Google “broken tablets”, and you'll find images of digital devices with cracked and shattered screens. For these damaged products, you can typically find a fix that costs less than a $100.
However, with enough scrolling through your search results, you may find images that claim to depict the broken tablets from this week’s Torah portion (Ki Tisa). This dramatic parsha sheds light on the apparent irresitibility of idol worship during great transitions, whether from bondage to freedom or from orality to literacy.
But there's a reason I started this post with Google's failure to disambiguate “broken tablets”. In my view, the images of damaged digital devices one finds through Google are not irrelevant to the story of Ki Tisa. We simply shouldn't associate these devices with the tablets that Moses smashed. Instead, it may be fruitful to think of these devices as modern-day Golden Calves.
If digital devices have become our idols, where do we find our tablets? I know lots of ideologies offer fine forgeries, including some of the ideologies represented by the two sources below. But where do we find the real thing? Or, as Job wondered, “where shall wisdom be found, and what is the place of understanding?”
Let me know if you find any answers either in the sources below or elesewhere.
BimBam (4 minute video)
Rabbi Jonathan Sachs (10 minute video)
My knowledge of ancient Jewish texts is rusty, to put it generously. So, I doubt I'll be offering deep readings of weekly Torah portions through BS"D. However, if the subject of idol worship interests you beyond purely theological perspectives, I invite you to read recent posts on my other Substacks:
Shabbat shalom!