Yet both texts represented here do insist that the people saw something—they saw God, but what they saw cannot be described in human terms.
Sources:
Iggeret Teiman 142-143; Eliyahu Rabbah 1:6.
330. GOD OFFERS THE TORAH TO ISRAEL
Some say that from the time of Creation until Israel went out of Egypt, God went around offering the Torah to each and every nation, but they all refused to accept it. That is when God offered it to Israel.
Others say that God created the world with a stipulation: “If Israel accepts the Torah when it is offered to them, all of creation will continue to exist. Otherwise I will return the world to chaos and void.”
So when the children of Israel had gathered at Mount Sinai, And they took their places at the foot of the mountain (Exod. 19:17), God overturned the mountain like an inverted barrel, and held it above their heads and said: “If you accept the Torah, all will be well. If not, you will be buried here.”
That is when Israel declared its willingness to accept the Torah.
This midrash emphasizes the utterly essential role of Israel in God’s plan of Creation. Here God declares at the beginning of the time of Creation that it is contingent on Israel’s acceptance of the Torah. This leads to the grotesque image of God forcing Israel to accept the Torah by holding Mount Sinai over their heads. This account derives from a very literal interpretation of the verse And they took their places at the foot of the mountain (Exod. 19:17). In some versions, God first offers the Torah to every other nation, and each one turns it down. When He comes to Israel, the last nation to be asked, and holds the mountain over their heads, of course they say yes. What they actually say is “We will do and we will listen” (Exod. 24: 7). “We will do” refers to following God’s commandments, the 613 mitzvot of the Torah. “We will listen” refers to studying the Torah with great intensity. This myth, then, personifies the “yoke” of the Law: it illustrates the compelling nature of Jewish law to those who observe it. According to B. Shabbat 88a, as a reward for saying “We will do and we will listen,” 600,000 angels descended from heaven and tied two crowns, one for “do” and the other for “listen,” to the head of every Jew.
Still, some commentaries attempt to reinterpret this midrash where the mountain held over the head of the people serves as a metaphor for the revelation of God’s infinite love for them (Likutei Torah). At the same time, if God forced Israel to accept the Torah at Mount Sinai, it was indeed an agreement made under coercion, and it was not until the time of Mordecai and Esther that the Jewish people truly accepted the Torah of their own free choice: The Jews undertook and irrevocably obligated themselves and their descendants, and all who might join them, to observe these two days in the manner prescribed and at the proper time each year (Esther 9:27).
The giant Og is also said to have uprooted a mountain and held it over the heads of the Israelites (B. Ber. 54b). See “The Giant Og,” p. 461.
Hakham Yosef Hayim of Baghdad, known as Ben Ish Hai, links this midrash with the Oral Torah. In his view, the Israelites had already accepted the Written Torah when they said, We will do and we will listen (Exod. 24:7). But God had to coerce them to accept the Oral Law. That is why He held the mountain over their heads. Further, God hollowed out the mountain like a barrel to teach them that each letter of the Written Torah contains innumerable interpretations in the Oral Law, just as a barrel contains innumerable drops of wine. Thus God was demanding that their acceptance of the Written Law include their acceptance of the Oral Law. This is an interesting and original interpretation of this bizarre midrash about God offering the Torah to Israel.
The continued existence of the world was dependent on Israel’s acceptance of the Torah. God said, “If Israel accepts the Torah, the world will continue to exist. But if not, I will reduce the world to a state of chaos” (B. Avodah Zarah 3a). According to this myth, not only the continued existence of Israel was at stake, but the continued existence of the world. Nor, according to Rabbi Hayim of Volozhin, must the study of the Torah around the globe ever cease, even for a split second. If this should happen, all the worlds above and below would revert to nothingness (Nefesh ha-Hayim 4:1).
Sources:
B. Shabbat 88a; B. Pesahim 68b; B. Avodah Zarah 2b; Exodus Rabbah 28; Midrash Tanhuma-Yelammedenu, Bereshit 1; Midrash Tanhuma-Yelammedenu, Yitro 14; Eliyahu Zuta 11:192; Zohar 3:7a;Nefesh ha-Hayim 4:1; Likutei Torah, Re’eh 22a;Otzrot Hayim; IFA 8415.
331. GOD TEARS APART SEVEN FIRMAMENTS
During the revelation of the Torah, as all Israel watched, God tore apart seven firmaments, one after the other, to show the people that there is no other God beside Him.
At the end of the Yom Kippur service, the Shema is read, and the phrase, “The Lord is God” is repeated seven times. The explanation for this repetition is that God tore apart seven firmaments to demonstrate to Israel that there were no other gods. God is said to dwell above the seven firmaments.
An alternate explanation is that those who prayed in the presence of the Shekhinah are reluctant to let Her go, and they accompany Her through the seven firmaments. See “The Closing of the Gates,” p. 297.
Sources:
Mateh Moshe.
332. THE PRIMORDIAL TORAH
The primordial Torah was written with black fire on white fire. It was fire mixed with fire, cut from fire, given from fire. God peered into the fiery letters of that Torah and created the world.
At last the time came for the Torah to be given to Moses at Mount Sinai. From the top of the mountain, Moses peered into the heavens, and there he had a vision in which he saw the letters burning in black fire on white. The first letters to take form were those of God’s Name, YHVH. Then the rest of the alphabet emerged. The letters danced, joining into hundreds of permutations of the names of God. Then the letters formed themselves into one long Name. This Name was none other than the letters of the Torah, for the entire Torah is a single, holy, mystical Name.
There Moses read the Torah for the first time, and as he read each word, he heard the voice of God speaking it. Later Moses wrote everything down, exactly as he had heard it, and that is how the primordial Torah was transmitted to Israel.
The primordial Torah is known as Torah Kedumah. This primordial Torah was one of the seven things created before the creation of the world. The image of the Torah being written in black fire on white, found in the Talmud and recurring in the Zohar, serves as an archetype for the primordial Torah. The notion of God looking into the Torah to create the world is found in Genesis Rabbah 1:1: “Thus God consulted the Torah and created the world.” Here God is portrayed as an architect and the Torah a blueprint in the creation of the world. See “Seven Things Created before the Creation of the World,” p. 74. The way the letters of the alphabet emerge and combine has an uncanny resemblance to the combining and recombining of strings of DNA.
Sources:
Genesis Rabbah 1:1; Zohar 1:134a, 1:261a, 3:36a; Ta’amei ha-Mitzvot 3a; Y. Shekalim 6:1; Perush Ramban al ha-Torah pp. 6-7; Maggid Devarav le-Ya’akov 50; Sefer Ba’al Shem Tov, Bereshit 8.
333. THE FIRST TABLETS
The first stone tablets of the Law were created by God Himself on the eve of the first Sabbath. All of the heavenly angels gathered together to see how the tablets were written with the finger of God (Exod. 31:18) with black fire on white fire. As a result, the letters were visible through either side, for God had made them that way. The entire Torah was contained on those tablets. Some say that the first tablets were hewn from the foundation stone at the center of the world, while others say that they were made of sapphire taken from beneath the Throne of Glory.
In origin, the first tablets were completely spiritual. How, then, was it possible for God to give them to Moses? Some say that at the instant the tablets were given to Moses by the hand of God, they assumed material form, and became stone tablets. Others say that they were made in the primordial light at the time of Creation, and descended from heaven in two stone tablet
s.
Satan employed all his wiles to prevent Israel from receiving the first tablets from Moses. Had Israel received them, death would have disappeared forever, as would Satan’s power over the people. To make them lose hope, Satan showed the people the bier of Moses suspended in the air, and they saw themselves as Moses’ pallbearers. This led to the creation of the golden calf.
The tablets that Moses went to heaven to receive had been written on the sixth day of Creation and had been waiting for him ever since. Before Moses, Enoch had ascended on high and had read everything written on the heavenly tablets, all the deeds of mankind to the remotest generations.
When Moses descended from Mount Sinai and discovered the tribes of Israel worshipping the golden calf, he cast down the tablets of the Law and broke them at the foot of the mountain. This caused all the grief that Israel has experienced ever since, including the experience of death itself. For had the first tablets survived, every sorrow and calamity would have disappeared from the earth, and the world would have experienced freedom from the Angel of Death. It was God’s intention for the Jewish people to attain freedom from death because of their acceptance of the Torah. But as a result of their idolatry, God decided that the people would remain mortal. So too would the second set of commandments differ from the first, for a set of laws designed for immortal people was no longer appropriate for them.
How did the two sets of tablets differ? God inscribed the first set of tablets, Moses the second. No one knows what was written on the first tablets, but it is said that if the first tablets had not been broken, Jews would never have forgotten any Torah they had learned. Some say that all the commandments on the first set were positive, while more than half of those of the second set are negative. For God saw that people could not be trusted to follow positive commandments, and therefore He put in the negative ones. Also, great secrets were revealed to Israel when the first tablets were given. But after the sin of the golden calf, Israel was no longer worthy of knowing those secrets. Therefore, they were forced to forget them.
There are those who say that the first tablets were not engraved, but the letters fluttered on them in black fire superimposed on white fire. So that the instant Moses threw down the tablets, the letters took flight before the tablets broke against the ground. Others say that the letters took flight as Moses approached the border of the camp, where the golden calf was being worshipped, a place of defilement and transgression. Thus the letters took flight even before Moses cast down the tablets.
Why, then, did Moses smash the tablets? Some say that he smashed them out of anger at the sight of idolatry. Others say Moses did not shatter the tablets on his own, but only at God’s command. Still others say that the letters suddenly took flight, and as soon as they did, the tablets became far too heavy for Moses to carry, and they fell from his arms and shattered.
The idea of writings that exist in heaven is found among the ancient peoples of the Mideast. The belief in tablets of fate, inscribed in heaven, is of Babylonian origin. In the Jewish view, God was not only the author of the Torah, but inscribed the first tablets Himself, in black fire on white fire, using His finger. There is a similar Islamic belief about a heavenly Koran that is the model for the earthly one.
One tradition holds that the Torah, engraved in its entirety on these tablets, was created before the creation of the world. The existence of tablets of heaven is reported in 1 Enoch, when the angel Uriel says to Enoch: “Enoch, look at the tablets of heaven; read what is written upon them . . . So I looked at the tablets of heaven, read all the writings on them, and came to understand everything.” In Hekhalot Rabbati 6:3, all the trials foreordained for Israel are said to be recorded on heavenly tablets. Fragment B of the Prayer of Joseph states that “I have read in the tablets of heaven all that shall befall you and your sons.” In 3 Enoch 41, the angel Metatron shows Rabbi Ishmael “the letters by which heaven and earth were created … engraved with a pen of flame upon the Throne of Glory.” In The Book of Jubilees Jacob is said to have seen an angel descending from heaven with seven tablets in his hand, and he gives them to Jacob, who read what was written there, and learned what would happen to him and his sons. The Book of Jubilees also recounts that Enoch gave these heavenly tablets to his descendants.
Deuteronomy Rabbah states that the first tablets were the work of God, while the second set were hewn by Moses, made at God’s command (Exod. 34:1). But were the first tablets identical to the second? Most commentators conclude that they were not. The Talmud, in B. Shabbat 146a, asserts that the residual pollutant of the original serpent had been expunged from the people, and that God intended to remove death. Thus the commandments of the first tablets were for immortals, not for mortals. But when the people turned to idolatry, they lost the gift of immortality. Thus the commandments of the second tablets were, by necessity, different.
Considering the consequences of smashing the tablets, why did Moses do it? Rabbi Hayim ben Attar suggests that he was convinced that by the destruction he would perform something infinitely more useful than that which he destroyed. Avot de-Rabbi Natan states that Moses did not shatter the tablets until told to do so by God.
Concerning the rays of light that shone from the face of Moses when he descended Mount Sinai, see “The Divine Radiance,” p. 389.
Sources:
Mishnah Avot 5:6; B. Shabbat 146; B. Eruvin 54a; B. Ta’anit 28; Deuteronomy Rabbah 15:17; Exodus Rabbah 46:1; Song of Songs Rabbah 5:15; Avot de-Rabbi Natan 2; The Book of Jubilees 32:21;1 Enoch 81:1-2; 3 Enoch 41; Hekhalot Rabbati 6:3;Prayer of Joseph, Fragment B; Zohar 1:131b; Rashi on Exodus 32:19; Or ha-Hayim on Exodus 32:19; Nachmanides on Exodus 32:16; Ibn Ezra on Exodus 32:15; Rabbi Moshe Alshekh on Exodus 31:18; Likutei Moharan 1:60; Memar Markah 6:3 (Samaritan).
Studies:
Torah min ha-Shamayim b’Aspaklarya shel ha-Dorot by Abraham Joshua Heschel 2:24-26. The Written and Oral Torah: A Comprehensive Introduction by Nathan T. Lopes. The Commentators’ Gift of Torah: Exploring the Treasures of the Oral and Written Torah by Yitzchak Sender.
334. THE SECOND TABLETS
The Lord said to Moses: “Carve two tablets of stone like the first, and I will inscribe upon the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you shattered. Be ready by morning, and in the morning come up to Mount Sinai and present yourself there to Me, on the top of the mountain. No one else shall come up with you, and no one else shall be seen anywhere on the mountain; neither shall the flocks and the herds graze at the foot of this mountain.” So Moses carved two tablets of stone, like the first, and early in the morning he went up on Mount Sinai, as the Lord had commanded him, taking the two stone tablets with him. The Lord came down in a cloud; He stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord. The Lord passed before him and proclaimed: “The Lord! The Lord! A God compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in kindness and faithfulness, extending kindness to the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin; yet He does not remit all punishment, but visits the iniquity of parents upon children and children’s children, upon the third and fourth generations.”
Moses hastened to bow low to the ground in homage, and said, “If I have gained Your favor, O Lord, pray, let the Lord go in our midst, even though this is a stiff-necked people. Pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for Your own!”
God said: “I hereby make a covenant. Before all your people I will work such wonders as have not been wrought on all the earth or in any nation; and all the people who are with you shall see how awe-inspiring are the Lord’s deeds which I will perform for you.”
On descending Mount Sinai after receiving the Torah, Moses saw the people of Israel worshipping a golden calf and in his anger and disgust smashed the tablets on which the Torah was inscribed. Here God directs Moses to carve a second set of tablets. Since there were two sets, rabbinic texts wondered greatly whether the first revelation at Sinai different from the second, and many myths hold that there were considerable differen
ces between them. See “The First Tablets,” p. 266.
Sources:
Exodus 34:1-10
335. THE FIRST TORAH
God told the Prince of the Presence, “Write for Moses from the beginning of Creation until My sanctuary has been built for all eternity. Then everyone will know that I am the Lord of Israel and the Father of all the children of Jacob and King upon Mount Zion for all eternity.”
This striking myth from The Book of Jubilees runs contrary to the general belief that God dictated the Torah to Moses on Mount Sinai, and that Moses wrote it down. Here God commands the angel of the Presence (who is referred to in later sources as Metatron) to write down the history of the world from the beginning to the End of Days. The reference to God’s sanctuary being built for eternity may refer to the Temple in Jerusalem, which was to be rebuilt in the time of the Messiah. Or it could refer to the myth that the heavenly Temple will descend to earth in the messianic era. Since the Torah does not end with a vision of the coming of the Messiah, the myth in Jubilees makes another substantial change in the biblical narrative. Here Moses has all past and future history revealed to him much as does Adam when he reads The Book of Raziel, and his experience on Mount Sinai becomes more of a vision and less of a 40 days and nights dictation from God.
This myth also suggests the tradition that Moses received the Torah through the angels. Thus the angel serves as the intermediary in bringing the Torah to mankind, much as the angel Raziel delivers The Book of Raziel to Adam. See “The Book of Raziel,” p. 253. The theme of angels as intermediaries is found in Zechariah, who receives all his communications through angels, as well as in Daniel.
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