Transcript: Exodus Chapter 20 – The Aseret HaDibrot and Divine Communication at Sinai

Structure of Chapter 20

Sefer Shemot is chapter 20. This chapter has two main parts. One is the Aseret HaDibrot, a very famous part. And the second one is another statement, another dibur that Hashem says to the people in the same situation, from the mountain or after the mountain or after the Aseret HaDibrot.

As we’ve discussed yesterday, it’s not entirely clear how to read the narrative of all these stories together, right? We had the narrative of Hashem proposing a bris with the people before. Then we had the whole narrative of Mitzvah Tagbalav, how he told them to create the boundaries, the borders around the mountain, and several warnings on it. Part of that story was how there was this great, the lights and sounds that there were in Har Sinai, but there isn’t anything more.

Now, what we have in this chapter is a statement, a very famous statement, and a sort of different style. It’s not in a poetic style like the previous statements that we had. It’s in a very plain, you can say, legal style. Includes these ten things. It doesn’t say the number ten here, of course, if you count. There’s different ways of counting, but something like ten things.

And then there’s the post-statements, the statements after that Aseret HaDibrot, which go back to referring to the kolot and the lapidim, to the sights and the sounds, and the fear that the people had from being around the mountain, and who’s shuddering and their shudders and so on. So that connects directly to it. And then there’s one more statement. And the third statement is where Hashem speaks to Moshe and tells him explicitly to go to the people and tell them a certain mitzvah.

So those are the main parts of this story.

The Narrative Sequence and Direct Divine Speech

It seems like the way most people read it is that somewhere in between Moshe going and warning the people, at some point God spoke these people, and it seems like at least part of it, at least the first, what’s known as the first two Dibrot, or maybe the first statement is directed, the first person direct to the peoples, maybe he spoke it directly to them, as we’ll discuss in a minute. And then the rest of them are spoken to them in third person, spoken about God in third person. It might have been spoken by Moshe, it might have been also spoken by Hashem, who just speaks about himself in third person, as he does sometimes.

And then we go back to the story, and this is like the response. So in other words, one way of understanding this is that there’s the appearance of God descending in Har Sinai, descends with the audio-visual presentation that he does, and then as part of the audio-visual presentation, he also gives words. And the words that he gives are themselves part of the presentation, part of his appearance, and they’re afraid both of that and seemingly also of the words, although it doesn’t say anything about the words.

Later it does say that they ask Moshe not to speak with them, that Hashem shouldn’t speak with them, only Moshe should speak with them, so we can interpret it as something like they saw Hashem speaking and they were afraid of that and asked it shouldn’t happen more, which is how it seems to be presented in Parshat Vaetchanan. And then therefore we have the response which is Hashem speaking to Moshe, explicitly telling him to speak to them and not speaking to them directly.

But that’s only one way of organizing the narrative, there are other ways. And now we’re going to go and talk about each part separately.

The Opening Statement: Anochi Hashem

So the first statement in the part of Aseret HaDibrot is a sort of the narrative statement. You notice the play between Elokim and Hashem all this time. Which is God, the God that’s here speaks all of this. Of course you can’t say Elokim, it makes a lot more sense to say Hashem, so the Elokim, which is like a God which doesn’t have a name speaks, and then he presents himself, he identifies himself by saying who he is, that he is Hashem. So that makes sense.

Alternative Counting of the Dibrot

And what he says like this, now, there’s famously ten Dibrot, there’s famously also different ways of splitting them up. The way I follow, and the way I follow in my Chumash, is the way that the Parsha split them up. It’s different than the way it’s usually counted, but it also very much conforms to the split up of the words themselves.

In other words, if you read the actual text, you see that it has ten beginnings, but they are not the ten that you probably know, which counts Anochi as one and Lo yihyeh lecha as two. There’s some sort of textual basis for doing that, because many of the Dibrot start with a lo, don’t do this, don’t do that. But if you actually read the sentence, you’ll see that Anochi and Lo yihyeh lecha are probably best read as one long thing, it’s a presentation of himself, and therefore don’t do that, and it goes back to Ki Anochi in the end of it.

So it’s one long sentence, and then the rest of them, there’s another nine after that, because if you go to Lo tirtzach, you see it’s two Lo tirtzachs, so we count both separately. This is how the Parshiot separated them, and this is also, I think, how the text himself tells us to separate it. So I’m going to read it in this way.

The First Dibur: Self-Identification and Prohibition of Other Gods

So the first statement is a self-identification. We saw it, we discussed Yisrael himself does this, Pharaoh does this. It’s a normal way of people either even having like a formal visit or any formal deal you say I am such and such and by me being such and such or like I’m the king and by the power of me being the king I command such and such. In the same way when Hashem appears and if you want to read this as a kind of contract, the kind of deal that he’s making, then he say I am such and such and I’ve done such and such and therefore I have the right to ask of you such and such and I will give you such and such if you listen to me and so on.

So it starts by this identification: I am Hashem Elokecha. So it has a proper name. That’s who I am. And what have I done? I have taken you out of Egypt.

So that is, I think many people read this as, therefore you owe me something. I don’t think it necessarily means to me. That just means I’m that one, right? I took you out of Egypt. You don’t know who did that. Now you know who it was. I am that one.

And what it tells you is not to have, do not have other gods in front of me. In front of me, there’s many interpretations of this, but just means something like I am here and don’t go against me. It would be going against me to have other gods.

And it has a long elaboration of what it would mean to have other gods. I don’t think this should be read, and the way I’m reading it, I don’t think this should be read as a separate mitzvah, a separate command. It’s really, what does it mean to have other gods? Do not create Pesel, a statue, a cult, any picture, any image, and it goes through the three levels that we learned about of all kinds of things that have images in the heaven, in the earth, in the water. Don’t have any such images, don’t bow down to them, don’t worship them. That’s exactly what having other gods means. I don’t think there’s two things.

Divine Attributes: Memory and Justice

And it goes back to Ki Anochi. So it started in Anochi and then it’s Ki Anochi, because I am, so like I said who I am and what kind of power, what am I asking of you and what kind of power do I have, what kind of thing am I, what kind of entity am I.

I am Hashem Elokecha who is El kana. I’m an angry god, generally translated as jealous but probably more correct to translate as angry. Angry means something like I care, right? I care about this and I am, I remember. This is a very important attribute of God that’s repeated every time almost. And of course there’s problems with it because maybe it’s not fear but there’s a very important point in this which is when you do something, sin against a man, he forgets after a few months, after a few years, or even if the longest time he dies and his kids forget or he forgets.

The point of God, one of the main points of there being a God is that God doesn’t forget. God can remember your sins up to four generations, and the good things for many generations, for thousands, thousands of generations maybe, or for thousands of people, thousands of descendants, because God has a broader view, right? He sees the whole history and he doesn’t forget.

So in other words, this is the answer to the question sometimes we see. A good person who doesn’t seem to get his reward, or a bad person who doesn’t seem to get his punishment. And the answer is, don’t worry. After a few generations God remembers. And this is a reading of history. This is why it’s important for God to be older, to be beyond history, beyond one generation. He lives on after we die and therefore can remember. And therefore don’t go against him because he will remember. So that’s an important thing.

And that’s the end. And this is the end of the statement in God’s own words, in God’s own voice. And this is why, this is why famously the Chazal say, these are the only two things, they counted it as two things, or not necessarily as two, but it seems like two, and that’s Gemara in Makkot, that were heard from the mouth of God, from God’s voice, because the rest is spoken in third person.

That’s where they got this idea from, and maybe that’s what it means, really. It just means that it’s written in that way. Of course, the fact that it’s written this way doesn’t necessarily mean that means that God didn’t speak to them, and same with the opposite. The fact that it’s written in first person doesn’t mean that they heard directly from God. It’s still being Moshe, and we see a malach can speak in first person, if you say, like the narrator here said, Hashem says, and this is what he says, so there’s a quote, lomer means a quote, and therefore he’s speaking in first person. So the way the text is set up doesn’t necessarily mean the same thing as the way the reality is set up, but this is how Chazal read it.

The Second Dibur: Lo Tisa

Now they have the next Dibur, which is of course immediately following this, after you know who God is and how scary, well, I don’t think the word scary, how serious it should be taken, says, Lo tisa, do not carry his name in vain, for falsehood, which probably just basically means don’t swear in his name falsely.

As we see many times, swearing in his name is a very important thing, because this is where God mostly enters into human affairs. We can talk about God doing things, like Elokim and so on, but when we talk about humanity, what does it mean to have a God? What it means to have a God is to be who you swear by, and swear means, I say that something is true, or I promise that something will be true, or I’ll make it true, is as true as real as strong reality as God is true.

Therefore if you swear falsely in God’s name, you’re literally making his name as if it’s, as if it’s vain, as if his name is false.

The Third Dibur: Remembering Shabbat

So remember, we had something like the Yidgal Medesi, and he has “lo yinakeh” – he will not forgive, not clean, so to speak, but it means he will not forgive, he will not forget, because that’s something real, that’s something very important.

Then the third thing is – it’s interesting, this verb “remember,” of course in the second dibur it’s a different verb, but what it seems to mean is that we already know about Shabbos. And of course if we read this book even Shemot we already know about Shabbos because it’s said already by the story of the man. If you read Bereishit then you already know about Shabbos from there. But in any case here you already know it. “Zachor” means remember, and literally doesn’t mean remember in the sense of like not forgetting that there’s such a thing – it means remember to do it, remember to follow it. And it explains what that means.

So there’s like a header and it explains what it means. It means you should work for six days, do everything you need, all your work, and the seventh day would be Shabbos, a rest day for Hashem your God. So again, this is starting from Hashem appearing here. There’s his appearance in human affairs in the sense of swearing, and there’s his appearance in human affairs in the sense of giving him a day, one of the six days.

And it elaborates: don’t do any work – you, your children, your son, your daughter, your slave, your slave girl, your animals, your strangers that live in your cities. And this is all because Hashem made the world in six days, and it repeats again all the levels of the world, or two of them – no, all three levels that we saw. Sorry, all three levels that we saw earlier in the story of creation: the heaven and the earth, the ocean, and all that adds on all these three. Previously we had all of these things that are in them, which are the things that you shouldn’t make an image of. And rested on the seventh day. And that’s why he blessed and sanctified the seventh day. And therefore you should follow, you should have the seventh day of rest.

It doesn’t entirely explain therefore how this connects to you having Shabbos. Something like this is the day that Hashem chose for himself, and therefore respecting Shabbos is respecting Hashem’s day. I think that’s the simplest reading over here, and that’s why it connects to Hashem.

The Fourth Dibur: Honoring Parents

And the fourth thing is “Kabed es avicha v’es imecha.” And this is the last one of the long dibrot, of the ones that have a long elaboration. And why? Because “l’ma’an ya’arichun yamecha al ha’adama asher Hashem Elokecha nosen lach” – that he will make your days long on the earth, on the land that he gives you.

This, of course, is the primary covenant, the primary deal of the Torah, that if you will follow the Torah, you will have a long time on earth. And long time, I think, literally, as you see in many other places, doesn’t mean you will live long, each person will live long. It means that the days of the people living in their land will be long. They won’t be thrown out of there or they won’t be destroyed easily or quickly. There’s a lifetime for states, for nations living on there, just like there’s a lifetime for particular human beings. And they’re saying the countries, the nation’s lifetime in their land will be long.

And this brings us to the most important. Of course, we can understand that it’s not necessarily that each one of these things is only particularly for that. Not like only because of, if you respect your father and your mother, will you be able to live on the land. Of course, living on the land, as it says in many places, is dependent also on not worshipping foreign gods, and also on not swearing falsely, and also on keeping Shabbos. But we can understand, I think, the way these texts work are – and of course there’s a halacha that learned this way – is that you say something in one place and it somehow matches to there. There’s some connection between kibud av va’em and living long on the earth, but it also really goes on all of this.

The Short Dibrot: Self-Evident Moral Laws

And just like it doesn’t only go on someone that swears in his name falsely, in the same way now we have six or let’s say five short ones and one elaboration of the last one. Five short lo’s, very famous, and these are very simple, they don’t need any explanation in some sense. In other words, you can see it very clearly.

The first four need some explanation. Why shouldn’t I worship foreign gods? Because this god took you out of Egypt, because he’s El Kanah. Why shouldn’t you be nishba in Hashem? Because God takes this very seriously. Why should you do Shabbos? Because. Why should you respect your father and mother? Because you will get a reward for it. And so on.

When it says these are things that you understand yourself, I just tell you: don’t murder, don’t commit adultery, don’t steal, don’t say false witness, don’t covet your neighbor’s house. You understand immediately why I’m telling you this. I don’t think this needs explanation. That’s why these are short things. And everyone, all human beings more or less agree that these are bad things. Of course the details of them are complicated and some of them are in perush, there’s a lot of disputes, a lot of details that need to be elaborated, but the basic principle is very obvious. And it’s also part of the appearance of Hashem here.

The Tenth Dibur: Lo Tachmod

Now the last one, and this is in my account the tenth one, is another elaboration of “lo tachmod.” And this needs to be explained a little bit, just like we need to explain what “lo tachmod” itself means, because it seems like something like something in your heart, and what difference doesn’t make what you do in your heart.

So what I think is going on here is that this is really an extra command about the things previously, right? So the main thing, previous things that we said are not to murder and not to – I don’t know how to exactly translate in English – “lo tin’af” to fornicate or something, but it means something like taking someone else’s wife, right, primarily. And not to steal, take his possession. So don’t take anyone – in other words we could say this like this: don’t take his life, his wife, or his stuff, okay? And don’t take his stuff legally by giving false witness in a court. This is all about things that come from someone who’s like who’s over on this.

But if you have too much want, you want something else, someone else’s stuff too much, you end up sometimes murdering him, sometimes stealing his wife, stealing his stuff. So therefore it says – it’s just it’s because these things need – it’s not enough to say don’t steal, we need to sort of get people far away from stealing, we tell them don’t want it.

Of course, I don’t think you’re over on it by just wanting it. You’re over it when you steal, actually. Like, actually, the halacha is more or less with some detail. But it’s another warning, another azharah against the same thing that causes this, and that’s why it’s split into two. There’s “beis re’echa,” which is his possessions, and then it talks about “eshes re’echa,” which is don’t take his wife. In other words, don’t do “lo tin’af.” And all of his other possessions, his slaves, his animals, which is “lo tignov.”

So I think that’s the end. And I think also there’s a nice way of ending. When you finish something, you want to give a nicer elaboration. So you don’t want to finish – you wouldn’t want to finish with the word “tignov,” right? So it finishes with the word “asher l’re’echa,” that sounds nice. So it goes back to telling you, your friend has stuff, your other has stuff. Don’t take his stuff. And there’s an elaboration of something which is somewhat, but also mostly, I think, because of these three things.

So that’s for the Aseret HaDibrot.

The People’s Fear and Moses as Intermediary

Then we have this little text after. It’s a very important text. I’m going to go through it quickly. We’ll talk about it in other appearances of the same idea more. But it says, all the people were seeing the great sounds and sights, and they were afraid, they were shaking, and stood from far. And therefore they asked Moshe, you should speak with us. Let not God speak with us, for we might die.

So in other words, in this context, this is here to show us how scary, how frightening this appearance was. It was very frightening. So frightening that they’re all scanning away and saying, we don’t really want God to speak to us, we’d rather die, right? So this is before we had God needing to plead with the people, please don’t get close, let’s warn you not to get close. Here we see they don’t want to get close. They’re really scared. So that seems to be the point.

And Moshe tells the people, thank you very much, this is the point. Don’t be scared. This is precisely what God wants. He wants something – not clear what this means – “l’ba’avur nasot,” to test you, but what was the test? The test was not to go up to the mountain and you passed the test because he showed you that it’s too scary. Or maybe it means something like to raise you up or to make you great, like a “nes,” this means a flag, something raised up high.

But this is precisely the point. God wants you to fear of him so you will not sin. In other words, remember that this is the God. You don’t always see God, but remember this is how God appears and therefore you take him seriously.

And that’s what they do. They stand from afar and Moshe goes to the arafel, to the fog where God is. So this is repeating how Moshe can go close but the people cannot go close.

The First Message: Proper Worship

And then we have Hashem telling Moshe the first message. In this you already had a message, the first message that he should tell the Yidden. In other words, the first mitzvah.

And it says like this: Hashem tells Moshe, tell the Bnei Yisrael like this: you saw that I spoke to you from the heaven. So this seems to tell us that he had spoken to them, although like we discussed it’s not entirely clear, but you saw he was speaking, you saw me from heaven.

Therefore, and this seems to be a repeat of the Yidgal, so it’s not clear, don’t make with me – but what it means, just like “al panai,” it probably means the same thing. I am here, therefore worship me, and not with gold and silver gods.

How should you worship me? Therefore, there’s a question, how should you worship me? Everyone knows there’s ways to worship God. So this is how you should worship me. You should make a mizbe’ach out of earth. On it, you should sacrifice your olot, your shelamim, your tzon’cha, your bakar, all kinds of sacrifice, all kinds of animals.

In any place, in any place where you will mention my name or I will mention my name, I will come and bless you. In other words, there’s not a particular place and there’s also not a particular architecture. I’m happy. This seems to be God saying, I don’t need gold and silver. I have little simple earthen mizbe’ach that’s happy enough for me. I don’t need a big flat place. Any place you make it, I’ll be happy to come and bless you.

If you want to make a stone mizbe’ach, at least don’t make them gazit. Gazit means cut out stones.

In other words, there’s not a particular place, and there’s also not a particular architecture. I’m happy. This seems to be God saying, I don’t need gold and silver. I have little, simple, earthen mizbeach. It’s happy enough for me. I don’t need a big, flat place. Any place you make it, I’ll be happy to come and bless you.

If you want to make a stone mizbeach, at least don’t make them gazit. Gazit means cut-out stones, stone chiseled very nicely—don’t make that. And it gives a reason, seemingly a reason: because you’ve raised your sword on it, and you’ve desecrated it. It’s not clear what’s the desecration of a stone by cutting it with a sword.

But I think that this goes together very well with zevach chadom. The best thing God wants is to just have earth. If you want to make stones, at least have them be natural stones. Don’t make it too fancy. There’s too much human work of it, and human work reminds me too much of murder, or reminds you too much of a sword, something like that.

And the same thing, the third thing that he says: do not go with ma’alot al mizbechi, with steps. And it gives also a reason, and of course this can be also read literally, because if you go on steps sometimes, at least before the people wear pants—or of course the Kohanim wear pants, precisely for this—but maybe even with pants, it seems to be not seemly, not nice, to show your private parts, your ervah, your lower parts on it, like when you walk on steps.

But I think that more in the context, I mean something like this: don’t build a big mizbeach, you need big steps, like a big pyramid, right? This reminds us of the pyramid of Egypt, a big pyramid with gold steps on, because that’s just a cause for you to show your ervah—like people walking with big steps onto their big, fancy mizbeach that they built. And Hashem seems to think that that’s not really respect of God, it’s more like a person spreading himself. Like this is man-spreading, right? And man-spreading is less than kavod of God.

Shemot Chapter 19: The Covenant at Sinai

Introduction: Reframing the Chapter

This chapter includes two main important parts. We usually know it as the chapter of the preparation, the achonot, the beginning of the story of Matan Torah, which is the story of the Aseret HaDibrot. But that definition is a little bit complicated, because we need to really understand this, since we’re reading this chapter by chapter we should really understand this as standing on its own and it has its own story going on this chapter and it’s even possible to read it backwards. In other words, we could read the Aseret HaDibrot which are in the next chapter as part or an auxiliary of this chapter and not vice versa. And I’ll explain why.

So this chapter includes mainly two things. The first is the story of the covenant, the agreement, the contract, the treaty that Hashem is making in this place with the people. That’s the framing that we have in this story and it is something that’s usually less noticed, which is that the story of the Aseret HaDibrot should be seen as both the details or some of the details of this space of this contract.

The second thing that this chapter has which again that says this should be seen in some way as only the implementation of but not as the main story. In other words, that’s how we see one thing that happened within this story. So this is the frame is the story of this is what we call the preparation but really is the hagbalah, the gating of the mountain and giving all the people their place around the mountain. And that itself seems to be an important thing, and we’ll try to explain it in a minute.

The Opening: Date and Location

Let’s first read the story and make some notices of what it says. So the first thing is we have a date, a time. It doesn’t have a date, a day, this date. It only has the month. We’ve already discussed in the last two chapters there’s how whenever you see a story that has a date there’s something important. Dates in general are the big thing that ties a long story together, right? If you read the whole story all the way from the beginning of Yetziat Mitzrayim and maybe in some sense all the way through to the end of the Tanakh, to the end of the history of the Tanakh, the thing that ties the whole thing together is in some significant sense the dates.

So the dates both give you the chronology—in other words, the order of what happened first, what happened after—but there’s also some meaning in the sense that this ties together the story. So it’s important to say that this happened three months in the third month after Yetziat Mitzrayim. We could see that it’s after the story of the mon which happened in the second month after Yetziat Mitzrayim and so on and before other things that happened in another year. So that’s one thing that these chronological notes tell us.

They might also tell us something about that specific date, but we don’t have that here. In other words, in the story of Yetziat Mitzrayim itself, for example, we have a date and a time, right? The 15th day of the first month. The same thing we had in the story of the mon—the 15th day of the second month. As we explained it, that seems to be important. It’s trying to connect it, the 15th day, the 15th day, this is exactly one month later. There seems to be a connection and maybe also there must be some celebration of this day. And the first one we know, that this day, the 15th day of the first month, gets celebrated every year with the Korban Pesach, with Chag HaMatzot.

And maybe in some sense, anytime we have a date, which is a particular date, it has a day and a month, that might be the message. Over here, we actually have a date that has only a month. It doesn’t have a day. Of course, if you read Chazal, they’ll try to figure out what the day was because they’re interested in finding out exactly when everything was and also to signify these dates. But that’s not what we have. So we do have some connection, but it’s important to know that it’s the third month after Yetziat Mitzrayim. It’s not important to know which day it was. That’s the first thing.

The second thing we have is the Vayissu Vayachnu formula, right? It went from Rephidim to Midbar Sinai. Or really, Vayissu says, וַיִּסְע֣וּ מֵרְפִידִ֗ים וַיָּבֹ֙אוּ֙ מִדְבַּ֣ר סִינַ֔י וַֽיַּחֲנ֖וּ בַּמִּדְבָּ֑ר. Which Midbar? The Midbar Sinai. Which might be a part of the Midbar Sinai. And again, Vayichan, וַיִּֽחַן־שָׁ֥ם יִשְׂרָאֵ֖ל נֶ֥גֶד הָהָֽר. There might be something going on here in the sense that we have the mountain and we have the Midbar. And we already heard before, he was already in Parshat Yitro by Har Elohim, which seems to be the same mountain.

So it seems like maybe this is something that already happened before Yitro came, or maybe this is something somehow they did. The people were around in the Midbar, neged hahar, not close to the mountain, far from it. But Moshe, as we’ll see, was going to the mountain as the next thing starts.

The Covenant Proposal

Okay, so now the next thing is the story of the brit and really including the story of going to the mountain where the where where where he is, where Hashem is. And here there is the beginning of a kind of call and response or really a proposal and an acceptance. So Hashem proposes some kind of deal and he’s waiting for the people to say if they accept it. And now we have the a proposal in some high poetry, so it seems like this is meant to be part of a poetic story. It’s not just a dry kind of deal, there’s a very poetic presentation here, and we can see it because it has the signatures of biblical poetry. There’s doublings of almost everything, and there’s just very flowery language we can see.

And what this poetry says, this is basically the proposal, that’s a very simple proposal. That is the proposal of the brit of the whole Torah. But it’s said in a very nice way. And it says like this. Hashem tells Moshe, this is what you should tell the people. And called in the double way, כֹּ֤ה תֹאמַר֙ לְבֵ֣ית יַעֲקֹ֔ב וְתַגֵּ֖יד לִבְנֵ֥י יִשְׂרָאֵֽל, which is how poetry works.

And it comes like this. First it gives a presentation of what Hashem did for us. So in some sense, who Hashem is. It doesn’t introduce Himself. Although usually Hashem would introduce Himself. We have that later in the more formal version of the brit. Here he doesn’t introduce himself. He says what he did. He says אַתֶּ֣ם רְאִיתֶ֔ם אֲשֶׁ֥ר עָשִׂ֖יתִי לְמִצְרָ֑יִם, you’ve seen what I did to Mitzrayim. And he defines what he did or how he brought them to him—to him meaning to the Har Elohim—in very high language: וָאֶשָּׂ֤א אֶתְכֶם֙ עַל־כַּנְפֵ֣י נְשָׁרִ֔ים וָאָבִ֥א אֶתְכֶ֖ם אֵלָֽי, I’ve carried you on the eagle’s wings and brought you to me. Of course this is an image of something. It means something like going very quickly or something very unexpected. It doesn’t literally mean eagle’s wings. It’s a poetic metaphor.

Therefore, and therefore, and therefore, and therefore, and now in the argument, this is what I propose. And there’s an im. וְעַתָּ֗ה אִם־שָׁמ֤וֹעַ תִּשְׁמְעוּ֙ בְּקֹלִ֔י וּשְׁמַרְתֶּ֖ם אֶת־בְּרִיתִ֑י—if you will listen to me and follow and keep my covenant, then you will have two things. וִהְיִ֨יתֶם לִ֤י סְגֻלָּה֙ מִכׇּל־הָ֣עַמִּ֔ים—you would be segulah mi’kol ha’amim, and וְאַתֶּ֧ם תִּהְיוּ־לִ֛י מַמְלֶ֥כֶת כֹּהֲנִ֖ים וְג֣וֹי קָד֑וֹשׁ—you would be mamlechet kohanim v’goy kadosh.

So whatever these things are, it’s not very defined. It means something like you will be special to me. I will protect you more than all the nations. All of the nations belong to me. All the earth is mine, but you will be mine. That is the deal. So that’s the deal. And he signs off and he says, אֵ֚לֶּה הַדְּבָרִ֔ים אֲשֶׁ֥ר תְּדַבֵּ֖ר אֶל־בְּנֵ֥י יִשְׂרָאֵֽל—this is what you should tell them.

The People’s Acceptance

And then we have Moshe going to the people and giving them this proposal. And who does he go to? The Ziknei Ha’am, who, as we’ve seen, are the leaders, the elders of the tribes, who are the ones that are going to make the decisions for everyone. And Vayasim lifneihem, וַיָּ֣שֶׂם לִפְנֵיהֶ֗ם—he puts before them, is always a language that means putting down a proposal. So putting is, he gave them the proposal. This is Hashem’s proposal.

And they answered and they said, וַיַּעֲנ֨וּ כׇל־הָעָ֤ם יַחְדָּו֙ וַיֹּ֣אמְר֔וּ כֹּ֛ל אֲשֶׁר־דִּבֶּ֥ר יְהֹוָ֖ה נַעֲשֶׂ֑ה—everything Hashem did, we will do. So they’re saying yes to the proposal and Moshe returns their words to Hashem.

The Ceremony and Boundaries

Now, we have a new thing. So this is the first thing and I said this is the proposal and they accept the proposal. It seems like it’s not yet the actual, like the formal act of signing the proposal. It’s more that they have now said that they will come to the signing ceremony.

So then what we have is Hashem gives Moshe the details of the ceremony of him, how he will come. Because of course, if you want to make a deal with someone, then that person or that entity has to be there. So Hashem has to be there, and in that state, He will be able to make this deal, to officially make the deal with the people.

Now, when Hashem comes in a place, that’s a very dangerous situation. Of course, Moshe is now speaking to him, so obviously Moshe knows how to deal with this. He is ready for it, he knows what to do and how to be there. But for the people to come, that’s not a simple proposition. You need to have a lot of protection and a lot of care with this.

So that therefore we get what’s called mitzvat hagbalah. Mitzvat hagbalah is just a general thing—whenever Hashem comes in a place there needs to be a lot of care. People who are not worthy in the sense they’re not prepared, who don’t know how to deal with such a thing, shouldn’t be there or they should be far away. They should have the correct care and the correct honor, the correct respect, however you understand this for this. And then for this we get what’s called the preparation.

The Purpose of Divine Manifestation

And this is what Hashem says explicitly. I said, הִנֵּ֨ה אָנֹכִ֜י בָּ֣א אֵלֶ֘יךָ֮ בְּעַ֣ב הֶֽעָנָן֒—I will come to you in a cloud. And why should I come to you? And now I’m giving interpretation, which is, I think, closer to the pshat than what people have heard from the Rambam and others. בַּעֲב֞וּר יִשְׁמַ֤ע הָעָם֙ בְּדַבְּרִ֣י עִמָּ֔ךְ וְגַם־בְּךָ֖ יַאֲמִ֣ינוּ לְעוֹלָ֑ם—so they should hear me speaking to you and believe in you or trust in you forever, always.

And other people have understood this as a kind of evidence. The Rambam understood this as an evidence. They will see me speaking to you, and therefore they will know that I’m speaking to you. But it’s not really, we don’t see anywhere that there’s a question if a god is speaking to Moshe. The real important thing is that they have to see him in order to be able to agree to the contract. You can’t sign a deal with someone who you don’t know who it is and you don’t know that Moshe is really his messenger. So he will come and they will see him there. He won’t speak to them, is what we see.

Chronological Ordering and Textual Ambiguities

And of course, like I said, these stories might not be in the correct order because we have one—this part that I just read was the description of the great image, the great vision. And then we have another description, another story of Moshe, Hashem telling Moshe to warn the people not to come close. And of course, he already warned them once. So Rashi says we warned them twice, once before and once at the same time. But again, according to me, we don’t have to read all these things in chronological order, so this might have been the same thing that he told them earlier, with some added details that we should know at this stage of the story, or something like that.

It says, Vayered Hashem (Hashem descended) to the tip of the mountain, and of course, that should have already happened, because we have the kolot u’vrakim (sounds and lightning), unless you understand that the kolot u’vrakim happened before he descended, which I don’t think is the simple pshat, because that’s Vayered Hashem ba’esh (Hashem descended in fire), that’s how he descended.

Parallel Movement: Divine Descent and Human Ascent

And he calls Moshe to him, and Moshe goes up, so there’s Hashem going down and Moshe going up in a very nice parallel. Of course, he already went up before, we already read, but now this is again, because he went down to tell the people.

The Warning Against Boundary Violation

And Hashem tells Moshe to go warn the people they should not go up. Pen yehersu means something like breaking through their boundaries in order to see. V’nafal mimenu rav—and they will fall, in other words, they will die. So here we see clearly, before he said sakol yisakel o yaro yiyareh, which sounds like a person will stone them or throw them, and here we see they will fall, so maybe it will happen by itself.

The Kohanim and Ritual Boundaries

And now we get another thing which we see, that it was already an established ritual order that the kohanim will go close to Hashem. V’gam hakohanim haniggashim el Hashem yitkaddashu—they should also be prepared, should be sanctified, pen yifrotz bahem Hashem—so Hashem shouldn’t sort of—so there’s like a boundary between the divine realm and the human realm. And humans, people go up, it’s called harisa, they break their gates, right, they’re breaking. And the kohanim—sorry, and from on Hashem’s side, there’s also yifrotz, like we have later, peretz, literally called like this, if Hashem sort of breaks through his boundaries, which is the same thing, then they will be hurt, they will be killed in the same way.

Moshe’s Response and Interpretive Questions

Now Moshe answers Hashem a very interesting answer. He says—and it’s sometimes read to say that they don’t need a warning, they already know, you already told us. I don’t know if we should read it this way; that sounds like a funny way to read it. I would say just Moshe is sort of telling Hashem, yes, we will listen to you, just telling it, yes, they cannot go up because you’ve warned us and told us to make these gates around the mountain, to gate the mountain so to speak, to make a border around the mountain. But I don’t know if this is supposed to mean—this is a dialogue like the way I’m reading all these stories, I should read them all simultaneously, so maybe it’s not.

But then we have a third time, which is why most people read it as dialogue. And Hashem says—lech red (go down)—it doesn’t say of course “no,” so this is all people reading it in. That’s why I’m saying I’m not sure that that’s really what’s going on. Says lech red, go down, and then v’alita atah v’Aharon imach (you will go up with Aharon).

Hierarchical Levels of Access

And the kohanim will not go up. So it seems like a distinction. A second ago it says hakohanim haniggashim el Hashem, and then this second time it says that the kohanim and the am should both not go up. Maybe it changed, or maybe Aharon is the only kohen now, and the rest of the kohanim don’t get—or the way Chazal usually understood it, these are just different levels. So each person has their own level: Moshe, Aharon, kohanim, the rest of the people, so each one shouldn’t leave his level. These are all interpretations based on what’s unclear in the text.

Conclusion of the Chapter

And Moshe goes down and tells them, and we assume that he goes back up, but that’s again—that doesn’t say in the text. And that’s the end of this chapter.