“We Cannot Fix Everything”

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  “We Cannot Fix “We Cannot Fix Everything”

In Parashat Ki Tisa, we read about Moshe coming down Mount Sinai and seeing the people worshipping the Golden Calf.

In response he shatters the first tablets, the Luchot, that were written by the hand of God.

The tablets are broken.

The covenant seems shattered. Everything holy appears to have fallen apart.

God does not miraculously fix them or suggest that Moses try to repair them. They stay broken and yet the pieces are by nature holy and something to treasure and protect.

These broken shards were placed inside the Ark of the Covenant together with the second whole tablets that were given later.

The broken and the whole resting side by side in the holiest place of the Jewish people.

In our tradition, brokenness is not something to be thrown away. The broken pieces are still sacred. They belong in the Ark.

So too, each of us carries both in our lives.

There are parts of us that feel whole: times when we are strong, capable, able to help others, able to lead, able to carry.

And there are moments when we feel more like the shattered tablets, when something in our lives has cracked open: grief, disappointment, illness, loss, or mistakes we wish we could undo.

Both belong. The whole and the broken are carried together.

Sometimes we are strong enough to carry others.And sometimes we are the ones who need to be carried.

Both states are holy.

Perhaps that is why the broken tablets were never repaired. They were never forced to become whole again. They were simply held, honored, and placed in the sacred space of the Ark.

This shows us that we cannot fix everything in life.

But we can hold one another.We can listen.We can be present.

Sometimes that quiet presence is the holiest thing we can offer.

When we make space for both the broken and the whole, in ourselves and in one another, we bring a little more of that holiness into the world.

Shabbat shalom,

Much love

Elissa