The Secret of the Stone Tablets and the Gateway to the World to Come

Class No. 12 | * Friday, Parashas Bechukosai, 19 Iyar 5755 - At the Yeshiva (Continued from No. 11)

The article reveals the original plan for the Giving of the Torah, in which the Torah was supposed to be engraved directly upon the heart without the need for tablets. Through understanding the sin of the Golden Calf, the deep secret of the Land of Israel is explained not as a place for physical settlement, but as a spiritual gateway designed to propel the Children of Israel directly to the World to Come and to the Resurrection of the Dead.

The Torah was given on stone tablets in order to remove our heart of stone. We thought we had already merited a heart of flesh, but the heart reverted to being a heart of stone, and therefore we needed to receive stone tablets. The Torah is written on parchment made of animal skin, and Reb Noson explains in Likutey Halachos that through the light of the Torah scroll, our own skin is purified. All desires reside in the skin, and the skin (parchment) of the Torah scroll refines our skin, just as the stone tablets refine the heart of stone.

The Sages say that had the first tablets not been broken, the Torah would never have been forgotten from Israel. The tablets had the power to refine the heart of stone and return it to being a heart of flesh, so that the Torah would be engraved upon the hearts, in the aspect of:

"Write them upon the tablet of your heart."

In fact, the original plan was that we would not need tablets at all. Initially, the Torah was supposed to be engraved directly upon the heart of Adam HaRishon (the First Man), and after him upon the hearts of his sons, Seth and Abel. But then Cain came and ruined everything.

The Torah Engraved in the Limbs

At the revelation at Mount Sinai, the Children of Israel reached a level where "their impurity ceased." They returned to the level of Adam HaRishon before the sin, and were as pure as the very heavens. The moment we stood at Mount Sinai, the entire Torah was engraved upon our hearts. Immediately, the Torah was engraved in every single limb, and every limb cried out its respective mitzvah.

However, the Children of Israel said to Moshe Rabbeinu: "We have no strength, we are weak people." Hashem replied: "You are weak? You will receive stone tablets." The stone tablets were intended to break and refine the heart of stone, transforming it back into a heart of flesh. But then, instead of continuing to ascend from level to level, they decided to make the Golden Calf. It was difficult for them to obey Moshe Rabbeinu, and they preferred a silent calf into which they could insert words and make it swear to say whatever they wanted to hear.

The Throne of Glory of the Tablets

Following the sin of the Golden Calf, the tablets had to be placed inside an ark. Stone tablets are an aspect of a punishment, but even then, initially, the tablets were not supposed to go into an ark at all. The plan was for Moshe Rabbeinu to hold the tablets in his hands twenty-four hours a day.

After all, it is known that "the Ark carries its carriers," and the tablets carry themselves. Moshe Rabbeinu's hands were supposed to be like two sacred vessels, and Moshe himself was supposed to be the 'Throne of Glory' for the tablets and their precious seat.

The Land of Israel as the Gateway to Heaven

Had they not sinned with the Golden Calf, on the very day they received the tablets—on that exact day they would have entered the Land of Israel. And the entry into the Land was not intended for physical settlement. The Land of Israel and Zion are merely the gateway to the World to Come.

The moment a person entered the Land of Israel, he was supposed to immediately fly to heaven. However, a person commits sins, opens his eyes again, and brings back the materialism. The Chesed LeAvraham writes that when Mashiach arrives, all those who came to the Land of Israel, all those who had self-sacrifice for it, will immediately receive wings and fly to heaven. They will immediately rise for the Resurrection of the Dead and see everything that is happening in the supernal worlds.

Let Me Cross Over and See

This is the reason Moshe Rabbeinu pleaded:

"Let me cross over, I pray, and see the good land."

Moshe asked for just one minute, just one second to be in the Land. Just to step on the soil. Because the moment one steps on the soil of the Land of Israel, one receives the momentum and the thrust to fly to the World to Come.

The Generation of the Wilderness was on a much higher level than the virtue of the Land of Israel itself. They were in the aspect of "Leah," which belongs to the supernal worlds. Therefore, they did not understand what the Land of Israel would give them. But Moshe knew that entering the Land would immediately grant them the Resurrection of the Dead. Moshe said: "Just let me set foot here, and I will already bring the entire generation to the World to Come." The goal was not to sit in the Land and settle down, but only to pass through it, to see it, to reach the Cave of the Patriarchs which is the gates of the Garden of Eden, to remove the flaming, ever-turning sword, and to reopen the path to the Tree of Life.

Part 3 of 3 — Lesson No. 12

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