Standing there, looking down from Mount Sinai, Moses had to make a decision. In his hands, he held two tablets, the work of G-d, engraved by G-d with His own words. No objects more precious than these two stone tablets had ever materialized in this universe. Below, he beheld his people in the debauchery of their sin, worshipping a golden calf only forty days after hearing from G-d Himself, “You shall have no other gods.” If Moses would hold onto the tablets, he would have to deliver them, and then, he knew, none of those who had any involvement with the golden calf would have a chance of survival. He was their leader, their shepherd. Yet it was to receive the Torah...