Комментарий о цитате к Шмот 34:28

A Midrashic approach (Tanchuma Pinchas 12). Assaph writes in Psalms 50,12: “if I were hungry I would not tell you, for Mine is the world and all it holds.” In verse 9 in the same psalm we read: ‘I will not take (claim) from your estate a single bull, no he-goats from your pen, for Mine is every animal of the forest, the beasts on a thousand mountains.” Rabbi Simon said thirteen different attributes of G’d’s mercy have been recorded seeing the Torah writes: “the Lord passed in front of him (Moses) etc.” (Exodus 34,6). Is there then anyone who can be called merciful if he entrusts His own food-supply to the cruel (i.e. man)? The idea that G’d would let man decide how much food and what kind of food to feed G’d is so totally ridiculous as not being worth discussing! This is the meaning of Palms 50,12, i.e. we are to read it as a question highlighting the absurdity of G’d making man the arbiter of how much He should consume!
Rabbi Yehudah son of Simon said that G’d told man that He had put 10 categories of domesticated (non-carnivorous) beasts at his disposal, 3 of which were easily accessible to him i.e. oxen (cattle) sheep and goats (Deut. 14,4). The other 7 categories are: the hart, the deer, the yachmur, the akko, the dishon, the teo, and the zamir. Seeing they are difficult for you to access I have not demanded that you offer to Me the pure animals which are free-roaming. The only ones which I have asked you to use as sacrificial animals are the ones that feed on your trough, i.e. have ben domesticated by you, the ones you do not have to hunt. This is the meaning of the verse: “If I am hungry I would not tell you.”
Rabbi Yitzchack drew attention to the verse in Numbers 28,2 את קרבני לחמי, “My sacrifice, My bread, etc.” Can one then speak of G’d “eating” or “drinking?” You should learn a lesson from what we know about the ministering angels. David writes in Psalms 104,4: “His messengers are fiery flames.” To the question what sustains the ministering angels, i.e. what kind of food to they subsist on, the answer given is that they are sustained by the זיו השכינה, “the brightness and splendour of the Shechinah, as we know from Proverbs 16,15 באור פני מלך חיים, “in the light of the king’s face there is life.”
Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish said: “we can learn all this directly from what the Torah told us about Moses. We have been told in Exodus 34,28 that while Moses was on Mount Sinai he neither ate bread nor drank water. If Moses, while only on a mission for G’d did not need physical food, how much less does G’d Himself need such food? This is the meaning of “if I were hungry, I would not tell you (to supply Me.).”

Another way of looking at the meaning of these words is that the Torah wanted to tell us that the spiritual level of these people did not match that of Moses who was able to go without food or drink for 40 days when he communed with G’d (34,28). As soon a these “nobles” had had their vision they returned to being ordinary mortals with the requirements of ordinary people. This is why they had to eat and drink.

כי תועבת ה' כל עושה אלה, “for anyone who does these is an abomination of Hashem;” anyone of the nine cults mentioned previously. ובגלל התועבות האלה, “and on account of these abominations, etc.,” with which the people perpetrating them disgust the Lord your G’d Who is above all such forces as the planetary constellations and disciplines concerning their movements and influences on terrestrial earth, the very planetary system, גלגל, is apt to be upset. The word בגלל is chosen by the Torah to remind us of the planetary systems. According to Shabbat 151 the function of these systems is to revolve in their orbits without deviating from their assigned paths. The expression also occurs in connection with צדקה, the practice of charity (Deut. 15,10) where we already mentioned that money has a way of “orbiting” from one person to another, especially if the owner is not charitable. The lesson to be learned is that we must detest anything of which we know that G’d detests it. We must be wholehearted in our service of the Lord as per verse 13. This means to serve the Lord without any intellectual reservations, both by fulfilling His positive commandments and by refraining from violating any of the negative commandments. The expression תמים means that one’s exterior, the visible part of a person, should reflect his interior. The verse also implies reciprocity by G’d. If we behave towards G’d sincerely, then He in turn will reciprocate, as for instance in Exodus 34,28: “G’d remained with Moses.” We have a similar verse in Daniel 2,22: “He reveals the deep and the mysterious, knows what is in the dark, and light dwells within Him.” Midrash Eychah Rabbati 1,51 views this as a promise to people who have attained the level of “being wholehearted” with G’d. King David also referred to this theme in Psalms 41,13: “You will support me because of my integrity and let me abide in Your presence forever.”

ואתנפל לפני ה׳ כראשנה ארבעים יום AND I FELL DOWN BEFORE THE LORD, AS AT THE FIRST, FORTY DAYS, as it is said (Exodus 32:30) “And now I will go up to the Lord, perhaps I may atone [for your sin]”. At that ascent, which was the second I made, I tarried there forty days — consequently these terminated on the twenty-ninth of Ab, since he had ascended on the eighteenth of Tammuz. On that same day in Ab He became reconciled with Israel and said to Moses (Exodus 34:1) “Hew thee out two tablets”. He stayed there another forty days; consequently these terminated on the Day of Atonement (the tenth of Tishri). On that same day, the Holy One, blessed be He, was gladly reconciled (i.e. completely reconciled) with Israel and said to Moses, I have forgiven according to thy word. On this account it was appointed for pardon and forgiveness. And whence do we know that He was reconciled with them with complete goodwill? Because it is stated in respect to the forty days of the last tablets (in respect to third period of forty days) (Deuteronomy 10:10), “And I stayed in the mountain according to the first days”! What was the case with the first days? They were passed in God’s goodwill! (for they had not yet committed the sin of worshipping the golden calf). So, too, the last forty days were in God’s goodwill! You must now say (admit) that the intervening forty days were passed in God’s anger (Midrash Tanchuma, Ki Tisa 31; cf. Rashi on Exodus 18:13).