Shabbos Parashas Yisro - 5780

Shabbos Parashas Yisro - 5780

Rabbi Hal Miller

And Moshe ascended to God, and God called to him from the mountain saying,

"So shall you say to the house of Yaakov and tell to the sons of Yisrael."

[Shemos 19:3]

Moshe makes repeated trips up and down the mountain in our parsha, seemingly

beyond what an old man would be capable of doing. What is the purpose? Many

commentators take each instance and give it a separate explanation, but we must

wonder whether there is something larger as well.

In our verse, Moshe is returning to God to report in. God sent him to Egypt to bring

Israel back to this mountain, and Moshe has completed that mission. From this we

learn something about the laws of agency. In verse 19:7, Moshe descends to the

elders to relate God's commandments regarding preparation for the Revelation,

then in 19:8, he returns to the mountain to report the people's response to God.

One might ask why this response had to be reported to God, who knows all anyway,

and Ramban replies that this is the purpose of the following verse, 19:9 where God

tells Moshe that He is going to cut out the middle man and speak directly to the

people, which will lead them to believe in Moshe. After going down to tell the people,

Moshe returns back up the hill.

In 19:14, Moshe comes back down and tells the people to purify themselves and

prepare for the Revelation. In verse 20, God calls Moshe back up the mountain,

tells him to get down and ensure the people know to stay off the mountain, ending

in verse 24 where God tells Moshe to go down, tell the people, then return up the

mountain with Aharon. Moshe descends in verse 25 to relay that message, but

then it gets a little fuzzy.

The first 18 verses of chapter 20 are God speaking to the people, the Ten

Commandments. In verse 19, God tells Moshe to pass some more information

to the people. What we do not see is where Moshe is at the time, where he has

been standing all this time, nor whether he and Aharon ever climbed the mountain.

Many questions here, but we will limit ourselves to the repeated ascending and

descending.

Rashi says, "All of Moshe's ascents were early in the morning." Apparently, the

purpose of these ascents and descents was to act as a calendar. With it, we

know how many days were involved, and which day each incident occurred.

Rashi also says that this emphasized, both to Moshe and to the people, the

importance of the events.

Sforno tells us that the last "descend" command was so that Moshe would be

standing in view of the people while God spoke to the entire nation, thus providing

the support for Moshe in the eyes of the nation. the command to return with Aharon

referred to the conclusion of the Ten Commandments.

Rambam, though, does not think this was a physical climbing and descending,

rather Moshe would expend the effort to spiritually prepare himself each time to

speak with God, then descend to the level of the people, that it was a matter of

directing his thoughts.

Shemos Rabbah also sees the trekking in a spiritual way. "Moshe went up IN a

cloud and descended IN a cloud, rather than TO or FROM a cloud, meaning IN

the merit of the Patriarchs ascending and descending with him."

If the ascents and descents were physical, it was to teach us many individual

laws. If they were spiritual, then Rambam and Shemos Rabbah are our

teachers.