Thereupon Moses turned and went down from the mountain bearing the two tablets of the Pact, tablets inscribed on both their surfaces: they were inscribed on the one side and on the other. The tablets were God’s work, and the writing was God’s writing, incised upon the tablets. When Joshua heard the sound of the people in its boisterousness, he said to Moses, “There is a cry of war in the camp.” But he answered,“It is not the sound of the tune of triumph,Or the sound of the tune of defeat;It is the sound of song that I hear!” As soon as Moses came near the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, he became enraged; and he hurled the tablets from his hands and shattered them at the foot of the mountain.

The mishna discusses the five major communal fast days. Five calamitous matters occurred to our forefathers on the seventeenth of Tammuz, and five other disasters happened on the Ninth of Av. On the seventeenth of Tammuzthe tablets were broken by Moses when he saw that the Jews had made the golden calf; the daily offering was nullified by the Roman authorities and was never sacrificed again; the city walls of Jerusalem were breached; the general Apostemos publicly burned a Torah scroll; and Manasseh placed an idol in the Sanctuary.On the Ninth of Av it was decreed upon our ancestors that they would all die in the wilderness and not enter Eretz Yisrael; and the Temple was destroyed the first time, in the days of Nebuchadnezzar, and the second time, by the Romans; and Beitar was captured; and the city of Jerusalem was plowed, as a sign that it would never be rebuilt. Not only does one fast on the Ninth of Av, but from when the month of Av begins, one decreases acts of rejoicing.

Hew these two tablets of stone (Exod. 34:1). When did Moses descend from the mountain? R. Judah the son of Shalum said: Moses remained on the mountain with the Holy One, blessed be He, for one hundred and twenty days. How did he arrive at this conclusion? From the verse In the third month after the children of Israel were gone out of the land of Egypt (Exod. 19:1). On the sixth day of that month He gave him the Ten Commandments, as it is written concerning him: And Moses went up into the mountain of God (ibid. 24:13). He remained there for forty days, that is, the twenty-four days of the month of Sivan and the sixteen days of the month of Tammuz—totaling forty days in all. He descended from the mountain on the seventeenth day of Tammuz, and on the eighteenth day and nineteenth day he saw the calf, broke the tablets, and halted their revelry. On the twentieth day he turned and ascended once again, as is said: And it came to pass on the morrow that Moses said unto the people: “Ye have sinned a great sin; and now I will go up unto the Lord” (ibid. 32:30). And it is written: And Moses returned unto the Lord and said: “Oh, this people have sinned a great sin” (ibid, v. 31). He remained there the ten days of the month of Tammuz and the entire month of Av, totaling another forty days. He went up on the first day of the month of Elul when He told him: Hew thee these two tablets … and be ready by the morning (ibid. 34:1–2). And he hewed … and Moses rose up early in the morning, and went up unto Mount Sinai (ibid., v. 4). He stayed there throughout the month of Elul and until the tenth day of Tishri (another ten days). On the tenth day of Tishri he descended while the Israelites were praying and fasting. On that day He said to him: I have pardoned according to thy word (Num. 14:20). Then the Holy One, blessed be He, established that day as the day of forgiveness and pardon for the future generations (Yom Kippur), as it is said: For on this day shall atonement be made for you, to cleanse you (Lev. 16:30). Thereupon He commanded Moses: Let them make Me a Sanctuary (Exod. 25:8).

Rabbi Yoḥanan said: It is due to the fact that He sent them to their mother’s house, i.e., the birthplace of the forefathers of the Jewish people, who lived in Aram-Nahara’im, which is in Babylonia. This is comparable to a man who is angry at his wife; to where does he send her? He sends her to her mother’s house.And this is expressed in the statement of Rabbi Alexandri, who said: There are three that returned to their points of origin, and these are they: The Jewish people, the money of Egypt, and the writing on the Tablets of the Covenant. The Jewish people; that which we just said, they returned to Babylonia. The money of Egypt; as it is written: “And it came to pass in the fifth year of King Rehoboam, that Shishak, king of Egypt, came up against Jerusalem; and he took away the treasures of the house of the Lord and the treasures of the king’s house; he took everything” (I Kings 14:25–26). The writing on the Tablets of the Covenant; as it is written: “And I took hold of the two tablets, and cast them out of my two hands, and broke them before your eyes” (Deuteronomy 9:17). And it was taught in the Tosefta: The tablets were broken and the letters are flying and returning to their point of origin.

And, lastly, Rabbi Eliezer said: What is the meaning of that which is written: “And the tablets were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, engraved upon the tablets” (Exodus 32:16)? This teaches that had the first tablets, the subject of this verse, not been broken, the Torah would never have been forgotten from the Jewish people, as the Torah would have been engraved upon their hearts.

"would never have been forgotten" - "Engraved" means etched in and cannot ever be erased. Through the [first] tablets, the Torah was etched to Israel to never be forgotten by them.

Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi further advised: And be careful to continue to respect an elder who has forgotten his Torah knowledge due to circumstances beyond his control. Even though he is no longer a Torah scholar, he must still be respected for the Torah that he once possessed. As we say: Both the tablets of the Covenant and the broken tablets are placed in the Ark of the Covenant in the Temple. Even though the first tablets were broken, their sanctity obligates one not to treat them with contempt. An elder who forgot the Torah knowledge he once possessed is likened to these broken tablets.

After they are smashed, the life of the Oral Torah begins. As Moses constantly warns the people, to forget the Torah is, on the one hand, the worst risk of their future history. On the other hand, unmaking what has been made may release the object to translation, to unconscious transformations, elaborating it in a world of diffuse impressions. In a word, forgetting generates interpretation. Smashing the stony writing restores it to its elements, to its godly, human potential. Unmaking things gives value to our making. Ultimately, unmaking, forgetting clears space for human creativity.

And this is the breaking of the לוחות ראשונות [first tablets], that through this, we learn Torah and forget it, because if we had merited, we would have seen everything clearly and revealed in the תורה שבכתב [Written Torah], because "there is nothing that is not רמיזא [hinted at] all that is not hinted at in the אורייתא [written Torah]" (Taanit 9a), and they didn't need the תושבע״פ [Oral Torah תורה שבעל פה] at all, and forgetting doesn't belong with explicit writing, but after the sin, with the לוחות ראשונות [second tablets], נגנז האור הגלוי [the revealed light was hidden/buried] that was in the תורה שבכתב [Written Torah] and through this came ההעלם [the invisible], and the revealing of the light is only בהעלם [in the invisible], and even though there is no clear law, in any case ״אלו ואלו דברי אלהים חיים״ ["these and these are the words of the living God"] (Eruvin 13b), and all are words of Torah.