When Israel does the will of the Almighty, they rise like ministering angels. This is Aggadat Bereshit's boldest claim about obedience — not that it earns reward, but that it transforms nature. "The Lord will make you the head and not the tail; you shall be only at the top, and not at the bottom" (Deuteronomy 28:13). The rabbis read "only at the top" as conditional: sometimes you are above, and when you listen to the commandments you stay above. The elevation is not permanent by nature. It is permanent by faithfulness.
The image of ascending to the mountains recurs throughout the Aggadat — "I lift my eyes to the mountains; from where does my help come?" (Psalm 121:1). The mountains are not just landscape. They are the patriarchs, the Torah, the Temple Mount — every elevated place in Jewish memory where heaven and earth met. When Israel looks toward those mountains, they are orienting themselves toward the source of their elevation.
But the comparison to angels is the surprising one. Angels have no yetzer hara — no evil inclination. They cannot choose disobedience. Their righteousness costs them nothing because they have no alternative. When a human being chooses obedience over temptation, the rabbis argued, that act exceeds what an angel can do. It rises above the angelic. Israel doing the will of God is not imitating angels — it is surpassing them.