(17) Thereupon I gripped the two tablets and flung them away with both my hands, smashing them before your eyes.

The Gemara answers: Rabbi Yosei could have said to you: Moses added one day to the number of days that God commanded based on his own perception, as it was taught in a baraita: Moses did three things based on his own perception, and the Holy One, Blessed be He, agreed with him. He added one day to the days of separation before the revelation at Sinai based on his own perception. And he totally separated from his wife after the revelation at Sinai. And he broke the tablets following the sin of the Golden Calf.

The Gemara asks: What is the strength of that other positive mitzva over this positive mitzva of sending away the mother bird? Why might the former override the latter? The Gemara responds: It might enter your mind to say that since the Master said: Great is peace between a man and his wife, as the Torah said that the name of the Holy One, Blessed be He, which is written in sanctity, shall be erased on the waters as part of the ritual of a woman suspected by her husband of adultery (see Numbers 5:23) in order to clear her from suspicion and restore peace between her and her husband, therefore, perhaps the halakha should be more lenient with regard to the leper.

The Gemara asks: And according to Rabbi Meir, where were the silver columns placed? The Gemara answers: Outside the Ark. The Gemara further asks: And from where does Rabbi Meir derive that the broken pieces of the first set of tablets were placed in the Ark, as the verse from which Rabbi Yehuda learns this: “There was nothing in the Ark except” (I Kings 8:9), is needed by Rabbi Meir to teach that the Torah scroll was placed there? The Gemara answers: He derives this point from what Rav Huna expounded, as Rav Huna says: What is the meaning of that which is written: “The Ark of God, whereupon is called the Name, the name of the Lord of hosts that sits upon the cherubs” (II Samuel 6:2)? The phrase “the name, the name of the Lord” teaches that both the second tablets and the broken pieces of the first set of tablets were placed in the Ark.