Parshat Yitro5 min read

Why God Grieved the Day He Gave the Torah

At Sinai the angels sang and Israel received crowns, but God already saw the calf, the broken tablets, and death returning to the camp.

Curated by Arthur · Told by Maggid ·
Table of Contents
  1. Everyone Was Singing Except God
  2. The Distance Between the Mountain and the Calf
  3. The Tablets That Were Prepared
  4. Why God Had Agreed to It Anyway

Everyone Was Singing Except God

Israel sang because faith had filled them past speech. Six hundred thousand people stood at the base of a mountain wrapped in fire and cloud and they sang, because there was no other adequate response to what they were experiencing. The angels sang because heaven had bent low enough to touch the earth, which happens rarely enough to warrant extraordinary celebration. The mountain itself trembled with the weight of what was on it, and the nations of the world, who could hear the sound from a distance, turned to each other and asked what it was. Creation participated in the day.

God was not singing.

The angels noticed. They asked the question you would ask if you had never encountered grief before: why is the one who made all of this not celebrating with everything He made? The answer God gave them was the one nobody in the crowd below could carry. They did not know the future. God did.

The Distance Between the Mountain and the Calf

Forty days. That was all the distance between the revelation and the calf. Forty days between the moment Israel heard I am the Lord your God and the moment they built a golden image and called it the god who brought them out of Egypt. The same people. The same covenant. Forty days.

God saw this at Sinai while Israel was still singing. He could see the idol already forming in the camp's imagination, the anxiety and impatience and the terrible human need to see what you believe already present in the people standing before Him. He gave the Torah knowing what would happen to it. He gave the commandment against idols to a people He already knew would violate it before the sound of the commandment had fully faded from the air.

The crowns that the angels carried for Israel that day, the tradition says six hundred thousand angels each bringing two crowns, one for I will do and one for I will hear, the acceptance in action preceding the acceptance in understanding, were given to people who would return them. The angels who placed the crowns would come back forty days later and take them off. The full ceremony of coronation was performed for a covenant that would be broken while the celebrants were still on the way down the mountain.

The Tablets That Were Prepared

The tablets were sapphire, carved from the throne of God itself. The tradition preserves their origin with precision: made at the end of the sixth day of creation, set aside before the world's history began, they had been waiting since before the first Sabbath for the hands that would carry them down. The letters written on them were written in fire, black fire on white fire, and the writing went through from one side to the other so that it could be read from either face. The tablets were not a human craft project. They were a divine object handed across the boundary between heaven and earth into a human carrier.

Moses received them at the end of forty days on the mountain. He descended with the tablets in his arms, and before he reached the camp he could hear the sound of singing below. Not the singing of Sinai. The other kind. He saw the calf and the dancing. He stopped at the threshold and the letters flew. The tradition says the writing left the tablets the moment Moses saw what the people had done, as if the letters refused to be broken along with the covenant, as if they withdrew into themselves rather than be smashed. The weight of the tablets in Moses's arms, without the letters, became too much. He dropped them. They shattered.

Why God Had Agreed to It Anyway

The tradition does not frame God's grief at Sinai as a reason not to give the Torah. It frames it as the cost of giving it to beings who are free. God knew the future and gave the covenant anyway, knowing the calf was coming and knowing that every generation after the calf would struggle with the same underlying problem: the Torah asks everything of a people who have not yet become what the Torah is asking them to be. The gap between the covenant's demands and the people's capacity is not a mistake. It is the space where the tradition lives.

God grieved at Sinai not because the giving was a failure but because it was a beginning, and beginnings with free beings are always uncertain. The angels sang because they could not see the calf. God did not sing because He could. The celebration was genuine. The grief was also genuine. At Sinai, on the day the world received the Torah, both were true at once.

SinaiGolden CalfTorahAngelsExileDeath
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From the tradition

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The texts this telling draws on, in full. Open a card to read inline, or expand it for a wider, quieter read.

Legends of the Jews 2:96Legends of the Jews

The moment at Mount Sinai. Imagine it: Revelation itself, unfolding before the eyes of all Israel. The Torah, the divine instruction, about to be given. A moment of unparalleled faith and jubilation. The people sang, the angels rejoiced. According to Legends of the Jews, only God was downcast.

Downcast? At the very moment He was revealing Himself? The angels, perplexed, asked, "Is not the joy that Thou hast created Thine?" Why the sorrow?

God's answer is chilling: "You do not know what the future will bring." (Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews)

He knew, that a mere forty days later, the Israelites would betray that very covenant, worshipping a Golden Calf. The pain of that future transgression overshadowed the present joy. It's a profound reminder that even in moments of great triumph, the potential for future disappointment can cast a long shadow.

The worship of the Golden Calf wasn't just another sin. The ramifications, the Legends of the Jews tell us, were catastrophic.

Think about this: God intended to grant everlasting life to the nation that accepted the Torah. By accepting the Torah at Sinai, Israel gained supremacy over the Malach ha-Mavet, the Angel of Death. Imagine! But this gift, this potential for immortality, was tragically lost when they turned to idolatry.

The punishment for this betrayal? A harsh one. We were doomed to study the Torah in suffering, in bondage, in exile. Amidst the daily grind, the tzuris (troubles), and the burdens of life. A long, arduous journey until the Messianic time arrives, until the Olam Ha-Ba, the World to Come, when God will finally compensate us for all our pain.

And here’s the kicker: every sorrow, every hardship that befalls Israel until that Messianic time, is, in part, a consequence of the Golden Calf. Every. Single. One.

Heavy stuff. It makes you wonder about the weight of choices, both individual and collective. How one act, one moment of weakness, can ripple through generations. It's a stark reminder of the fragility of faith, the constant need for vigilance, and the enduring consequences of our actions. What do you think? Is this a fair assessment? Or do you think it's too harsh a judgement of the Jewish people?

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Legends of the Jews 2:47Legends of the Jews

Legends of the Jews turns to Sinai, Giving of the Torah.

What happened at Sinai wasn't just a simple exchange. Oh no. Picture this: the heavens themselves ripped open. Mount Sinai, no longer bound to the earth, ascended skyward, its peak piercing the heavens. A dense cloud enveloped its slopes, reaching toward the very foot of God's throne. It's an image of immense power and awe.

God wasn’t alone, of course. He was accompanied by legions of angels. Ginzberg, in his Legends of the Jews, describes a breathtaking scene. On one side were twenty-two thousand angels, carrying crowns specifically for the Levites. Why the Levites? Because, according to tradition, they were the only tribe that remained steadfast in their faith during the episode of the Golden Calf. A powerful reward for their loyalty!

Then, on the second side, were sixty myriads – that's 600,000 – three thousand five hundred and fifty angels. Each one bore a fiery crown, one for every single Israelite present. Now, double that number of angels appeared on the third side. And on the fourth side? Well, there were so many they simply couldn’t be counted. Innumerable.

The account goes on to say that God didn't appear from just one direction, but from all four simultaneously. Imagine that! It didn't diminish His glory, though. His presence filled both heaven and earth. It's hard to even wrap your head around that kind of spectacle, isn’t it?

Despite the sheer number of angels gathered on Mount Sinai, there was no chaos, no crowding. There was room for everyone. A miracle in itself. Every angel was there to honor Israel and the giving of the Torah, the teachings. But there was also a condition. According to the Legends of the Jews, these very same angels had received orders to destroy Israel if they refused the Torah. Talk about high stakes!

It makes you think, doesn't it? The giving of the Torah wasn't just a nice story, a feel-good moment. It was a pivotal moment with profound consequences, an awesome display of divine presence coupled with a very real choice. What would have happened if they had rejected it? It's a chilling thought, and a powerful reminder of the weight of our choices and the enduring significance of that revelation at Mount Sinai.

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Legends of the Jews 2:44Legends of the Jews

Israel stood at Sinai divided into two camps, men and women, ready to receive the Torah. Ginzberg's Legends of the Jews preserves the harder version of that readiness. Their acceptance was not simple consent. God lifted the mountain over them like a basket and gave the choice its terrible edge: accept the Torah, or be buried beneath Sinai.

The people broke. They wept, poured out their hearts before God, and answered with submission: all that the Lord had spoken, they would do and obey. Only then did the heavens open above the terrified camp.

One hundred and twenty myriads of angels descended, enough for every Israelite to receive a crown and a girdle of glory. The gifts marked the people as bearers of Torah. Their faces shone with heavenly radiance, a light placed on them at the moment covenant and fear met under the mountain.

The light did not last. When Israel worshipped the Golden Calf, the angels returned and stripped away the crowns and girdles. The radiance faded from every face except one. Moses kept the light. Ginzberg adds the frightening final detail: if even a crack opened in Moses' tomb, the force of the radiance still resting there would destroy the world.

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Legends of the Jews 2:94Legends of the Jews

The luchot, that's Hebrew for "tablets", were divine creations themselves, crafted by God's own hand during that mystical twilight time at the end of the first Sabbath. Ginzberg, in his monumental Legends of the Jews, describes them as being made of a sapphire-like stone. a material so exquisite, it reflects the very glory of God!

Not only that, but between each commandment were inscribed all the precepts of the Torah, in all their glorious detail! (Legends of the Jews)

How could that possibly fit? The Midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary) tells us that the tablets were only six handbreadths in length and width. It sounds impossible. But that’s part of the miracle, isn't it? Divine knowledge compressed into a manageable form.

Get this: even though they were made of incredibly hard stone, these tablets could be rolled up like a scroll! It really drives home the point that we’re dealing with something beyond our everyday understanding.

There's a beautiful image described in the tradition of God handing the tablets to Moses. God held the top third, Moses the bottom, leaving the middle third open. In this way, the Shechinah, the Divine radiance, shone upon Moses' face. What a powerful image of partnership, of receiving divine wisdom and light! It’s a reminder that receiving divine teachings is an active process, a collaboration between the human and the divine. (Legends of the Jews)

These details about the tablets, their creation, their contents, and their transmission, really deepen our understanding of the gift Moses brought down from Sinai. It wasn't just a list of rules; it was a tangible manifestation of God's presence and wisdom, designed to illuminate our path and transform our lives. It makes you wonder, doesn't it, about all the hidden layers within the stories we think we know so well.

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Legends of the Jews 2:97Legends of the Jews

The Torah tells us that Moses ascended Mount Sinai to receive the Torah, the sacred law, from God. Before he left, Moses told the people he would return in forty days with the divine teachings. But, according to Ginzberg's retelling in Legends of the Jews, on the fortieth day, at noon, Satan himself intervened! Imagine this: Satan, with all his deceptive power, conjured a vision. A vision of Moses, lying dead on a bier, floating between heaven and earth.

The people, witnessing this horrific spectacle, cried out, "This is the man Moses that bought us up out of the land of Egypt." Panic and disillusionment set in. They felt abandoned, lost without their leader.

Then, under the influence of the magicians Jannes and Jambres – remember them from the stories of the plagues in Egypt? – they approached Aaron, Moses' brother. They said, "The Egyptians were wont to carry their gods about with them… and now we desire that thou shouldst make us a god such as the Egyptians had." They longed for a tangible symbol of faith, something to fill the void left by Moses' apparent demise.

Hur, the son of Miriam, and a leader appointed by Moses in his absence, bravely stood against them. He rebuked them, saying, "O ye frivolous ones, you are no longer mindful of the many miracles God wrought for you!" But his words fell on deaf ears, and the people, in their rage and fear, murdered him. Imagine the chaos, the raw emotion!

Turning to Aaron, they threatened him: "If thou wilt make us a god, it is well, if not we will dispose of thee as of him." Aaron faced an impossible choice. He feared for his own life, but more than that, he feared the consequences of the people committing such a heinous sin – the murder of a priest and prophet. He thought, as Legends of the Jews explains, that God would never forgive them.

So, Aaron made a calculated decision. He decided to grant their wish, but in a way that he hoped would prevent the creation of the idol. He demanded that they bring him the golden earrings of their wives, sons, and daughters. He reasoned that the women would refuse, and the whole plan would fall apart. Smart thinking. But here's where the story takes another turn. Aaron's plan only worked partially. The women, refused to surrender their jewelry for such a blasphemous purpose! Midrash Rabbah praises the women for their unwavering faith in God during this crisis. As a reward for their steadfastness, God granted women the new moons, Rosh Chodesh, as special holidays. The Zohar tells us that in the world to come, they will be further rewarded, like the new moons, they will be rejuvenated monthly.

However, the men, desperate for a god, removed their own earrings – a common practice in that era, particularly amongst Arab men – and brought them to Aaron. The women stood firm in their faith, while the men, gripped by fear and anxiety, succumbed to the pressure. The story of the Golden Calf is a stark reminder of how easily we can be swayed by fear and how important it is to hold onto our faith, even in the face of uncertainty. What does this ancient story tell us about our own vulnerabilities and the importance of moral courage today?

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Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus 32:19Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus

This is one of the most haunting scenes in all of Jewish literature. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves it in its full strangeness: Moses approached the camp, saw the calf and the instruments of music in the hands of the wicked, and saw Satana, the Accuser, dancing and leaping before the people. His wrath was suddenly kindled. He cast the tablets from his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain. And the holy writing that was on them flew, and was carried away into the air of the heavens (Exodus 32:19).

Why did the letters fly away?

This is one of the great targumic images. The sages of the classical midrashic tradition (Pesachim 87b, c. 500 CE; Avot DeRabbi Natan 2, c. 700 CE) elaborated it. The sapphire tablets were being carried down the mountain by Moses, but the true weight of the tablets was borne by the letters themselves, each otiot, each Hebrew character, actively lifting the stone through its own sanctity. When Moses saw the calf and understood what Israel had done, the letters knew. They could not tolerate being borne into a camp of idolatry. They fled, returning upward to the throne of glory from which the sapphire had been cut.

Without the letters, the tablets became too heavy for any human arm. They fell from Moses's hands not because he threw them, in this reading, but because the weight became unbearable the moment the letters departed. The breaking at the foot of the mountain was half Moses's anger and half physics, gravity reasserting itself on sapphire no longer held up by Torah.

The figure of Satana. Ha-Satan the Accuser, dancing and leaping among the people is another chilling targumic addition. This is not a rebel outside God's command. This is the heavenly prosecutor, doing his job. He rejoices when humans fail because every failure strengthens his case in the heavenly court (Job 1:6-12). Moses saw him visible among the crowd, a sign of how thin the veil between worlds had become on that terrible day.

Moses's final cry, Woe upon the people who heard at Sinai from the mouth of the Holy One, Thou shalt not make to thyself an image, echoes for forty days. And then he climbs the mountain again to pray.

The Maggid takes this home: when the holy letters leave, the stones we carry become unbearable. Carry your tablets gently, and do not let the letters fly.

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