MOSES TOLD HIS FATHER IN LAW [ABOUT] ALL THAT THE LORD HAD DONE TO PHARAOH AND TO THE EGYPTIANS ON ACCOUNT OF ISRAEL, [AND ABOUT] ALL THE HARDSHIPS THAT HAD BEFALLEN THEM ON THE WAY, AND [THAT] THE LORD HAD SAVED THEM. JETHRO WAS HAPPY ABOUT ALL THE GOOD THAT THE LORD HAD DONE FOR ISRAEL, THAT HE HAD RESCUED THEM FROM THE HANDS OF THE EGYPTIANS.

(Shemot 18:8-9)

 

Was Jethro was Sorry, did he Rejoice, was he Struck with Wonder?

Jethro was happy [vayihad] and Jethro rejoiced. This is its simple meaning. The Aggadic midrash, however, [explains that] his flesh became prickly [i.e., gooseflesh, hidudin hidudin] [because] he was upset about the destruction of the Egyptians.

(Rashi ad loc)

 

was happy [vayihad] - from the root hida, which is close to i'da = "to be decorated". Other terms for happiness - samah, sis - refer to the inner feeling, but hida seems to refer to the outward expression. This is the basis for the opinion that this expression also refers to the involuntary sorrow that the priest of Midian felt in his heart for the destruction of the Egyptians.

(Rabbi S.R. Hirsch ad loc)

 

And all the people saw the voices... and the smoking mountain

vs.

But you saw no image

Between Shemot's Ma'amad Har Sinai and Devarim's Ma'amad Har Sinai

Gili Zivan

This Shabbat we will all read the exciting description of Ma'amad Har Sinai [the theophany at Sinai] as it appears in parashat Yitro. We will smell the smoke rising from the mountain like the smoke of the kiln, we shall look heavenwards to the lightning flashes, we shall see the thick cloud upon the mountain and tremble at the very powerful blast of a shofar. Our parasha describes the theophany in all its power. Many verses describe the unique event: we read in Shemot 19:16-19:

It came to pass on the third day when it was morning, that there were thunder claps and lightning flashes, and a thick cloud was upon the mountain, and a very powerful blast of a shofar, and the entire nation that was in the camp shuddered...And the entire Mount Sinai smoked because the Lord had descended upon it in fire, and its smoke ascended like the smoke of the kiln, and the entire mountain quaked violently. The sound of the shofar grew increasingly stronger; Moses would speak and God would answer him with a voice. The Lord descended upon Mount Sinai, to the peak of the mountain, and the Lord summoned Moses to the peak of the mountain, and Moses ascended.

The event is entirely visual and sensual. All of the senses are employed, so much so that the Israelites not only hear the sounds but see them as well, as it is written: And all the people saw the voices (Shemot 20:15). Indeed, the human reaction to this unheard of outburst of nature is fear and awe: and the people saw and trembled; so they stood from afar. They said to Moses, "You speak with us, and we will hear, but let God not speak with us lest we die" (15-16).

In contrast to this description when Moses gives his speech in the steppes of Moab as recorded in parashat Va'Ethanan in the book of Devarim, he retells the story of Ma'amad Har Sinai with emphasis upon the content of the revelation and less attention to the event. Instead of saying You have seen that from the heavens I have spoken with you (Shemot 20:19), we hear Moses warn the Israelites:

The Lord spoke to you out of the midst of the fire; you heard the sound of the words, but saw no image, just a voice. And He told you His covenant, which He commanded you to do, the Ten Commandments...And the Lord commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and ordinances, so that you should do them in the land to which you are crossing, to possess. And you shall watch yourselves very well, for you did not see any image on the day that the Lord spoke to you at Horeb from the midst of the fire. (Devarim 4:12-15)

The description of Ma'amad Har Sinai is truncated in Devarim, while the event's content, i.e. the reception of the commandments, comes to the fore. It is as if Moses is telling he Israelites that without their consent Ma'amad Har Sinai is meaningless; it involves two partners: the Giver of the Torah and the Israelites who accept it upon themselves.

While the story in Shemot emphasizes the element of "the giving of the Torah" and the role of the Giver of the Torah, the story in Devarim emphasizes the element of "the reception of the Torah" and the role of human beings who receive the Torah. That is why Devarim emphasizes the idea that Ma'amad Har Sinai is a covenant, and covenants are always to be fulfilled by two parties. Devarim presents Moses' parting address to the people who are about to cross the Jordan without him. Moses is worried that there might not be anyone to protect the gift given at Sinai. It is as if Moses stands on the mountain top a moment before his departure from the world, looking for someone to whom he can pass the shining and burning ball that he holds in his hand. He seeks loyal receivers to whom he can throw the gift of Sinai. He knows that it is only with the help of these laws that the people will be able to preserve its freedom and strength, but he fears that they are unaware of this, and so he repeats his warning, he repeats it and tries to convince them:

And now, O Israel, hearken to the statutes and to the judgments which I teach you to do, in order that you may live, and go in and possess the land which the Lord, God of your forefathers, is giving you...Behold, I have taught you statutes and ordinances, as the Lord, my God, commanded me, to do so in the midst of the land to which you are coming to possess. And you shall keep [them] and do [them], for that is your wisdom and your understanding in the eyes of the peoples, who will hear all these statutes and say, "Only this great nation is a wise and understanding people...And which great nation is it that has just statutes and ordinances," as this entire Torah, which I set before you this day? But beware and watch yourself very well, lest you forget the things that your eyes saw, and lest these things depart from your heart, all the days of your life, and you shall make them known to your children and to your children's children, the day you stood before the Lord your God at Horeb, when the Lord said to me, "Assemble the people for Me, and I will let them hear My words, that they may learn to fear Me all the days." (Devarim 4:1-10)

These two fundamental pictures serve as entrees to the various opinions of the Sages and of the medieval exegetes and thinkers and up until our own day. The concept of revelation is foundational for every monotheistic religion but it contains a serious internal contradiction and many questions have been asked about it and continue to be asked about it throughout the history of philosophy. The central question that arises from the concept of revelation concerns how the transcendent (that which is inconceivable to human mind and perception) breaks through into the human world. Medieval philosophy defines God as the "Hidden Transcendent" - how can He be revealed? If medieval theologians were troubled by the issue of God's anthropomorphism, modern thinkers, with their developed appreciation of the limits of human thought ask: how can we, limited by our human minds, receive the revelation of the infinite God? Neither our practical nor our theoretical experience can give rise to the category of revelation!

Three foundational philosophical issues hide in the tension between the different emphases of Shemot and Devarim:

a) Revelation - Should it be seen as a one-time breakthrough of the transcendent God into our world, the unique instance in which God Himself sets aside the laws of nature that He created? Or should we emphasize the continuing revelation, or more precisely, the human reception of revelation which is not limited to a single event but which is, rather, the challenge posed to every Jew in every generation?

b) Event or content? What did the various thinkers choose to emphasize in their interpretations of Ma'amad Har Sinai: the experience of a unique event, or the content of the revelation? Does the event gain its power from its miraculous nature, from the way the inconceivable God broke through into the natural world, or does the revelation principally exist in the contents of the statutes and ordinances that we are to adopt?

c) Prophecy - Can the divine revelation only reach the elite? Is it dependent upon the psychological and intellectual efforts of individuals or is it experienced by the entire nation? Is it true that "Ezekiel did not see what a handmaiden saw at the sea" or is revelation the furthermost achievement of rare human efforts?

Of course, here I cannot set forth the entire discussion of this issue. I will merely offer a glimpse of what two giants of twelfth century thought had to say about it and I shall conclude with a comment about how the debate continued into the twentieth century.

Rabbi Yehudah HaLevi and the RaMBaM square off against each other on this matter. The latter emphasizes the human element of Ma'amad Har Sinai, but also attributes revelation only to those who achieve Moses' level, as he writes in the Guide of the Perplexed II:32-33:

As to the revelation on Mount Sinai, all saw the great fire, and heard the fearful thunderings, that caused such an extraordinary terror; but only those of them who were duly qualified were prophetically inspired, each one according to his capacities. Therefore it is said, Come up unto the Lord, thou and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu. Moses rose to the highest degree of prophecy, according to the words, And Moses alone shall come near the Lord. Aaron was below him, Nadab and Abihu below Aaron, and the seventy elders below Nadab and Abihu, and the rest below the latter, each one according to his degree of perfection... IT is clear to me that what Moses experienced at the revelation on Mount Sinai was different from that which was experienced by all the other Israelites, for Moses alone was addressed by God, and for this reason the second person singular is used in the Ten Commandments; Moses then went down to the foot of the mount and told his fellow-men what he had heard... and even where the hearing of the words is mentioned, only the perception of the sound is meant. It was only Moses that heard the words, and he reported them to the people... It must, however, be noticed that the people did not understand the voice in the same degree as Moses did. (Friedländer translation)

The RaMBaM views the hearing of the words as referring to intellectual understanding, and so only Moses achieved it. In absolute contrast, R. Yehudah holds that the public nature of the revelation is of its very essence. Ma'amad Har Sinai reflects God's miraculous intervention against the laws of nature. Intellectual understanding is not the essential element here. Rather, the essence is the unique event caused by God's power in which the entire nation was sanctified and achieved the level of prophecy. We read in the Kuzari:

After three days' preparation, and after the signs and wonders that preceded Ma'amad Har Sinai, that is, the sounds, the thunder and the fire surrounding the mountain, the nation was sanctified. It reached the level of prophecy, and had even prepared itself to hear God's word face-to-face. Then God had them hear in clear language the Ten Commandments, which include the foundations and roots of religion and the Torah...The fire surrounding the mountain remained visible to the eyes of the people for forty days, and they saw Moses enter it and exit it...The nation did not receive the Ten Commandments via transmission though individuals or from a prophet but rather from God Himself.

In contrast to the RaMBaM, who, as I have mentioned, emphasizes human effort and Moses' intellectual achievements, R. Yehudah HaLevi says: "The matter of prophecy is not as the philosophers describe it, that it results from purification of the soul and its cleaving to the "active intellect," which is known as the holy spirit... these speculations have been disproved by the great event at Mount Sinai." As for the question of the revelation of a God who cannot be revealed to human eyes, R. Yehudah HaLevi responds:

We do not understand how this occurrence occurred, i.e., that the Lord's spiritual word materialized and became regular speech that affected our ears, and we shall not understand how things can be created ex nihilo [such as the Tablets] and how the other forces of nature were subservient to His will, except [to say] that He is omnipotent [and can do whatever He wishes].

Putting it schematically, one might say that R. Yehudah HaLevi chose to follow the narrative of Shemot, while the RaMBaM preferred Moses' account in Devarim. Hermann Cohen would continue the debate hundreds of years later, in the early twentieth century. In his book, The Religion of Reason out of the Sources of Judaism (chapter 4, pp. 81-82 in the Kaplan translation), Cohen claims that Judaism's truth is to be found in the verses of Devarim, where Scripture "Does not rest satisfied with the warning that protects the spirituality of revelation against bodily perception. It is also not satisfied with the transfer of the historical fact close to present actuality, in order to make the active responsibility of the people all the more urgent." Rather, Devarim emphasizes that:

For this commandment, which I commanded thee this day, it is not too hard for thee, neither is it far off. It is not in heaven... (Devarim 30:11-14). Thus the teaching is no longer in heaven, and it has not come from heaven, but apparently its origin is made wholly subjective: in your heart and in your mouth. In the heart of man and in the rational speech of man "the word" is contained...It is not far from the spirit of man, but near to it. Revelation has its foundation in the heart and in the most proper power of man, which is speech. Certainly it was not the intention of these verses to contest the revelation on Sinai, but one cannot fail to see that through these verses interest is turned away from the fact that happened only once.

In a late neo-Kantian echo, Cohen continues in the path beaten by RaMBaM, emphasizing the power of human reason. However, in contrast to the RaMBaM, Cohen is not speaking here of a revelation to individuals but rather of the reason present in every human being; he is not talking about a unique event, but rather of a revelation for which we are entirely responsible, which continues as long as rational humans exist:

If man is to be God's creation and if the revelation is to be possible with regard to him, it can only be through his reason; consequently, revelation itself can only be thought of as the revelation to reason... Therefore, man is its [revelation's] precondition. Not the nation, nor even Moses, but man: man as a rational being joins the God of revelation.

Decades after Cohen wrote his Religion of Reason, Yeshayahu Leibowitz rose up to add his voice to this unfinished theological dialogue. Leibowitz distanced himself from R. Yehudah HaLevi's concentration on the uniqueness of the event, since "The faith of Israel was not founded upon God's revelation in the world. The generation which saw the Exodus from Egypt and the splitting of the Red Sea and the theophany at Sinai did not believe in the Lord (Emunah, Historiya, ve'Arakhim, pg. 144).

Like RaMBaM, he emphasized the human element, and like Cohen - the responsibility for revelation that rests upon every human being. However, in contrast to them he did not base this revelation upon human reason (from which we despaired by the second half of the 20^th century), but rather upon the human decision to serve God:

After the People Israel accepted the Torah upon themselves...the destruction [of the Second Temple and Commonwealth] did not subvert their faith at all. The terrible failure of Bar Kokhba's messianic movement did not subvert their faith, nor did everything that happened to the People Israel hundreds of years later subvert their faith. The tens of generations of Israel which clung to the worship of God and gave up their lives for it were generations to whom the Divine Presence was never revealed....A person is duty-bound to decide to unconditionally take upon himself the yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven and the yoke of the Torah and the commandments. If he is unable to undertake this decision - no outside event will cause him to do so... The meaning of Ma'amad Har Sinai is recognition of the commandment which we have been commanded. (ibid, and pg. 154).

Dr. Gili Zivan administers the Yaakov Herzog center for Jewish Studies at Kibbutz Ein Tzurim.

 

 

 

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