Some say God offered it to every nation on earth, but only Israel was willing to accept it. But there's another, even more dramatic version that I think you'll find fascinating.
Imagine this: From the very beginning of time, God makes a deal. According to some, "If Israel accepts the Torah when it is offered to them, all of creation will continue to exist. Otherwise I will return the world to chaos and void." Talk about high stakes! This idea emphasizes how essential Israel is in God's grand plan.
So, the children of Israel are gathered at the foot of Mount Sinai, as described in Exodus 19:17. And then… things get intense. The story goes that God uproots the mountain, flips it upside down like an inverted barrel, and holds it over their heads! "Accept the Torah," God says, "or be buried here!"
Now, that’s quite a visual, isn't it? This account, found in Midrash, comes from a very literal reading of the verse "And they took their places at the foot of the mountain." It really drives home the weightiness of the moment. Some versions add that God had already offered the Torah to all the other nations, and they all declined. So when God gets to Israel, the very last nation, and does this, what choice do they have?
And what do the Israelites say in response? “Na’aseh v’nishma” (נעשה ונשמע): "We will do and we will listen" (Exodus 24:7). "We will do" means following God's commandments, the 613 mitzvot, while "we will listen" refers to studying the Torah with intense devotion. In a way, this myth captures the compelling nature of Jewish law to those who observe it, the "yoke" – or perhaps better understood, the privilege – of the Law.
According to B. Shabbat 88a, as a reward for saying "We will do and we will listen," God sent down 600,000 angels who placed two crowns on the head of every Jew – one for “do” and one for “listen.” Now, isn't that a beautiful image?
Of course, not everyone takes this story literally. Some commentaries, like the Likutei Torah, see the mountain as a metaphor for God's overwhelming love for the Israelites. But still… it raises some interesting questions.
Did God force Israel to accept the Torah? Was it really a free choice? Some suggest that it wasn't until the time of Mordechai and Esther that the Jewish people truly accepted the Torah of their own free will, as we see in Esther 9:27: "The Jews undertook and irrevocably obligated themselves and their descendants, and all who might join them, to observe these two days…"
There’s even a parallel story involving the giant Og, who, according to B. Ber. 54b, uprooted a mountain and held it over the heads of the Israelites. We can find more about that in "The Giant Og" (Schwartz, Tree of Souls, p. 461).
And here's a fascinating interpretation from Hakham Yosef Hayim of Baghdad, the Ben Ish Hai. He links this midrash to the Oral Torah. He argues that the Israelites had already accepted the Written Torah when they said, "We will do and we will listen." But God had to coerce them to accept the Oral Law, the Torah She’Ba’al Peh – hence the mountain. Moreover, God hollowed out the mountain to teach them that each letter of the Written Torah contains countless interpretations in the Oral Law, like drops of wine in a barrel. So, according to the Ben Ish Hai, God was demanding that their acceptance of the Written Law include their acceptance of the Oral Law.
So, what do we make of this bizarre and compelling story? Is it a literal account? A metaphor for divine love? Or a lesson about the importance of both the Written and Oral Torah? Maybe it's a little bit of all three. It certainly gives us plenty to think about, doesn't it? What does it mean to freely choose something versus being compelled? And how does that choice shape our relationship with tradition, with God, and with each other?