Pt1 Conditionality of Creation, Crowns, and Commitment: the Cosmic Significance of the Giving of the Torah and the Revelation at Sinai (Shabbat 88a-89a)
This is the first part of a three-part series. The outline for this three-part series is below.
It’s part of a planned six posts on the aggadic sugya of Matan Torah (“Giving of the Torah”, in Shabbat 86b-89b), on the occasion of the upcoming holiday of Shavuot.
In this three-part series, due to the length of this aggadic sugya, I haven’t summarized and paraphrased every section.
Intro
The Revelation at Sinai stands as one of the most dramatic and consequential moments in rabbinic tradition.
See Hebrew Wikipedia, מעמד הר סיני, my translation:
The Revelation at Mount Sinai (מַעֲמַד הַר סִינָי - also known as the “Giving of the Torah” - מתן תורה) is a formative biblical story in which God reveals Himself to the Israelites at Mount Sinai, gives them the Torah, and commands them to observe the commandments, foremost among them the Ten Commandments.
During this event, God establishes a covenant with the Israelites, choosing them as His people, and they commit to keeping the commandments and the Torah they are about to receive.
At the conclusion of the event, Moses ascends Mount Sinai for forty days, after which he descends with the Tablets of the Covenant, upon which the Ten Commandments uttered during the event are inscribed.
The Talmudic discussion in Shabbat 88a-89a offers an exploration of this event, addressing not only Israel’s commitment to the Torah but also its cosmic significance.
This sugya presents a vision of a world that trembles in anticipation, where the very stability of Creation (מעשה בראשית) hinges on Israel’s acceptance of divine law. It portrays a nation whose faith and obedience are rewarded with celestial adornments, only to have them stripped away in the wake of their failures.
At the heart of this discussion is the notion that Israel’s commitment to the Torah was neither passive nor hesitant. The declaration of Na’aseh veNishma (נעשה ונשמע - “We will do, and we will hear”) becomes emblematic of a proactive faith, one that earns divine praise and angelic gifts.
Yet, the narrative is not without tension: a heretic challenges this impulsive acceptance, and the Golden Calf episode serves as a sobering counterpoint. Even so, the passage affirms that divine love endures, and that Israel’s crowns will ultimately be restored.
Beyond Israel alone, the Talmud universalizes the impact of Sinai. The Torah, like a hammer striking rock, shatters into multiple interpretations, its words reverberating in seventy languages.1
The experience of revelation is overwhelming—each utterance fills the world with fragrance, revives souls with “resurrection dew”,2 and sends Israel recoiling twelve mil back, only to be led forward again by angels.
The drama extends to the heavens, where Moses finds God tying crowns to the letters of the Torah, and even Satan plays a role in testing Israel’s resolve.
Outline
Intro
The Passage - Conditionality of Creation, Crowns, and Commitment: the Cosmic Significance of the Giving of the Torah and the Revelation at Sinai (Shabbat 88a-89a)
The Conditionality of Creation and the Acceptance of Torah
Ḥizkiya - The earth feared destruction if Israel didn’t accept the Torah; after acceptance, it was calmed (Psalms 76:9)
Reish Lakish - The extra letter “heh” (ה) in “the sixth day” teaches that Creation was conditional on Israel’s acceptance of the Torah; otherwise, it would return to chaos (Genesis 1:31)
The Crowns of “We Will Do and We Will Hear” (Exodus 33:6-7; Isaiah 35:10)
R’ Simai - When Israel said “We will do” before “We will hear,” 600,000 angels gave each person two crowns
R’ Ḥama ben Ḥanina - At Horeb they put on and removed the crowns (Exodus 33:6)
R’ Yoḥanan - Moses merited and took all the crowns after they were removed from the people (Exodus 33:7)
Reish Lakish - God will restore the crowns to Israel in the (Messianic) future (Isaiah 35:10)
Israel’s Commitment and Its Symbolism
R’ Elazar - A bat kol praised Israel for acting like angels by saying “We will do” before “We will hear” (Psalms 103:20)
R’ Ḥama bar Ḥanina - Israel is likened to an apple tree because its fruit (action) comes before its leaves (understanding) (Song of Songs 2:3)
Preceding Action to Understanding: A Debate over “Na’aseh ve-Nishma”
Rava’s Intense Study and the Heretic’s Rebuke
Rava - Response to Heretic: Defending Israel’s behavior, saying they act with integrity, unlike deceitful nations (Proverbs 11:3)
R’ Shmuel bar Naḥmani (in name of R’ Yonatan) - Spiritual Growth: Israel's initial acceptance is likened to one eye; full observance is like using both eyes (Song of Songs 4:9)
The Sin of the Golden Calf and Divine Love
Ulla - Israel’s sin with the Golden Calf is like a bride being unfaithful under her wedding canopy (Song of Songs 1:12)
Rav - Despite the sin, God’s love remains—shown by the use of gentle language (“gave fragrance” not “reeked”) (Song of Songs 1:12)
The Universality of Torah
R’ Yoḥanan - Each divine utterance split into 70 languages (Psalms 68:12)
R’ Yishmael’s School - Torah is like a hammer shattering rock—each utterance has many facets (Jeremiah 23:29)
The Power of Torah
Rav Ḥananel bar Pappa - Torah has the power to give life or death like a king (Proverbs 8:6)
Rava - For those who approach Torah sincerely, it is life-giving; for others, it’s deadly
Each utterance received two crowns (Proverbs 8:6)
Divine Presence Despite Suffering (Song of Songs 1:13-14)
R’ Yehoshua ben Levi - God still “rests between my breasts” despite suffering; He forgives the sin of the Golden Calf (Song of Songs 1:13)
God forgives the sin of the Golden Calf (Song of Songs 1:14)
The Experience of Revelation (Song of Songs 5:6,13 ; Psalms 68:10,13)
R’ Yehoshua ben Levi - Each utterance filled the world with fragrance (Song of Songs 5:6)
God brought forth wind from His treasuries and made the spices pass one at a time
R’ Yehoshua ben Levi - Each utterance caused the souls of Israel to leave their bodies (Song of Songs 5:6)
....and they were revived by resurrection dew (Psalms 68:10)
R' Yehoshua ben Levi - Israel recoiled 12 mil after each commandment and was escorted back by angels (Psalms 68:13)
Moses’ Ascension and the Writing of the Torah: When Moses ascended on High, he found God tying crowns to letters (Numbers 14:17)
The Role of Satan: Satan tricks the Israelites (Exodus 32:1)
The Names and Significance of Mount Sinai and the Desert
Why Mount Sinai is called by that name
Five names of the desert where Israel wandered, each reflecting an aspect of their experience
Appendix 1 - Table Summarizing 19 Talmudic Interpretations
Appendix 2 - Traits of the Righteous: Those insulted but do not retaliate, who love and rejoice in suffering, are like the sun in its strength (Judges 5:31)
Appendix 3 - Homiletic Readings of Biblical Verses from the Talmudic Sugya on the Revelation at Sinai
Appendix 4 - Divine and Human Domains: Spatial Boundaries (Sukkah 5a)
Heavenly and Earthly Domains (Psalms 115:16)
Apparent Contradictions: Descent of the Shekhina (Exodus 19:20; Zechariah 14:4), Ascent of Moses and Elijah (Exodus 19:3; II Kings 2:11), and the Cloud and the Throne (Job 26:9); ten handbreadths mark a firm metaphysical boundary between the divine and human domains
The Passage
The Conditionality of Creation and the Acceptance of Torah
Ḥizkiya - The earth feared destruction if Israel didn’t accept the Torah; after acceptance, it was calmed (Psalms 76:9)
The verse in Psalms (76:9) implies a paradox: the earth feared (יראה) and was calm (שקטה).
Explanation: “Initially (בתחילה), it was afraid, and eventually (לבסוף), it was silent“ (i.e. initially, the earth feared destruction if Israel did not accept the Torah, based on the next section, but after they accepted it, it was calmed).
אמר חזקיה:
מאי דכתיב:
״משמים השמעת דין
ארץ יראה ושקטה״,
אם יראה — למה שקטה?
ואם שקטה — למה יראה?
אלא
בתחילה — יראה
ולבסוף — שקטה.
Ḥizkiya said:
What is the meaning of that which is written:
“You caused sentence to be heard from heaven;
the earth feared, and was silent” (Psalms 76:9)?
If it was afraid, why was it silent;
and if it was silent, why was it afraid?
Rather, the meaning is:
At first, it was afraid,
and in the end, it was silent.
“You caused sentence to be heard from heaven” refers to the revelation at Sinai.
Reish Lakish - The extra letter “heh” (ה) in “the sixth day” teaches that Creation was conditional on Israel’s acceptance of the Torah; otherwise, it would return to chaos (Genesis 1:31)
The idea in the previous section aligns with Reish Lakish’s interpretation of the extra letter “heh” (ה) in “the sixth day” (Genesis 1:31), indicating that Creation was conditional on Israel accepting the Torah; if they hadn’t accepted the Torah, the world would have reverted to a state of “tohu and bohu”.3
ולמה יראה?
כדריש לקיש.
דאמר ריש לקיש:
מאי דכתיב: ״ויהי ערב ויהי בקר יום הששי״,
ה׳ יתירה למה לי?
מלמד:
שהתנה הקדוש ברוך הוא עם מעשה בראשית
ואמר להם:
אם ישראל מקבלים התורה — אתם מתקיימין,
ואם לאו — אני מחזיר אתכם לתוהו ובוהו.
And why was the earth afraid?
It is in accordance with the statement of Reish Lakish,
as Reish Lakish said:
What is the meaning of that which is written: “And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day” (Genesis 1:31)?
Why do I require the superfluous letter heh, the definite article, which does not appear on any of the other days?
It teaches that
the Holy One, Blessed be He, established a condition with the act of Creation,
and said to them:
If Israel accepts the Torah on the sixth day of Sivan — you will exist;
and if they do not accept it — I will return you to the primordial state of chaos and disorder.
Therefore, the earth was afraid until the Torah was given to Israel, lest it be returned to a state of chaos. Once the Jewish people accepted the Torah, the earth was calmed.
The Crowns of “We Will Do and We Will Hear” (Exodus 33:6-7; Isaiah 35:10)
R’ Simai - When Israel said “We will do” before “We will hear,” 600,000 angels gave each person two crowns (Exodus 33:6)
When Israel accepted the Torah by declaring “We will do” before “We will hear,” 600,000 ministering angels gave them two crowns each.
When they sinned with the Golden Calf, 1,200,000 destructive (חבלה) angels removed the crowns.
דרש רבי סימאי:
בשעה שהקדימו ישראל ״נעשה״ ל״נשמע״
באו ששים ריבוא של מלאכי השרת,
לכל אחד ואחד מישראל קשרו לו שני כתרים:
אחד -- כנגד ״נעשה״
ואחד -- כנגד ״נשמע״
וכיון שחטאו ישראל,
ירדו מאה ועשרים ריבוא מלאכי חבלה
ופירקום,
שנאמר: ״ויתנצלו בני ישראל את עדים מהר חורב״
R' Simai taught:
When Israel accorded precedence to the declaration “We will do” over the declaration “We will hear,”
600,000 ministering angels came
and tied two crowns to each and every member of the Jewish people:
one corresponding to “We will do”
and one corresponding to “We will hear”
And when the people sinned with the Golden Calf,
1,200,000 angels of destruction descended
and removed them from the people,
as it is stated in the wake of the sin of the Golden Calf: “And the children of Israel stripped themselves of their ornaments from Mount Horeb onward” (Exodus 33:6).
R’ Ḥama ben Ḥanina - At Horeb they put on and removed the crowns (Exodus 33:6)
See footnote.4
אמר רבי חמא ברבי חנינא:
בחורב טענו,
בחורב פרקו
בחורב טענו —
כדאמרן,
בחורב פרקו —
דכתיב: ״ויתנצלו בני ישראל וגו׳״
R' Ḥama, son of R' Ḥanina, said:
At Horeb they put on their ornaments,
and at Horeb they removed them.
The source for this is:
At Horeb they put them on —
as we have said;
at Horeb they removed them —
as it is written: “And the children of Israel stripped themselves of their ornaments from Mount Horeb.”
R’ Yoḥanan - Moses merited and took all the crowns after they were removed from the people (Exodus 33:7)
אמר רבי יוחנן:
וכולן זכה משה ונטלן.
דסמיך ליה: ״ומשה יקח את האהל״.
R' Yoḥanan said:
And Moses merited all of these crowns and took them.
What is the source for this? Because juxtaposed to this verse, it is stated: “And Moses would take the tent [ohel]” (Exodus 33:7).
The word ohel is interpreted homiletically as an allusion to an aura or illumination [hila].
Reish Lakish - God will restore the crowns to Israel in the (Messianic) future (Isaiah 35:10)
אמר ריש לקיש:
עתיד הקדוש ברוך הוא להחזירן לנו,
שנאמר:
״ופדויי ה׳ ישבון
ובאו ציון ברנה
ושמחת עולם על ראשם״ —
שמחה שמעולם על ראשם
Reish Lakish said:
In the future, the Holy One, Blessed be He, will return them to us,
as it is stated:
“And the ransomed of YHWH shall return,
and come with singing unto Zion,
and everlasting joy shall be upon their heads” (Isaiah 35:10).
The joy that they once had will once again be upon their heads.
On the Talmudic tope of “seventy languages”, see my previous Appendix.
On this dew, see also my previous piece.
תוהו ובוהו - referring to the biblical description of the primordial state of the world, see Wikipedia, “Tohu wa-bohu“:
Tohu wa-bohu or Tohu va-Vohu (Biblical Hebrew: תֹהוּ וָבֹהוּ ṯōhū wāḇōhū) is a Biblical Hebrew phrase found in the Genesis creation narrative (Genesis 1:2) that describes the condition of the earth ('aretz) immediately before the creation of light in Genesis 1:3.
See Wikipedia, “Mount Horeb“, with slight adjustments:
Mount Horeb […] is the mountain at which the Ten Commandments were given to Moses by God, according to the Book of Deuteronomy in the Hebrew Bible.
It is described in two places (the Book of Exodus and the Books of Kings) as הַר הָאֱלֹהִים the "Mountain of Elohim".
The mountain is also called the ‘Mountain of YHWH’.
In other biblical passages, these events are described as having transpired at Mount Sinai.
Although most scholars consider Sinai and Horeb to have been different names for the same place, there is a minority body of opinion that they may have been different locations […]
"Horeb" is thought to mean ‘dry place’ or ‘glowing/heat’, which seems to be a reference to the Sun, while Sinai may have derived from the name of Sin, the Ancient Mesopotamian religion deity of the Moon, and thus Sinai and Horeb would be the mountains of the Moon and Sun, respectively […]
The name Horeb first occurs at Exodus 3:1, with the story of Moses and the burning bush.
According to Exodus 3:5, the ground of the mountain was considered holy, and Moses was commanded by God to remove his sandals.
Exodus 17:6 describes the incident when the Israelites were in the wilderness without water.
When Moses was "upon the rock at Horeb", he strikes the rock and obtains drinking water from the rock.
Verse 7 goes on to say that Moses "called the name of the place Massah and Meribah, because of the contention of the children of Israel, and because they tempted YHWH, saying, 'Is YHWH among us or not?'"
The only other use of the name in Exodus is in chapter 33, where Horeb is the location where the Israelites stripped off their ornaments.
This passage (i.e., Exodus 33:1–6) suggests that Horeb was the location from which the Israelites set off towards Canaan as they resumed their Exodus journey.