Simple Faith: The Foundation for Receiving the Torah

1“In the third month … on this day they came to the Wilderness of Sinai. They journeyed from Refidim and came to the Wilderness of Sinai …”¹ Why do we need to know where they came from? What matters, after all, is that they came to Mount Sinai to receive the Torah. [Rashi noticed this difficulty,² but “there is still more to say on God's behalf.”³] The commentators, among them the Ohr HaChaim, raise a further question.⁴ The verse has already said, “on this day they came to the Wilderness of Sinai.” Why, then, does it repeat, “and they came to the Wilderness of Sinai”?

2Further on, the Torah says, “and they stood at the foot of the mountain.”⁵ Chazal expounded: “This teaches that He held the mountain over them like a barrel and said to them, ‘If you accept the Torah, good …’”⁶ Tosafos, the classic commentators on the Gemara, ask why He held the mountain over them like a barrel when they had already put “we will do” before “we will hear.”⁷ They answer that perhaps the people would retract when they saw the great fire, at which their souls left them. But why should that be? Surely the opposite is true: once they saw how precious the Torah is, they would certainly agree to accept it!

3The Tiferes Shlomo asks how Moshe could add a day on his own.⁸ The upper and lower worlds were all waiting and longing for the day the Torah would be given, so how could he put that day off? My holy father and teacher, zt"l, answered as follows. The foundation of receiving the Torah is faith in Hashem, blessed be He; that is why Hashem opened His words with “I am Hashem your God …”⁹ Bnei Yisrael were prepared for the revelation of the light of faith by their journey through the wilderness, “in a land not sown,”¹⁰ where they were to acquire trust and faith, as the holy sefarim explain.¹¹ So Moshe Rabbeinu added one day to teach them a great foundation: simple faith, without questions or philosophical inquiry. Bnei Yisrael found it hard to understand why Moshe was delaying the giving of the Torah. Yet they did not question him or harbor doubts about him, because of their faith “in Hashem and in Moshe His servant.”¹² This led them to acquire simple faith, and through it they were prepared and became worthy to receive the Torah. That is why Moshe added one day, and the Holy One, blessed be He, agreed with him. That is the gist of his words.

4We may explain all this as follows. We know that “The beginning of wisdom is the fear of Hashem”:¹³ the first step toward wisdom is to fear Hashem, Who is always present over a person. A person comes to this by having clear faith. And the right faith is simple faith without philosophical inquiry, the tradition handed down from our fathers. This is the foundation for keeping and receiving the Torah. As is well known, the pious R' Yosef Yaavetz, who lived through the expulsion from Spain, wrote about that time of trial: those who had simple faith withstood the trial, while those who followed the paths of philosophical inquiry did not.

5While Israel was at Refidim, the war with Amalek took place there.¹⁴ The core of Amalek's power and of his war was his attempt to stir up doubts in the heart of Israel. As Chazal said, Amalek would take the circumcisions of Israel and fling them upward.¹⁵ By this he meant to mock, saying, “What sense is there in the mitzvah of bris milah?” and so, Heaven forbid, to plant doubts about the mitzvos in Israel's heart. But the people of Israel overcame this and held fast to their faith in the mitzvos. As it says, “They journeyed from Refidim”: they moved away from “Refidim,” Amalek's attempt to weaken their hands.¹⁶ They overcame him, and this was the preparation for receiving the Torah; that is the meaning of “and they came to the Wilderness of Sinai.” This is why the verse says it twice. First it says, “In the third month … they came to the Wilderness of Sinai.” Then it spells out what the preparation for receiving the Torah was: the first preparation was “They journeyed from Refidim,” away from doubts in faith in Hashem, and so “they came to the Wilderness of Sinai.”

6With this we can answer Tosafos' question: why did Hashem hold the mountain over them like a barrel even after they had said “We will do and we will hear”? The meaning of “We will do and we will hear” is this. Bnei Yisrael said “we will do” first: they wanted to accept the Torah without inquiring into its reasons, taking it upon themselves with simple faith. Yet they also said “and we will hear.” Although they wanted to keep the mitzvos, afterward they also wanted to hear, understand and know the reasons for the Torah's words. At times, though, this can lead to a blemish, as we saw with philosophical inquiry. So even though they said “We will do and we will hear,” there was reason to hold the mountain over them, lest they retract after inquiring and probing into the mitzvos and so blemish their keeping of them. That is why He held the mountain over them: so that they would always keep the mitzvos out of simple faith.

7This also lets us explain a saying of Chazal: “When Israel received the Torah, the nations of the world grew jealous of them: why should Israel be brought closer than the nations? The Holy One, blessed be He, silenced them. He said to them: Bring your book of lineage, as My children bring theirs.”¹⁷ The holy sefarim ask what lineage has to do with receiving and learning the Torah.¹⁸ According to what we have explained, we may say that the foundation of receiving the Torah is simple faith, and in Bnei Yisrael this faith has been rooted ever since the holy Avos. As it says of Avraham Avinu, “so that he will command his children and his household after him, and they will keep the way of Hashem”:¹⁹ Avraham planted faith in Hashem in us. The nations, however, do not have the root of faith planted in them by their fathers, and so they cannot receive the Torah. For Bnei Yisrael received the Torah only in the merit of the Avos.

8This also sheds light on what Chazal said about the time to come.²⁰ The nations of the world will come and say before the Holy One, blessed be He, “Give us the Torah anew, and we will keep it.” In the end He will say to them, “I have an easy mitzvah, and sukkah is its name; go and do it.” At once each [and every] one of them will go off and build a sukkah on his roof. Then Hashem will make the sun blaze down on them as in the heat of Tammuz, the height of summer, and each and every one will kick his sukkah and walk out. The point is this. Keeping the mitzvos without reasons, only because the King decreed them, belongs to Bnei Yisrael alone. With the nations of the world, if they do not understand the reason, for example why one must sit in the sukkah even in the heat of the day, the mitzvah loses all meaning for them, and they kick it away.

9There is a well-known saying of the Baal Shem Tov, zt"l, on this subject. After all he had grasped of the roots of the Torah and the mitzvos on high, and after all the delight he found in his avodah, his service of Hashem, he would set all his understanding aside and hold fast to simple faith: “Ich bin a nar un ich gleib,” “I am a simpleton, and I believe.”²¹

10So we must make a reckoning of our souls and reflect on the tradition of our fathers. And we must ask Hashem, Who is good, that we be privileged to receive the Torah in the merit of our fathers, and “to learn, to keep and to fulfill.”²² Through this may we hasten the time of the redemption. Amen, may it be His will.