According to Ginzberg's masterful retelling in Legends of the Jews, God wasn't just concerned with delivering the Torah to the Israelites. He was concerned with how it was delivered, with the process itself. It wasn’t enough to simply give the people the law; they needed to be ready to receive it.
Think about it: God had just showered the Israelites with miracles, leading them out of Egypt, parting the Red Sea. But as amazing as all that was, God wanted to make sure that the giving of the Torah itself was done right. He wanted it to be clear that this wasn’t just Moses's show.
The midrash – that beautiful, imaginative way of interpreting scripture – suggests that God deliberately waited for Moses to leave His presence before revealing the Torah. Why? So that the people couldn't claim that Moses was the one speaking from the cloud. It was a divine message, pure and simple.
But here’s where the story gets even more interesting. God tells Moses, "Go down, warn the people." He cautions them not to "press forward to see." He explains that even losing one person would feel like losing all of creation! That's how precious each individual is in God's eyes. He specifically tells Moses to warn Nadab and Abihu (Aaron's sons), and the firstborn who were acting as priests.
Moses, ever the devoted leader, tries to stay put, saying he’s already warned the people. He wants to remain close to God. But God insists, "Go, descend and call upon Aaron to come up with thee, but let him keep behind thee…" It's a delicate dance of leadership, of proximity to the divine, and of ensuring the people's reverence.
And then, in a flourish, the moment Moses leaves the mountain, God reveals the Torah to the people. It’s a dramatic moment, isn’t it? All this preparation, all this careful maneuvering, culminating in the revelation of God's word.
What can we take away from this? Perhaps it's that true revelation requires preparation and humility. It's not just about receiving the message, but about being ready to receive it, about understanding the weight and the responsibility that comes with it. It wasn't just about the words themselves, but about how the people received them.