Ki Tisa | After the Fall: Recovenanting, by Rav Yitzchak Etshalom

Why are the Luchot consistently referenced as "Luchot Even"?

In the aftermath of the חטא העגל - the sin of the golden calf - God commits to a (new?) covenant, one which inheres compassion and forgiveness, predicated on contrition and repentance. This recovenanting requires several steps - Moshe has to carve two tablets of stone like the set that God had given him, and God will then engrave the same words that He had written on the first set. There is a repetition of the last section of the original law code (from Ex. 23) but no repetition of the civil and criminal code which precedes it. We explore the role of the לוחות האבן - the stone tablets - and the three monikers by which they are known - לוחות אבן, לוחות הברית, לוחות העדות; we also propose an explanation as to why only the end of the law code is re-covenanted - as well as an interesting suggestion as to why Moshe is praised, at the end of his life, for "the strong hand" which, per the Sifrei, refers to his breaking the tablets.

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