Kommentar zu Dewarim 9:16

וארא והנה חטאת, “and behold, I saw you had sinned;” what precisely did Moses see? He observed that the letters engraved on the Tablets had flown off. This is why I grabbed the remains and smashed them before your eyes. This can be illustrated by a parable. A Roman or Greek officer was walking along the path, holding the king’s seal in his hands. When he was about to enter a certain country he had to cross a river and in the process the king’s seal with his authorisation fell into the water and when retrieved proved to have become illegible. What did he do? He tore up the paper and smashed the seal as they were no longer of any use to him. Moses’ situation when descending from Mount Sinai was similar to that of that officer, and that is why he smashed the Tablets.

וארא, “I saw;” another parable will illustrate what Moses meant. Moses saw the golden calf the people had made and as a result he broke the Tablets. Imagine a king who had become engaged to be married to a certain lady, having told her that he would send her the marriage certificate, ketuvah¸ after a certain period of time, using his best man as the messenger. By the time the document had been written and he had found his best man, he found out that the lady was not worthy to become his wife. What did he do? He tore up the marriage certificate. His reasoning was that it was in that lady’s interest instead of becoming an unfaithful wife after the marriage ceremony, to remain unmarried when her conduct was subject to a lesser penalty. The same happened with the relationship between G–d and Israel at that time. Israel had become betrothed to G–d at time of the revelation at Mount Sinai. The Tablets were meant to be the marriage document that He would give His people forty days later. When Moses saw how corrupt they had become in the interval, he decided that it was in their best interest to tear up the marriage document, i.e. the Tablets, so as to make their legal status less serious than if they had committed adultery after the wedding ceremony. (Tanchuma, section 11)