(א) ומשה עלה וגו'. צריך לדעת למה עלה משה קודם שיקרא לו ה'. עוד צריך לדעת לאיזה מקום עלה, אם להר היה לו לומר אל ההר בפירוש...עוד יש לדקדק למה אמר הכתוב אל האלהים ולא אמר אל ה' כמו שגמר אומר ויקרא אליו ה' וגו':
(ב) אכן כוונת הכתוב היא להיות שקדם ה' ואמר למשה בסנה (לעיל ג' י"ב) בהוציאך את העם תעבדון את "האלהים" על ההר הזה, הוא מראהו כי שם הוא מקום קבלת התורה, אשר על כן בהגיעו שמה עשה משה משפט עבד נאמן וקדם ועלה אל ההר ולא הוצרך להזכיר ההר כיון שהזכירו בסמוך דכתיב נגד ההר ועליו חוזר אומרו ומשה עלה,
ואומרו אל האלהים הוא טעם עליתו, כי מה שייכות בעליה זו, לזה אמר "אל האלהים" שקדם אצלו מהבורא "תעבדון את האלהים על ההר הזה" לזה אם היה מתעכב עד שיקרא ה' אליו יראה התרשלות ומיעוט חשק בדבר, לזה תיכף קדם והכין עצמו ועלה, וזולת מה שקדם לו במאמר ה' תעבדון את האלהים לא היה עולה אל ההר.
(ג) ויקרא אליו ה'. פירוש כשקדם הוא ועלה, תכף קרא לו ה'. ויש לך לדעת כי בחינת הקדושה לא תקדים אלא למזמין אותה ומעיר על הדבר והוא מאמרם ז"ל (זהר ח"ג צ"ב) באתערותא דלתתא אתערותא דלעילא, והוא סוד אומרו (בראשית ב ו) ואד יעלה מן הארץ והשקה מלמעלה את כל פני האדמה, וירמוז באומרו ויקרא לשון יקר וגדולה עשה ה' למשה על הכנתו וזריזותו בדבר:
(1) ומשה עלה אל האלוקים, "and Moses went up unto G'd." Why did Moses go up before G'd had asked him to come up? Where to exactly did Moses go up? If he ascended the Mountain, why did the Torah not say so? Shemot Rabbah 28, bases itself on Psalms 68,19: עלית למרום, "you went up to celestial regions." If we accept this Midrash at face value, why did G'd afterwards have to call upon Moses from the Mountain if he was already in the celestial regions? Besides, why does the Torah describe Moses as going up to האלוקים instead of to השם seeing that when G'd called to him from the Mountain G'd is described as השם? (2) We have to understand what transpired in conjunction with G'd having told Moses already at the burning bush (3,12) that when the Israelites would arrive at this Mountain they would serve the Lord there. The term used there was את האלוקים. Moses, ever the faithful servant of the Lord, did not wait until he would be commanded to ascend the mountain but did so on his own initiative. There was no need to identify where Moses ascended to since the Torah had last spoken about the Mountain. The reason the Torah mentions Moses' destination as being אל האלוקים is precisely because it was the reason for his ascent. Moses felt that if he waited until he would be asked to ascend this would demonstrate both lethargy on his part, perhaps even unwillingness. This clears up all the apparent peculiarities in this verse. We do not believe that our approach contradicts the explanation offered by the Midrash as we view G'd's presence on the Mountain as including the Mountain in the celestial regions. (3) ויקרא אליו השם. G'd called out to him. As soon as G'd noticed that Moses was ascending, G'd called out to him. You have to remember that it is in the nature of קדושה, sanctity, not to make the first move towards a person until that person has made active preparations to welcome such sanctity. The Zohar third volume page 92 phrases it is as "invitations from the terrestrial regions being followed by invitations from the celestial regions." This is the mystical dimension of Genesis 2,6: "and a vapour rose from the earth and it irrigated (from above) the whole surface of the earth." When the Torah uses the term ויקרא for G'd calling to Moses it alludes to יקר, precious, (which is part of the word ויקרא. (4) מן ההר לאמור, from the Mountain, saying: Seeing that the word of G'd originates in the upper regions of the Heavens, for G'd had not yet descended on the Mountain, the Torah had to tell us that G'd commanded His voice to travel via the Mountain. Moses would hear G'd's instructions from there. The voice would travel in a straight line, in a very narrow channel and Moses would not hear it until he arrived on the Mountain. The two statements 1) ויקרא אליו השם, followed by מן ההר לאמור are to tell us that the word of G'd became audible only once it had "arrived" on the Mountain. Had the Torah not added the word לאמור, I would have thought that G'd's presence had already descended on the Mountain, something which was not the case. (5) כה תאמר לבית יעקב..אתם ראיתם, Thus you shalll say to the house of Jacob:…"you have seen, etc." Why did the Torah repeat itself by first saying תאמר and right afterwards תגיד? Our sages in Shemot Rabbah 28,2 explain that the term בית יעקב refers to the women who have to be addressed by אמירה, the soft-spoken approach, whereas to the בני ישראל Moses was to speak in words that were קשים כגידים, tough as sinews. The difficulty with this comment is that we have no evidence that Moses adopted a different mode of speech when he spoke to the men. He spoke to the men and women simultaneously; he either adopted the soft-spoken method or the hard line, but at any rate he is on record as only making one single address. The Mechilta understands the directive in verse 6 commencing with אלה as a warning not to either add or subtract a single word from what G'd instructed Moses to say. Even if we were to point to verse six where G'd said "these are the words you shall speak to the children of Israel" as a directive to speak sternly to the men only, where is there any mention that Moses addressed the women separately? It is also difficult to detect any harshness in the words Moses directed at the Israelites! (6) I believe I know how we have to understand what G'd had in mind. Let us first remind ourselves that it is an accepted principle of the Torah that the Lord G'd of Israel is always concerned with bestowing good on His creatures, more so even than the creatures themselves are anxious to become the recipients of such good. This principle applies in an even greater degree to G'd's chosen people. G'd employs His wisdom in order to give us a chance to acquire merits so that He has reason to increase the reward He wants to give us for מצוה performance. G'd has revealed, for instance, that the reward in store for someone who keeps the commandments out of fear that he will be punished if he fails to keep them is only half of the reward in store for people who observe such commandments out of a feeling of love for G'd. We know this from two verses dealing with the reward in store for keeping the commandments. In Deuteronomy 7,9 the Torah mentions G'd as keeping a reward in store for those who love Him for a thousand generations, whereas in Exodus 20,7 G'd is on record as doing the same for two thousand generations. [In the celestial regions G'd has administrators known as שר. Some of these administrators are in charge of rewards extending for one thousand generations, others are in charge of rewards extending for two thousand generations, compare Pardes Rimonim, Ed.] The reward in store for people who observe the commandments because of fear is entrusted to a שר האלף, a celestial administrator of a lower order, whereas the reward in store for people who observe the commandments out of a feeling of love for G'd is administered by a שר in charge of a higher order, i.e. שר האלפים. (7) While performance of the מצות out of a feeling of love for G'd is something very noble, it is also accompanied by a potentially dangerous phenomenon inasmuch as the very love one feels for G'd may make one careless. As a result, one may occasionally trespass and violate a commandment, and even assume that due to one's overall love for G'd and His Torah He would overlook such minor infractions. The reason one feels that way is because this is the way one treats one's friends and wants to be treated by them. In order to understand Moses' behaviour we must keep such considerations in mind. Moses was on such intimate terms with G'd that on occasion he permitted himself unbecoming remarks such as in Exodus 4,13 when he told G'd "send whom You are in the habit of sending." Another occasion when Moses permitted himself an unbecoming comment was in Exodus 5,22 when he asked G'd: "why did You make things worse for the people instead of saving them?" The only reason Moses could make such a slip was because he felt so close to G'd that he lost his sense of awe when facing G'd, something that would never have happened to a person less intimate with G'd. The fact is that G'd does not indulge people with whom He is intimate, He does not apply less stringent yardsticks when judging those who are close to Him. We have G'd on record in Deut. 10,17 as "not regarding persons i.e. not showing preference to those who are close to him, nor accepting a bribe." On the contrary, the closer a person has come to G'd the more exacting the yardstick by which G'd measures him. When a person who is close to G'd commits a minor infraction he is disciplined as we know from Psalms 50,3 וסביביו נסערה מאד, "those who are around Him (close to Him) are greatly agitated." Baba Kama 50 explains this to mean that G'd is so exacting with the pious people even if they deviate only by a hair's breadth. (8) When G'd was about to give the Torah to the people He intended to make that event one which would bestow the maximum merit on them. He had two options. 1) To address them with words of love and fondness. The result of such an address would be to implant in the people so much love that they would accept the Torah and qualify for the maximum amount of reward. The disadvantage accompanying such a method of giving the Torah would be the risk that the people would begin to feel so familiar with G'd that they would lose their sense of awe; this could become counter- productive; we have already described possible results of such feelings of familiarity with G'd. In other words, our relationship with G'd may either be based on the master-servant relationship or on the father-son relationship. If it is the former the feeling of awe before G'd will be present at all times, whereas if it is the latter there is always the danger that the "son" may take the love of the "father" for granted and abuse it on occasion. G'd's second alternative was to address the children of Israel in His capacity as a Master speaking to His servants. The advantage of such an approach was that the Israelites would not dare take any of the commandments lightly. On the other hand, such an approach would make it impossible for them to merit the greatest reward possible. (9) Keeping all this in mind, G'd opted for a method which would combine both approaches. When He told Moses כה תאמר, He meant that Moses should use the following approach: תאמר לבית יעקב ותגיד, "on the one hand speak to the people in a friendly soft-spoken approach, but תגיד employ also words tough as sinews." G'd meant for the אמירה to be used in Moses' address to some of the people, i.e. בית יעקב, whereas the תגיד was to be used when he addressed the בני ישראל, the remainder of the people. The בית יעקב is a reference to the spiritually less mature part of the people, whereas the term בני ישראל referred to the spiritual elite. Inasmuch as the elite was capable of accepting the Torah and observing it out of a feeling of love for G'd, they had to be reminded of the master-servant relationship which exists between G'd and us; the spiritually less mature section of the people, the בית יעקב on the other hand, had to be won over by stressing the father-son relationship which is part of our relationship with G'd. Every Jew needs to be aware of this dual relationship at all times if he wants to achieve the maximum reward that one can qualify for, and if he wants to avoid the pitfalls of feeling an undue familiarity with G'd. When the sages in the Midrash said that the בית יעקב refers to the women this is homiletics.
