exodus 32): Moses became angry and cast the tablets from his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain. Rabbi Yishmael taught: The Holy One, Blessed be He, said to him that he should break them, as it is said, (Deut. 10), "And I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first set of tablets that you broke." He said to him, "You did well in breaking them." Rabbi Shmuel bar Nachman said in the name of Rabbi Yonatan, "The tablets were six handbreadths long and three broad. Moses held onto two handbreaths and the Holy One, Blessed be He, held onto two of them and there was a space of two handbreadths in the middle. When the Israelites worshipped the golden calf, the Holy One, Blessed be He, tried to snatch the tablets out of Moses's hand. But Moses's hand was stronger, and he snatched them from God, as Scripture praises him in the end and says (Deut. 34), "For all the mighty hand..."--May there be peace on the hand that "overcame" Him... Rabbi Yochanan in the name of Rabbi Yose bar Abaye, "The tablets wanted to fly but Moses was holding on to them, as it is written (Deut. 9), "And I held onto the two tablets." Rabbi Ezra in the name of Rabbi Yehudah from the house of Rabbi Shimon, "The tablets weighed forty seahs, and the writing was holding them up. When the writing flew off, the tablets became heavy in Moses's hands, and they fell and were broken."

(3) And, yet, there are certain tendencies which man is forbidden to follow in the middle-way, but must distance himself from extreme to extreme... So is anger an extremely evil tendency and it is proper for man to remove himself from it to the other extreme. One should teach himself not to get angry, even over a matter which befits anger. If one desires to engender awe in his children and his household, or in the public, if he be at the head of a community, even if he desire to get angry at them so as to bring them back to the good way, he should only act angry in their presence so as to reprove them, but his disposition must remain calm within himself, even as a man imitates, who is angry when the time calls forth anger but in reality he is not angry. The sages of yore said: "He who yields to anger is as if he worshiped idolatry".¹See Nedarim, 22b. G. They also said: "Whosoever yields to anger, if he be a wise man his wisdom leaves him, and if he be a prophet his prophecy leaves him."²Pesahim, 66b. C.