STONES FROM SINAI FOR DECALOGUE TABLETS

QUESTION:

A rabbi procured some stones from Mount Sinai and had them made into the two tablets of stone to put up in his synagogue. Now other congregations would like to do the same thing. Is there any objection in the Jewish legal tradition against this procedure? (From Rabbi Walter Jacob, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.)

ANSWER:

TEMPLE MOUNT in Jerusalem (Mount Moriah) and Mount Sinai in the desert are now both in Jewish hands and, therefore, are politically at least accessible to all Jews. This fact has revived certain questions which have long been discussed in the Jewish legal tradition. When Rabbi Goren, the chief chaplain of the Israeli army, went onto the Temple Mount after the recent conquest of Jerusalem and blew the shofar there, im mediate protests were voiced by Orthodox authorities. The protests were based upon the conviction that no Jew has the right, according to Jewish law, to go on the Temple Mount. The reason given is as follows:

When the Temple stood, there were many and definite restrictions as to entry into the various Temple precincts. The high priest could enter the Holy of Holies only on Yom Kippur. The ordinary priest could enter the Holy (the azarah) only if he was participating in the service. Israelites could not enter the azarah at all, but only the Court of Israel. The Talmud says (in Yevamot 6b) that now, even though the Temple is ruined, its sanctity still remains. The reason for the continued sanctity is based upon the verse in Leviticus 19:30: “Observe My Sabbaths and revere My sanctu-ary.” The Mechilta to the passage says that this means that just as the Sabbath must be observed eternally, so the sanctuary must be revered eternally. Maimonides, Yad Bet Habechirah 7:7, says that all the old restrictions as to limited entry are therefore still in force. No man may enter the Temple precincts except where he would have been permitted to enter had the Temple still been standing. Since, therefore, the exact location of the various chambers are no longer known, most authorities forbid any entry by a Jew onto the Temple Mount. A rather full recent discussion of this question is given by Rabbi Wildenberg in the Hapardes for the month of Shevat, 5728 (1968).

The first question, then, which has to be decided is whether the same restrictions would apply to the other sacred mountain, Mount Sinai. There is no question that Mount Sinai was deemed highly sacred. Scripture frequently refers to it as “the mountain of the Lord,” (Har Elohim) . When Moses approaches the burning bush on Mount Sinai, he is told to take his shoes from his feet, for the place on which he is standing is holy ground. When the Ten Commandments were given, Moses warned the Children of Israel not even to touch the mountain. In addition to the sanctity of the moun-tain, there is the general prohibition in Deuteronomy 17:16 of returning to Egypt along the path that the Israelites took on their Exodus from Egypt. Mount Sinai was on that road, the most important stopping place on that journey. So because the mountain was holy and because it was on the Exodus route, one would imagine that it would be forbidden to be trodden upon by Jews.

Nevertheless we know of at least two incidents where pious Jews did visit and stand on Mount Sinai. There are two such incidents centuries apart and interesting in themselves, and therefore worth mentioning. Maimonides in Moreh Nevuchim, I, Ch. 66, seeks to explain away the expression of Scripture that the tablets were written by the “finger of God” (Exodus 31:18) and says that it means the same as the expression, “the heavens, the work of Thy fingers” (Psalms 8:4). He says that the phrase means “the will of God”; in other words, the tablets were a natural product, just as the heavens are. He means that Moses actually found the tablets with the inscription already upon them by God’s will through nature. To support this opinion of Maimonides, Shem Tov ibn Falaquera in his commentary Shem Tov says that the burning bush (the earlier miracle at Mount Sinai) was also written by nature on the stones. He quotes Moses of Narbonne who said that one of the sons of Chasdai of Barcelona found on Mount Sinai stones with the perfect representation of the bush. Clearly what Chasdai’s son found was the usual fossil plants embedded in the stones.

In the beginning of the nineteenth century, Jacob Saphir, the well-known traveler, also walked on the mountain, and in his travel book (Even Saphir, Vol. I, p. 38 ff.) says that he found stones with a perfect representation of the bush on it, and he offers that fact as a bold explanation of the miracle of the burning bush which Moses saw. The reason that the bush did not burn was that it was not a normal, dry desert plant, but was actually made of stone.

These visitors would not have gone on Mount Sinai had it been forbidden. But we need not rely merely on this evidence. In Scripture itself we are told (Exodus 19:13) that when the trumpet blew marking the end of the revelation, the people were permitted to go on Mount Sinai. In fact, the Talmud says that too, in Taanit 21b, namely that when the Shechinah was still on the mountain, whoever touched the mountain would die; but when the Shechinah departed from the mountain, everybody had the right to climb it.

So, clearly, Mount Sinai has a different status as to its accessibility from that of Mount Moriah. According to most authorities, Mount Moriah may not be ascended, but there never was any objection to climbing Mount Sinai after the revelation ended.

Yet there is another question involved. The original Ten Commandments, as well as the fragments of the broken commandments, were kept in the Ark of the Holy of Holies in the Temple. There is a general prohibition against imitating the Temple articles. The Talmud, Avodah Zarah 43a, says that one may not imitate or duplicate the rooms and the porches of the Temple, nor the table nor the menorah. This is given as law in the Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh Deah 141:8. The later discussions concern chiefly the menorah, and the conclusion is that if it is made noticeably different or of different material from the menorah in the Temple, it is permitted (see the various references in Reform Jewish Practice, Vol. II, p. 24 ff.).

One would imagine that the two tablets of stone which were kept in the Holy of Holies in the very Ark itself, would certainly be prohibited as an object which could be duplicated. Yet actually there is no discussion anywhere in the literature prohibiting such imitation. As a matter of fact there is not the slightest reference in any of the classic codes even mentioning the representation of the Ten Commandments as a synagogue dec-oration in stone, wood, or otherwise. Although the Ten Commandments on two tablets are now a very popular decoration in synagogues, the codes which mention many synagogue decorations do not refer to them; clearly indicating that their use cannot be many centuries old. Certainly no prohibition is even hinted at against making such an object of any material.

To sum up: Access to the Temple Mount is forbidden, but not the access to Mount Sinai. Various Temple objects may not be imitated, menorah, etc., but there is no prohibition mentioned against imitating the two tablets of stone. Clearly, then, if now that the State of Israel holds possession of Mount Sinai, various people will visit Mount Sinai and bring back some of its stone, out of which the two tablets will be made; there is no possible ground for objection.