Sources:
The Book of Jubilees 1:27, 2:1.
336. HOW THE TEN COMMANDMENTS WERE GIVEN
The first word that went forth from the mouth of God was like shooting stars and lightning and fiery torches, a torch to the right and a torch to the left. It flew and winged swiftly through the heavens and came back. All Israel saw it and was filled with fear. And it came back and hovered over the camps of Israel, and returning, it became engraved on the tablets of the covenant and all Israel beheld it. Then it cried out, “I Yahweh am your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, the house of bondage” (Exod. 20:2).
Each and every subsequent word that came forth from God’s mouth was like the first, shooting stars and fiery torches winging swiftly through the air, as each one of the Ten Commandments was given.
This is an elaborate description of the effects of God pronouncing the Ten Commandments. All of Israel witnessed a single word that appears like a shooting star and hovers over the people like a flying saucer, and then returns to be graven in the tablets of the Law. This underscores the centrality and importance of the Ten Commandments, and emphasizes the world-shaking nature of the event of their being given.
Sources:
Targum Neophyti on Exodus 20:1.
337. THE ORDER OF THE TORAH
The order of the Torah as we know it is not correct. For if the sections of the Torah had been given in the correct order, the precise reward and punishment for each commandment would be known. Further, anyone who read them would have unlimited powers. They would be able to wake the dead and perform miracles. That is why the true order and arrangement of the Torah was hidden and is known only to God.
This rabbinic myth seems to foreshadow the concept of practical kabbalah, where knowledge of the mysteries was used to accomplish specific magical purposes, such as raising the dead or ascending on high. It is here that kabbalah and magic combine into one pursuit. The implication is that the order of the separate portions of the Torah itself was a powerful mystery, which is so secret that only God knows it. Here no other, angel or human, is said to share this secret, not even Moses, to whom the Torah was dictated by God. For if these sections were arranged in the true order, they would endow the possessor of this secret with unlimited, divine powers. Another parallel interpretation suggests that the words and letters of the Torah spell out the secret Name of God, which, if it were known, would convey divine power to whoever knew how to pronounce it.
Sources:
Midrash Tehillim; Sihot ha-Ran 112.
338. GOD ABROGATES THE FIRST DECREE
When God created the world, He first decreed, “The heavens belong to Yahweh, but the earth He gave over to man” (Ps. 115:16). But when God decided to give the Torah, He abrogated the first decree and declared: “Let the earthly beings ascend on high, and the heavenly creatures descend below” as it is said, Yahweh came down upon Mount Sinai (Exod. 19:20), and it is also written, Then He said to Moses: Come up to the Lord (Exod. 24:1).
Based on this midrash, it would appear that not all of God’s decrees are immutable. This myth describes how at the beginning of time God and His heavenly retinue were entirely separated from the earthly realm by God’s decree. But the Giving of the Torah was such a cosmic event that it overcame the separation between the heavenly and the earthly realms. Henceforth, God and the angels descended to earth, while earthly beings, such as Moses, were able to ascend to heaven. See “The Ascent of Moses,” p. 261.
Sources:
Midrash Tanhuma-Yelammedenu, va-Yera 15
339. THE GIVING OF THE TORAH
God originally planned to give the Torah after a thousand generations. Later He saw that the world could not exist that long without the Torah. Therefore He gave the Torah to the twenty-sixth generation.
Before God gave the Torah, He repeated it to Himself four times. When God gave the Torah, no bird chirped or flew, no cattle lowed, the angels did not take wing, the sea did not move, no person spoke. The entire world remained silent and listened as God’s voice proclaimed, I Yahweh am your God (Exod. 20:2). The sound of God’s voice went forth from one end of the world to the other. All the pagan kings were seized with trembling in their palaces.
Here God’s giving of the Torah is described as an event that took place long before God intended it, as the need for the Torah was too great to wait a thousand generations, as God originally planned. The actual giving of the Torah is described almost as a presentation, in which God prepared himself by repeating it to Himself four times. These elements portray God as very humanlike, first changing his mind about when to give the Torah and then rehearsing the presentation as a human would. And during the actual giving of the Torah, God had a rapt audience, as the whole world remained silent and listened to God’s voice.
While the biblical account of the giving of the Torah makes it quite explicit that it was direct communication from God to Moses, The Book of Jubilees 1:27-28 has God direct the Angel of the Presence—who is elsewhere identified as Metatron—to serve as an intermediary, telling the angel to “Write for Moses from the first of creation until My sanctuary is built in their midst.”
Sources:
B. Zevahim 116a; B. Betzah 25b; B. Hagigah 14a; Exodus Rabbah 40:1.
Studies:
Present at Sinai: The Giving of the Law, edited by S. Y. Agnon.
340. MOSES BEFORE THE THRONE OF GLORY
When Moses ascended Mount Sinai to receive the Torah, he did not stop at the top of the mountain, but God sent down a cloud, which Moses entered, and the cloud carried him aloft, all the way into heaven. As he was ascending into Paradise, the angels saw him entering their realm, where none of the living were permitted, and they sought to throw him out. Moses became very frightened and called out to God, for he was afraid that the angels would consume him with their fiery breath. And God reached down and pulled Moses all the way up to the highest heaven, to the Throne of Glory. There Moses found himself face to face with God, and he saw that God was affixing crowns to the letters of the Torah. And Moses said to God, “What are You doing?” And God replied, I am adding these crowns to the letters of the Torah, for in the future there will be a man born whose name will be Akiba ben Joseph, full of the spirit of knowledge, wisdom, and understanding, and he will interpret every crown and letter of the Torah.” Moses said, “I would like to see him.” And God, for whom nothing is impossible, said, “Turn around.” So Moses turned around, and he found himself more than a thousand years in the future, seated in the eighth row of Rabbi Akiba’s classroom, and Rabbi Akiba was explaining a point of the Law. Moses listened carefully, but he could not understand what he heard. Finally, a student raised his hand and said, “Rabbi Akiba, where do we know this from?” And Rabbi Akiba said, “We know this from Moses at Mount Sinai.”
Here Moses is sent by God to sit in the classroom of Rabbi Akiba. The fact that Akiba lived over a thousand years after Moses presents no problems in the Aggadah, where time is subordinate to the will of God. Moses finds Akiba’s teachings difficult to follow and is doubtless astonished when Akiba quotes Moses himself as the source of his teaching. It seems likely that in this legend we find a kind of secret confession of the rabbis, acknowledging that the later generations had so transformed the meaning of the Torah that Moses must turn to his successor, Rabbi Akiba, for a complete understanding of the law that he himself transmitted.
Indeed, there is a related rabbinic tradition that while Moses did receive all of the Oral Law at Mount Sinai, including all future interpretations of the Torah, he did not write all of it down, but left some of it to be discovered by the future generations. This seems like an acknowledgment that the very essence of the rabbinic commentary on the Torah required a creative process of discovery.
Sources:
B. Menahot 29b; B. Shabbat 88b-89a; Exodus Rabbah 40; Leviticus Rabbah 26.
341. GOD TEACHES TORAH IN THE WORLD TO COME
God said to Abraham: “You taught your sons Torah in this world,
but in the World to Come I Myself will teach Torah to all of Israel, and they will not forget it, for I will write it in their hearts. Then all of Israel will become prophets, as it is said, ‘After that, I will pour out my spirit on all flesh; your sons and daughters shall prophesy; your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions’” (Joel 3:1).
This tradition of God teaching Torah in the World to Come to the souls of the righteous is based on an interpretation of And all your children shall be disciples of the Lord, and great shall be the happiness of your children (Isa. 54:13). It is also based on Jeremiah 31:32: “After those days,” said Yahweh, “I will put my Torah in their inward parts and write it in their hearts.” Here “after those days” is understood to mean after this lifetime, in the time of the World to Come, as does “afterward” in the verse from Joel 3:1. See “The Celestial Academy,” p. 193.
Sources:
Genesis Rabbah 49:2; Midrash Tanhuma, va-Yigash 12; Midrash Tanhuma, Yitro 13; Numbers Rabbah 17:6; Zohar Hadash 36b.
342. MOSES QUESTIONS GOD
God dictated the Torah to Moses at Mount Sinai, and Moses transcribed the Torah exactly as he heard it from God. But when God dictated the words, “Let us make man in our image” (Gen. 1:26), Moses paused and inquired of God, “Master of the Universe, how is it that You are providing an opening for heretics? I am bewildered about this.”
God replied, “Write as I instruct you, and whoever wishes to err may err.”
This midrash reflects the rabbinic discomfort with the “us” in, “Let us make man,” which they regarded as an opening to heretics. So here they project their concern by putting it in the mouth of Moses. God’s reply is that Moses simply serves as His scribe and must write down what He tells him.
The difficulties presented by this passage are addressed directly in B. Sanhedrin 38b: “In all the passages which the heretics have taken as proofs, their refutation is near at hand. Thus: ‘Let us make man in our image’ is refuted by And God created man in His image (Gen. 1:27), and ‘Let us, then, go down and confound their speech there’ (Gen. 11:7) is refuted by, And the Lord came down” (Gen. 11:7).
Sources:
Genesis Rabbah 8:8.
Studies:
“Not by Means of an Angel and not by Means of a Messenger” by Judah Goldin.
343. THE ARK OF THE COVENANT
As long as the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord traveled in front of them (Num. 10:33), the way was made easy for the children of Israel, for the Ark lifted up every valley and sank down every mountain, so that they might go on their way.
Just as Miriam’s Well accompanied the Israelites wherever they went in the wilderness, so that they always had fresh water, so too was the Ark of the Covenant said to have raised up every valley and lowered every mountain, making it easier for them to proceed. See “Miriam’s Well,” p. 387.
Sources:
B. Berakhot 54b;Yalkut Shim’oni.
344. THE CHANGING TORAH
The sages say that in the future God will give a new Torah. If God wants to change the Torah or exchange it for another, to descend once more on Mount Sinai or another mighty mountain, and to appear a second time before the eyes of all the living—we must do His will, whatever His bidding.
Maimonides insisted that the entire Torah was unchanging. That meant, for example, that the claims of Christianity and Islam that they offered new divine revelations were inevitably false. Here, however, Rabbi Jacob Emden (1697-1776) offers the possibility that God could provide a new revelation, different from the first at Sinai, and if so it would be the duty of the people of Israel to do God’s bidding, no matter what it was. At the same time, Emden is making it clear that it would have to be a major revelation, as great as that at Sinai, in order to be recognized as replacing the old Torah. Emden was the archenemy of the Shabbatian messianic movement, and there is an element of irony in this explanation, implying that it is unlikely that such a major new revelation would ever occur; certainly not in the case of Shabbatai Zevi, who later proved himself to be a false Messiah.
That rabbinic interpretations of the Torah had changed it in a substantial way is reflected in a dream of Rabbi Yitzhak Eizik Safrin of Komarno (1806-1874) found in his dream book, Megillat Setarim. In a dream from 1847, Rabbi Safrin writes, “I dreamed I saw a Torah scroll, and between every verse were written great and exalted secrets. I stood there with my teacher and master, my uncle Tzvi. He showed me this scroll and told me that this was my scroll that I had written with my teachings and new interpretations.”
For more on the rabbinic tradition that God would provide a new Torah, see “A New Torah,” p. 522.
Sources:
Migdal Oz.
345. THE FLYING LETTERS
Before the world was created, the letters of the alphabet flew around without order, and nothing existed except chaos. To bring order out of chaos, God arranged the letters of the alphabet, beginning with aleph. Then God chose bet, the second letter, to begin the Torah and brought the Torah into being. After that, each of the letters took its place in the Torah. There are said to be 600,000 letters, the same number as the Israelites assembled at Mount Sinai to receive the Torah.
The Torah tells how the first tablets were engraved with God’s finger. When Moses saw the golden calf, He hurled the tablets from his hands and shattered them at the foot of the mountain (Exod. 32:19). It is said of the letters inscribed on those tablets that they took flight and ascended on high. Ever since, the letters of the Torah have taken flight in times of danger.
The Talmud tells of Rabbi Haninah ben Teradion, who was wrapped in the scroll of the Torah and set on fire, for daring to study the Torah in public in Rome, when it was forbidden. His disciples called out, “Rabbi what do you see?” Rabbi Haninah answered, “The parchment is burning, but the letters are soaring on high.”
The Zohar tells that not long after the death of Shimon bar Yohai, Rabbi Judah fell asleep beneath a tree, and in a dream he saw Rabbi Shimon ascending on high, bearing a scroll of the Torah in his arms. Behind him flew a flock in formation. Then Rabbi Judah looked closer and saw that it was not a flock of birds but a flock of flying letters that followed Rabbi Shimon. At first, Rabbi Judah was mystified. Then he suddenly understood that what he was seeing was a book of flying letters that Rabbi Shimon was taking up with him. And in the dream, Rabbi Judah watched them ascend until they disappeared. When Rabbi Judah awoke and remembered this dream, he knew that when Rabbi Shimon had died, the world had lost the precious store of his wisdom. For now that book of celestial mysteries had returned to its place on high.
The motif of flying letters is found in many variations in Jewish lore. The earliest examples of this theme are found in rabbinic lore concerning the Tablets of the Law shattered by Moses in Exodus 32:19. The myth explains that before the tablets struck the ground, the letters ascended on high (Avot de-Rabbi Natan 2:11).
The other famous tale about flying letters concerns the execution of Haninah ben Teradion, who was wrapped in the scroll of the Torah. When asked what he saw as the flames burned, he replied: “The parchments are being burnt but the letters are soaring on high” (B. A. Z. 18a).
The Zohar recounts a tale about a book of flying letters. It emphasizes how much the world lost at the time of the death of Shimon bar Yohai. Here Rabbi Judah has a dream in which he sees Bar Yohai ascending on high, followed by a flock of flying letters. These are the letters of the book of his wisdom, which has been lost due to his death. Rabbinic lore often recounts remarkable events that are said to have taken place when important rabbis have died.
Sources:
B. Avodah Zarah 18a; Avot de-Rabbi Natan 2; Targum Pseudo-Yonathan on Exodus 32:19; Zohar 1:216b-217a; Pseudo-Philo, Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum 12:5.
346. GOD’S SIGNATURE
After Israel built the golden calf and Moses had broken the tablets of the Law, Moses spoke to God and said: “Did You not bring them out of Egypt, out of the House of Idolatry?”
> God answered, “Do you want Me to become reconciled with them? Then bring new tablets and I will append My signature to them.”
God’s signature, in the context of this midrash, refers to the rewriting of the second tablets. According to tradition, the first tablets of the Law were written by the finger of God, but the second were written by Moses. In this myth, God offers to add His signature to the second tablets, to make them official, as with the signing of a contract.
Psalms 119:60 states that “The beginning of Your word is Truth,” and according to B. Shabbat 55a, “Truth is the signature of God.” Drawing on this interpretation, Rabbi Yosef Hayim of Baghdad (1834-1909), known as Ben Ish Hai, states in Ben Yehoyada that God’s signature is actually imprinted in the Torah, since the last letters of the first three words of the Torah spell emet, “truth.”
Sources:
Deuteronomy Rabbah 15:17; B. Shabbat 55a; Ben Yehoyada.
347. THE CROWNS OF ISRAEL
Six hundred thousand gathered at Mount Sinai to receive the Torah. When God asked them if they were ready to receive the Torah, they replied, “We will do and we will listen” (Exod. 24:7). And when they gave preference to “we will do” over “we will listen,” a heavenly voice went forth and said: “Who has revealed this secret to my children, which is known by the angels, to do and then to listen?” Just then six hundred thousand ministering angels came down from on high and set two crowns upon each Israelite, one as a reward for “we will do” and one for “we will listen.”
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