Pemikiran Yahudi 1 Raja-raja 19:12: Akeidat Yitzchak & Sefer HaIkkarim

(1) G-d, being aware of the fact that the recipient of benefits hates to be reminded of that fact, especially if it is the benefactor reminding him, glosses over all the acts of salvation performed by Him, and summarises only the fact that He has elevated them to their present high status by using the shortest possible route, i.e. "on eagles' wings." Although acceptance of the Torah on the basis of past performance by G-d is almost a mandatory act by Israel, G-d promises that such acceptance will make Israel a nation of especially precious value, and a kingdom of priests. In comparison with the Sabbath legislation at Marah, when G-d employed a lot of words, spelling out what Israel was to do, and only a few words listing the benefits that would accrue therefrom, (15,26) in this instance G-d uses reverse psychology (18,5-6) emphasizing the benefits and stating the duties only in an abbreviated form. The promises include the offer to free Israel from all dependence on human beings. Ever since Terach who had been subservient to Nimrod, Israel's forbears had always been dependent in some manner on other rulers. As a result of accepting the kingdom of heaven, this was to be changed, and it is this that is implied in the word segullah. When a king assigns a city to his subjects to dwell in and work in, and after a while oil or mineral deposits are discovered there, the king will claim such treasures as belonging to him, since only the visible assets of such a city had been assigned to its population. If G-d permits the idol worshipping rulers to administer part of His earth, that territory does not include any gems that would be found there. When G-d discovered Abraham and removed him from the grasp of Nimrod, He did so by exercising His claim to the jewels found in Nimrod's kingdom. (2) In order to further refine the rough stone that He had found in Ur, he subjected Abraham to ten stages of refinement (yissurim ), until the gem had become absolutely pure and flawless. The process of refinement continued from Abraham through Isaac, down to the generation that stood at Mount Sinai. If that generation would show its readiness to embrace Torah, it would prove that as of that moment in time the process of progressive refinement had been brought to a successful conclusion. The segullah aspect applies to the entire nation, "the house of Jacob." The "kingdom of priests" applies to the select individuals whose moral achievements surpass those of the nation as a whole. Therefore, two separate phrases are used to describe the new status of the Jewish people. It says once more "these are the words," meaning the words addressed only to the elders, the leaders. The proof of this interpretation is the fact that throughout the chapter, the people are normally referred to as am, nation, no fewer than eighteen times. The reason that the women were told first is, as the Midrash explains. When Adam was created, G-d had told him not to eat from the tree of knowledge, but He did not address woman directly. The result proved to be a tragedy. In order to avoid a repetition of such a tragedy, this time, G-d, or rather Moses, addressed the women first. They are called "the house of Jacob." Expressed differently, prishut, seclusion, is an exalted level in which man is almost completely intellectual, super-corporeal. The command to be such failed because the body had not been prepared for it. The body is represented by the female of the species. Since the order went out to the male only, the female thus not having been prepared, the attempt to sublimate bodily functions in the garden of Eden had failed. In this instance, G-d wanted to make sure that such sublimation would not fail again. (3) "He placed before them these words." Moses put the words before the elders without further elaborationg on them. The people who were present had no other way of responding but to say "all that G-d has said, we will do." As the Talmud in Shabbat 88, explains "standing beneath the mountain" meant that the momentous experience about to take place made any other kind of response suicidal in their eyes. G-d had prepared the people psychologically in such a way that the response was totally expected. If Rabbi Acha bar Yaakov describes the whole event as constituting a sound legal process of coercion i.e that it can be protested as such, he refers to the fact that the na-asseh, we will do, did not constitute an educated response arrived at after careful weighing of the evidence, but was spontaneous, due to the tremendous external pressure exerted. Therefore he claims it could not be considered binding. If we find the "we will do" prior to the exclamation "we will do and we will hear," it refers to the acceptance of the principle that action rather than contemplation is true soul food. It does not refer to the acceptance of specific tasks that were to be performed. This had also been the purpose for which Adam had been placed in the garden of Eden, of which it says in the Torah "to work it and to preserve it," to maintain its state of spiritual well being. The story of the creation refers to G-d having blown a soul into Adam's nostrils, and it was this G-d given soul that he was to preserve in its purity. The giving of the Torah was to have a similar effect on the Jewish nation as a whole. (4) Since the people realised that the select few who had already relegated physical needs to being a merely incidental concern, had been raised to an even higher spiritual level, the people stressed that as far as they were concerned it was only the ma-asseh action, not the iyun, speculative reasoning, that they would perform. This the people also confirmed after the giving of the ten commandments when they said unanimously "all that G-d has said we will do." Not so the third time. After Moses had read "the book of the covenant," the word nishma, we will hear, appears, since the ma-asseh action, is the preparation for the nishma, the understanding, as we have pointed out earlier. The people now realised that the intellectual capacity of a person is enhanced once he has carried out G-d’s commandments as deeds. This was one of the greatest accomplishments of matan Torah, the giving of the Torah, which they only understood then. In chapter forty seven we will have occasion to present yet another reason for the fact that sometimes Israel said "we will do," and sometimes they said "we will do and hear." The reason Moses once told G-d the words of the people, i.e. "he brought back the people's words" and then "he told" again is, because the first time Moses had not recognised the full significance of what the people had in mind. Consequently, Moses had only related their formal response. After G-d told Moses that He would descend and that the revelation would also include the strengthening of the people's belief in Moses’s Divine mission, he realised that the people in saying "we will do," had had much more in mind than he had believed at first. By this statement, G-d had indicated how fundamental the concept of the prophet is to the whole Torah, and that he who does not believe in the mission of the prophets, does not really believe in G-d either. Belief in the personal G-d presupposes a channel of communication between man and G-d, and that channel is the prophet. The strength of the channel may vary from generation to generation, and even from place to place, but the channel's existence is axiomatic to Judaism. In our instance, in order to receive the transmission loud and clear, one first had to sanctify oneself, i.e. become ritually pure. Therefore the days of preparation for the giving of the Torah. (5) The meaning of "you shall fence off the people," refers to the effect of Torah, which, if observed, will restrain people's urge to commit excesses. (6) We have a principle (Beytzah 5) that anything prohibited by a Court of Law of a specific number of judges, requires at least an equal number of judges in another Court in order to cancel the previous prohibition. If not for that rule, the verse (19, 13) should have read "when the shofar sound ceases;" as it is, the expression "when the shofar sound is long drawn out," signals that the Court of Law is empowered to pursue such errant people or animals even while the shofar sound has not yet signalled the end of matan Torah, the giving of the law. (7) The apparent contradiction concerning the number of days of preparation for the revelation is resolved by the consideration of whether the day the order was issued is included in the number of days listed. When one talks of three days, it is included; when G-d says "for on the third day," this means the third, counting from the first of the series, not the third from the day Moses received the command. (8) The overwhelming natural phenomena at the revelation stem from two considerations. A) The feeling of inadequacy that gripped the people. These feelings are described by what they experienced in verse sixteen, the thunder etc. (9+10) B) The awesome nature of the experience itself. This is described, by showing us the reaction on the part of the mountain. The sounds of the shofar and subsequently the sound of G-d’s voice when conversing with Moses, were to acquaint the people with the sound of G-d’s voice, so that when He spoke the ten commandments, the people would already recognise that this was indeed the voice of G-d that they were hearing. (10) This enabled them to say later "whatever G-d has said we will do." They referred to what they had heard with their own ears, though most of it had been addressed to Moses only. Moses was not really aware that the people in large measure had suddenly acquired the status of prophets in their spiritual capacity. As such, they might think that a closer approach was warranted. G-d said to Moses no rav, great person shall perish. (19,22) (11) Moses talked about am, plain people, which shows that he had misunderstood what G-d had meant by rav. Moses is asked to go lower down so that during the time G-d addressed him he is visible to the people and the elders, and no one could accuse him at a later stage of having faked G-d’s voice while out of sight of the people and the elders. The Midrash suggests the following parable. A king who wanted to do something that his closest adviser should not know about, sent the adviser on an errand in order to gain time. The adviser, quite innocently, told the king that the errand he had been sent on had already been carried out, that the mission was unnecessary. So the king invented another errand, and during the time it took for that errand to be carried out by his adviser, the king carried out whatever it was he had meant to do in the first place. Similarly, G-d had wanted Moses further down the mountain during matan Torah. He accomplished this by sending Moses on an errand which would require him being in the place G-d wanted, at the time G-d wanted.

Chapter thirty-one explains that from the connection of the parts of nature with each other we may infer the existence of one cause which unites all nature, which uniting agency is the necessary existent. It points out that the vision which Elijah saw on mount Horeb was an allusion to this. It explains the meaning of the expression a still, small voice (I Kings, 19, 12), and the statement of the Rabbis that hashmal means Hayyot of fire speaking.