Undeserved Praise

 Once again our member Rabbi Steven Ettinger takes a close look at the Torah narrative and asks whether its actual words are capable of supporting a popular explanation. This is what he writes:

If one were to survey Rabbinic literature throughout the ages to determine the greatest single action or merit associated with the Jewish people, the result would likely be that they proclaimed “na’aseh venishma” (“we will do and we will (then) listen”) at Sinai. They have been eternally praised for their willingness to blindly accept whatever Hashem might command, even before hearing the scope of or reasons for His commandments. The Talmud (Shabbat 88a) even describes how the angels descended and placed 1.2 million crowns on the heads of the 600,000 Jewish men – one for na’aseh and one for nishma (see also Likutei Moharan 9:22). There is only one problem. If you read the Torah, plainly, simply, with no derash or fancy Biblical exegesis, it seems clear that this never actually happened.

As an aside, but something to keep in mind as we move forward, the people leaving Egypt were a nation of freed slaves. Logically, we would expect their only response to any instruction to be “yes sir.” For a slave there is nothing other than doing. The reason for any command does not matter. Many times, there is no reason for a master’s demand other than to demean, to subjugate or to punish. A slave tolerates.  A slave never needs to understand, just to obey! Thus, they most likely would not have responded “na’aseh venishma,.” They simply were not conditioned to think that way!

After that shocking assertion, one that may have many of you “seeing thunder,” we must explore what really happened. The facts that emerge from the Torah’s narrative and the real meaning, in proper context, will allow us to better understand the mindset of the nation that received the Torah and why Hashem chose Moshe as his vehicle to transmit it.

We begin with parashat Yitro, at the beginning of Shemot Chapter 19, on Rosh Chodesh Sivan when Moshe receives a message from Hashem. Part of the message involves telling Bnei Yisrael that they will be special, and part involves the procedures for receiving the Torah (where to stand, how to dress, sexual conduct, etc.). To these rules and not to any part of the Torah itself, they reply, “whatever Hashem has spoken, we will do.” (Shemot 19:8). Thus, the first time they respond to a set of instructions – something that occurs before they were standing at Har Sinai, they simply respond “na’aseh” – “we will do” -- as one would expect from slaves. They receive these instructions on 3 Sivan.

On the third day after receiving these instructions, on 6 (or perhaps 7) Sivan. Moshe orally delivers the “Aseret Hadibrot” (Shemot Chapter 20). Nowhere from Shemot 19:8 through the end of the recitation of the Dibrot (or in the rest of parashat Yitro) do we find another stated acceptance by the people or the phrase “na’aseh vnishma”. Quite the contrary, chronologically, from this point until Moshe’s first return from Sinai, rather than accepting Hashem and his Torah, a portion of the people forge and worship the golden calf!

After destroying the first luchot, Moshe ascends Sinai two more times, once to beg forgiveness for the Jewish people and once more to re-present the Torah to the people. Parashat Ki Tisah fully narrates these events. Surprisingly, during this entire lengthy narrative of Matan Torah, the nation is not gathered together; nor is it asked to accept the Torah—and it does not declare “Na’aseh venishma.”

 However, there is an interesting aside found earlier in parashat Mishpatim. In Chapter 24, there is an abbreviated version of the second matan Torah. This narrative ignores the golden calf, it ignores the second luchot, it ignores Moshe’s interactions with Hashem. In fact, it most likely happened after all of those events – or it is an expansion, of sorts – where Moshe teaches more than just the Ten Commandments.

Moshe goes up the mountain accompanied partway by Aaron, his sons and the elders. He continues the rest of the way alone. Moshe comes down and teaches the people all of Hashem’s commandments. “Then the people said all that Hashem has commanded “na’aseh” “we will do” (Shemot 24:3). In other words, AFTER Moshe had gone up twice to receive the Torah (four times in total to speak to Hashem on Har Sinai), and AFTER he already taught them the commandments. Even then, all they said—which is what slaves would be expected to reply—was NA’ASEH!

The narrative does not end there.  It seems that Moshe does something that he was not directly commanded to do. He was commanded to fashion the ten commandments (“Carve for yourself two tablets of stone like the first” Shemot 34:1). He goes one step further; he writes down all of the commandments (Shemot 24:4) and “he reads it aloud to the people” (Shemot 24:7). Then, he does something else that seems strange. He builds an altar and sets up twelve pillars (one for each tribe), and has assistants offer animal sacrifices, specifically bulls.

After hearing the commandments, now a second time, from the written text, a text called the “sefer habrit” (book of the covenant), the people FINALLY say “all that Hashem has spoken, na’aseh venishma” (“we will listen and we will do”). Bottom line, this is a far cry from a praiseworthy nation that boldly and faithfully placed their desire to serve Hashem before they had any need to understand what He was asking from them! Instead, this is much more like students that failed an exam twice times and then passed after the teacher sat them down and spoon-fed them the answers.

There may be no good answer here. The sequence of events and the text simply contradict the Rabbinic narrative in a definitive manner. But perhaps an approach can be derived from the actions that Moshe takes, seemingly at his own initiative.He has listened as the people time and time again respond as slaves – blindly accepting commands. He knows their psychology and the nuances of Egyptian culture – their gods and the symbolism well. He knows that they cannot be true servants of Hashem, with free will, unless they break out of their slave mindset.  

He erects pillars for each tribe – the Pharaohs of Egypt had pyramids and monuments – on the basis that the newly freed nation likewise was deserving of monuments of its own. He builds an altar to sacrifice bulls. The bull was one of the Egyptian gods but, more importantly, it represented the strongest, most developed manifestation of a calf! In slaughtering and burning that bull and offering it to Hashem, Moshe was laying waste to the notion of Egyptian power before their eyes.

Finally, and for the last time, Moshe read Hashem’s commandments to them. He read these commandments from a book and they were not the oral commands of a task master. They were however part of a covenant. A covenant is not unilateral – it has two parties. In a sense they are not being commanded or coerced; they are agreeing.  When they heard this, when they understood that this Torah was a code of respect for them. Then they transformed their “na’aseh” their expression of a slave’s blind supplication, to “na’aseh venishma” – we obey and we are willing to listen, to learn, to understand. Perhaps that was why the angels gave them crowns: they had finally evolved from slavery to Hashem’s royalty, “mamlechet kohanim.”