Komentarz do Wyjścia 19:23

לא יוכל העם THE PEOPLE CANNOT [COME UP TO MOUNT SINAI] — There is no need for me to warn them, for they have been standing under such a warning these three days, and they cannot go up for they have no permission so to do.

וקדשתו, the term is used here as in Exodus 3,5 when Moses was warned not to step on “holy” ground with his sandals as this might prove fatal. Similarly, here; the people had been told that neither man nor beast would survive touching the mountain. [during this period. Ed.]

ויאמר משה…לא יוכל העם, Moses said…"the people are unable, etc." What exactly was the distance between Moses and G'd so that G'd had to tell Moses again in verse 24 to descend and warn the people? Why was G'd's previous directive in verse 21 not sufficient? Moses himself tells G'd that there is no need for any new directive, the previous directive having been sufficient to ensure the people would not breach G'd's warning to establish a fence around the Mountain and to sanctify the people.

'ויאמר משה אל ה' לא יוכל העם וגו, the one who interprets the Torah as quoting Moses saying these words, i.e. “You have already told us to fence off the mountain etc. (verse 12) so how could anyone ascend it?” is in error. [a rejection of Rashi’s commentary who understands the word יוכל as “having permission.” Ed.] There is nothing wrong with repeating warnings to people when the time of paying with their lives for warnings which they have ignored draws near. G’d Himself repeated instructions to Moses in verse 24 when He told him to descend and to allow only Aaron to approach a little closer to the mountain. What news did this verse contain? The point is that Moses’ remarks were a question. He asked if G’d had added an additional restriction to what He had issued on the previous two days when He had said in verse 12 that touching the mountain would prove lethal?שלא יוכל העם לעלות אל הר סיני, Moses wanted clarification of the expression פן יהרסו ממנו רב, as opposed to השמרו לכם עלות בהר. He wanted to know if not only touching the mountain was forbidden on pain of death but even approaching it from a relative distance. G’d told him that while it was all right for Aaron to approach a little closer, neither the priests nor the people at large were allowed to come within a certain distance of the base of the mountain. They would ignore such warnings at their peril. He added that even Moses himself would not be granted a visual revelation, he had only been commanded to ascend the mountain in the thick cloud.

לא יוכל העם לעלות, “the people are unable to ascend, etc.” Some people have trouble understanding the words of Moses here, for who prevented the people from ascending if they wanted to? We must understand the words of Moses as being the words of a messenger who reports back to the sender that he had carried out his mission, in this instance, that as a result of Moses having carried out his mission to warn the people not to ascend the Mountain, they were as of that point in time unable to ascend the Mountain. Ibn Ezra explains that G’d told Moses to descend and to warn the people, but that Moses did not see the need to warn them about anything, seeing that he had already done so. This is why he said to G’d that the people are unable to ascend the Mountain. In response to Moses’ [naïve belief?. Ed.] ] that the warning received was sufficient, G’d told him that the warning had to be repeated. It was only G’d Who knew if the first warning had been sufficient. Some commentators feel that the warning at this time included an additional warning not even to approach the forbidden area too closely. This is the reason for the additional words פן יהרסו אל ה' לראות, “they shall not break through to behold, etc.” I do not believe that this interpretation is acceptable, seeing that the Torah writes later in verse 24 specifically אל יהרסו לעלות אל ה' פן יפרץ בם, “the people must not break trough in order to ascend, lest G’d in His turn will burst forth against them.” The last mentioned interpretation is tenable only if we assume that Moses had told G’d on his most recent ascent that he had warned the people not only not to ascend, but also not to behold what they thought was the manifestation of Hashem. Seeing that it is impossible for Moses to enforce a ban on looking at something from a distance, G’d would then have amended His command and told Moses to warn them only against ascending. An approach to these verses by my sainted father the רא'ש. The words פן יהרסו אל ה' לראות, (verse 21) are problematic, for how could G’d issue a decree that the people would in the main be unable to honour? Such a prohibition was also not included in the warning in verse 12 not to ascend the mountain or to touch its edge. The only thing which had been forbidden then was the ascent and the touching of the Mountain. We find the warning not to ascend the Mountain repeated once more in verse 24. G’d told Moses in addition that the people were not to look at the Mountain. Concerning the second prohibition not to ascend the Mountain, Moses said to G’d that this was impossible as the people had already been warned concerning this. To this G’d replied to Moses that it was necessary to warn them again so that in their understandable enthusiasm to get a glimpse of the revelation, they would not expose themselves to mortal danger. G’d told Moses to descend and to ensure this together with Aaron. When the people would see that Aaron had also descended before the revelation, even though he had previously been allowed to approach more closely to the Mountain, they would realise that if a closer approach spelled danger even for Aaron and the priests, it would certainly be very dangerous for them to expose themselves to G’d’s anger if they were to ignore the warning.

(Exodus 19:23) "And Moses said to the L rd, etc.": I have already warned them and set bounds for them.

It would appear that originally G'd ordered the people in a general directive neither to ascend nor to touch the Mountain. The Torah also stated in verse 22 that the priests who are normally allowed closer to sacred sites must not approach the Mountain. Subsequently, in verse 24 G'd told Moses that the priests should sanctify themselves. G'd was afraid that the Israelites would apply a method known as דבר שהיה בכלל ויצא מן הכלל ללמד על הכלל יצא, that if something had previously been part of a general rule and was singled out by the Torah by name, the reason is that the special rule now applied to this "something" will also be applied generally forthwith. Initially, both the priests, the people, and even Aaron were included in the prohibition to ascend the Mountain or to touch it. As soon as the priests were mentioned separately such as in 19,22 as being normally permitted to approach G'd, this implied they could at least touch it also in this case. In view of the rule cited above about כל היוצא מן הכלל, the people would now also be allowed to touch the base of the Mountain. While it is true that since the Torah had not been given yet, the rule we quoted was not yet in effect, the fact remains that since the rule is based on logic, some intelligent Jew might have figured it out already before the Torah was actually handed down to the people. Even assuming that no one could have figured out this rule, G'd desires justice and righteousness and He would not apply the death penalty to a person who touched the lower part of the Mountain when his counterpart the priest would not be punished for doing the same thing by reason of his being a priest. In order to prevent such a potential miscarriage of justice, G'd told Moses to descend from the Mountain and warn the people (the non-priests) not to touch any part of the Mountain. The effect of this warning was to invalidate the rule about כל היוצא מן הכלל which we explained earlier. Moses had not understood this immediately because G'd had not yet revealed to him the rule about כל היוצא מן הכלל as well as the other principles which guide us when interpreting the written Torah. Moses thought that the partial relaxation of the prohibition applied only to Aaron and the priests whereas the people were forbidden to touch even the base of the Mountain. He could not understand why such a repeated warning was necessary, seeing G'd had already warned the people not to ascend the Mountain or to touch it. G'd therefore told him that only he and Aaron were allowed to ascend any part of the Mountain. Moses was to warn the people that the very places he and Aaron were allowed to ascend would be out of bounds to the people at large. We see that G'd had to spell out a prohibition where logic would have dictated that there was no prohibition or that such a prohibition had been relaxed.

According to what we have explained, the word הנגשים in verse 22 refers to areas in which the priests were permitted access once the Tabernacle would become operational. In short, G'd told Moses that there would be three different areas on the Mountain. The people could not ascend any part, Aaron could accompany Moses part of the way; the upper regions of the Mountain were accessible to Moses only. The new element in G'd's second warning is that He permitted Aaron to ascend part of the Mountain, something that had been excluded by the wording of the previous warning.

Another reason G'd issued a second warning to the people was that the first warning did not include a time frame, i.e. when it would begin to be effective. Although the Torah had spoken about "three days," those days had not been specifically linked to the restrictions of ascending the Mountain beginning on the third day. This is why G'd told Moses as soon as He had descended on to the Mountain that he should descend and tell the people that the restrictions concerning ascent of the Mountain were effective forthwith. We need to study Moses' reply. Perhaps he had thought that the prohibition of ascending the Mountain became effective already at the moment G'd had issued it seeing G'd had not said specifically: "do not touch the Mountain on the second day," or something similar. He had been wrong on that count, and this explains why G'd now had to send him down to tell the people that the prohibition of which they had been told was now in effect. When G'd had issued the warning the first time He had said that anyone violating it would be stoned to death, i.e. would be punished by a human tribunal. G'd now repeated the warning to make it plain that if someone would violate the prohibition in such a way that no judicial action could be taken against him such a person would nonetheless be punished by heaven. The reason the Torah phrased the potential violation in the plural was that even if all the people would violate the prohibition this would not save them from the penalty G'd would impose.