Reading the Ten Commandments horizontally

When Rav Yitzchak Hutner (author of the Pachad Yitzchak) was learning in Slobodka Yeshiva in the early 1900s, one of the students went from Slobodka to Berlin to be with Rav Dovid Tzvi Hoffman. When he returned to Slobodka, the Alter of Slobodka (the head of the Slobodka yeshiva) asked for student’s impressions of the German people.

Among other things, the student shared that the Germans were a kind people with a polite way of speaking. As an example, when giving directions, a German, after imparting the instructions, would politely ask “nicht wahr?” (is this not so?). This showed refinement.

At that point a debate broke out between the students of the yeshiva. Was it right to praise the Germans? Some suggested true and lasting ethics should be culled from our own sources. But there was one student who persisted and suggested that ethical standards and admirable forms of behavior could be learned from the Germans and even praised. “Nicht wahr?” is a sign of politeness and thoughtfulness; it showed modesty and was admirable — why not learn it from the Germans?

Fifty years later, Rav Hutner was giving a class in the Chaim Berlin Yeshiva in New York. A Jew walked in and said, “Do you remember me? I was that student in Slobodka that complimented the custom of the Germans and insisted that their way of speaking showed how gentle and fine a people they were.” Rav Hutner, indicating that he did remember this student, extended his hand to greet him. The Jew stuck out his hand and Rav Hutner saw there was a hook in place of a hand. He had lost his hand in the concentration camps.

He told Rav Hutner, “When the German cut off my hand in the concentration camp, do you know what he said?” The German said, “It hurts — nicht wahr?”

“You, Rav Hutner were right, and I was wrong.”

This week, in his final soliloquy to the Jewish people, Moshe repeats for them the Ten Commandments given at Sinai some 40 years earlier. The Torah reminds us that these Ten Commandments were engraved and given on two tablets (Devarim 5:19). Why they were not simply engraved on one larger tablet, or in smaller letters?