Tikvah
Editors’ Pick

June 4, 2025

The Tablets of the Law in Jewish Art

A common motif perhaps borrowed from Christian iconography.

On Monday morning, synagogues read the passage from Exodus containing the Ten Commandments and telling the story of the revelation in which Moses received them. The two tablets on which they were inscribed are a commonplace of Jewish religious art. Dan Rabinowitz dives into the history of these representations, and the different traditions of what these tablets looked like:

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