Embrace the Brokenness

The Japanese art of Kintsugi is a technique for repairing broken pottery. Rather than discarding the broken pieces they are glued back together using gold, silver or platinum lacquer. This highlights the brokenness and makes it integral to the pottery. Cracks are not disguised but instead accentuated.

According to the Talmud, the Ark of the Covenant contained not only the new set of tablets, but the smashed tablets. (Babylonian Talmud Bava Batra 14b)

Recall this week’s story. When Moses is busy atop Mount Sinai communing with God for forty days, the people grow impatient. They pressure Aaron to build an idol, saying, “Come, make us a god who shall go before us, for that man Moses, who brought us from the land of Egypt—we do not know what happened to him.” (Exodus 32) Aaron acquiesces and instructs them to bring their gold jewelry.

With all this gold they then build a golden calf. A wild boisterous celebration ensues. The singing and dancing were apparently out of control. When Moses sees this, he is filled with rage. He smashes the tablets. After all the ring leaders are punished, except for Aaron, Moses again climbs to Mount Sinai. He returns with a new set of tablets.

Why do the rabbis insist that the broken tablets are placed alongside the whole? Why does Kintsugi insist that broken fragments are not discarded but repaired and made whole again?

It is because life does not come without brokenness, pain and heartache. It does not come without cracks, deficiencies and angst. The pursuit of perfection, that is too often reflected in social media, is a false endeavor. We are imperfect creatures that constantly require repair. The perfect Instagram photographs mask the imperfections that are a natural part of our lives.

We are both broken and whole.

Let us instead embrace the answer our tradition offers.

Place the brokenness alongside the whole.