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would be disastrous. As Moses 
makes clear toward the end of the 
book, in the long account of the 
curses that would overcome the 
people if they lost their spiritual 
bearings, Israel would find itself 
defeated and devastated.

RULES FOR CREATING 
CIVILIZATIONS
Only against this background can 
we understand the momentous 
project the book of Devarim 
is proposing: the creation of a 
society capable of defeating the 
normal laws of the growth-and-
decline of civilizations. This is an 
astonishing idea.
How is it to be done? By each 
person bearing and sharing 
responsibility for the society as 
a whole. By each knowing the 
history of his or her people. By 
each individual studying and 
understanding the laws that 
govern all. By teaching their 
children so that they too become 
literate and articulate in their 
identity.
Rule 1: Never forget where you 
came from.
Next, you sustain freedom by 
establishing courts, the rule of 
law and the implementation of 
justice. By caring for the poor. 
By ensuring that everyone has 
the basic requirements of dignity. 
By including the lonely in the 
people’s celebrations. By remem-
bering the covenant daily, weekly, 
annually in ritual, and renewing 
it at a national assembly every 
seven years. By making sure there 
are always Prophets to remind the 
people of their destiny and expose 
the corruption of power.
Rule 2: Never drift from your 
foundational principles and 
ideals.
Above all it is achieved by rec-
ognizing a power greater than 
ourselves. This is Moses’ most 
insistent point. Societies start 

growing old when they lose faith 
in the transcendent. They then 
lose faith in an objective moral 
order and end by losing faith in 
themselves.
Rule 3: A society is as strong 
as its faith.
Only faith in God can lead us 
to honor the needs of others as 
well as ourselves. Only faith in 
God can motivate us to act for 
the benefit of a future we will not 
live to see. Only faith in God can 
stop us from wrongdoing when 
we believe that no other human 
will ever find out. Only faith in 
God can give us the humility that 
alone has the power to defeat the 
arrogance of success and the self-
belief that leads, as Paul Kennedy 
argued in The Rise and Fall of the 
Great Powers (1987), to military 
overstretch and national defeat.
Toward the end of his 
book Civilization, Niall Ferguson 
quotes a member of the Chinese 
Academy of Social Sciences, 
part of a team tasked with the 
challenge of discovering why it 
was that Europe, having lagged 
behind China until the 17th 
century, overtook it, rising to 
prominence and dominance.
“At first,” he said, “we thought 
it was your guns. You had better 
weapons than we did. Then we 
delved deeper and thought it was 
your political system. Then we 
searched deeper still and con-
cluded that it was your economic 
system.
“But, for the past 20 years, we 
have realized that it was, in fact, 
your religion. It was the (Judeo-
Christian) foundation of social 
and cultural life in Europe that 
made possible the emergence first 
of capitalism, then of democratic 
politics.”
Only faith can save a society 
from decline and fall. That was 
one of Moses’ greatest insights, and 
it has never ceased to be true. 

Broken Fragments
T

he fifth book of the Torah is 
referred to as Deuteronomy, 
meaning essentially “a 
second or repeated” reading of the 
Holy Word. The Jewish community 
usually refers to the book as 
Devarim, traditionally known as 
Mishnah Torah, a repetition 
of Torah.
In his farewell sermon to 
the Children of Israel, Moses 
“repeats” the story of his life 
and the significant events 
that marked the people’s 40 
years in the wilderness. His 
audience/congregation is, 
for all intents and purposes, 
a new generation: Those 
who are listening to his 
stories are the children and 
grandchildren of the Hebrews 
who were slaves in Egypt.
Moses is an old man; he repeats 
himself; he remembers details 
a little differently; what seems 
obvious or humorous to him at this 
moment may be an entirely new 
understanding of what happened 
decades previously. His smiles 
and his tears come at awkward 
moments. But, as we are told in the 
final phrases describing his death, 
his vision had not dimmed nor has 
his strength diminished.
We remember him as Moshe 
Rabbeinu, Moses our teacher. For 
the best teachers (and the most 
beloved grandparents, too, we 
know) repeat and review the vital 
lessons from which we can all learn.
In this week’s portion, Moses 
reminds the Israelites about 
the Golden Calf that they had 
fashioned while he was on Mt. Sinai 
receiving the first two tablets of the 
Covenant. When he came down 
after 40 days and 40 nights and 
saw what the people had done, he 
smashed the tablets. Later, we know, 
he ascended the mountain again, 

pleading with God to forgive and 
allow the Hebrews to move ahead 
as an Am Kodesh, a Holy People. He 
returns to them, bringing two new 
stone tablets.
The rabbis ask: What happened 
to the broken tablets? Moses did not 
just leave them lying in the 
desert, did he? The answer: 
No; he picked up the broken 
fragments and later placed 
them in the Ark, together 
with the new tablets of the 
Commandments. In this 
week’s portion, Moses recalls 
and recounts this story.
Imagine his thinking at the 
time: Those broken pieces 
of the tablet represented so 
many hopes and dreams, a 
sacred bond between God 
and the Children of Israel. 
Imagine his disappointment and 
sadness. Yet the teacher (and leader) 
quality in him inspired him to make 
of the tragedy something positive 
and hopeful.
Yet there needed to be 
punishment and response in the 
episode of the Golden Calf; there 
also needed to be acceptance, love 
and hope that could only come 
from one whose wisdom and age 
gave him perspective and faith.
Moses, like the loving 
grandparent and role model for the 
generations who would inherit his 
Mishnah Torah, implores us to “not 
discard the broken fragments,” but 
to find the most appropriate Ark in 
which they can be kept and handed 
down. Also, we should fashion new 
tablets, as he did, to inspire those 
who come after us to move forward 
into their promised land with love 
and confidence. 

Rabbi Norman T. Roman was rabbi of Temple 

Kol Ami when this article originally appeared 

in the JN, Aug. 6, 2015.

TORAH PORTION

Parshat Ekev: 

Deuteronomy 

7:12-11:25; 

Isaiah 

49:14-51:3.

Rabbi 
Norman 
T. Roman