There’s actually a joke connected to one of these “sides” which I’ll include for my joke of the day. In the meantime, please know that when it came to the revelation the rabbis realized it must have been difficult for us to accept the commandments…what else is new? On the other hand, their Redeemer from Egypt was pretty adamant that the Decalogue be accepted. We were, if you will, grateful for the redemption. How could we turn down the offer!
One story is that early in our wandering, just after we crossed the sea, God was trying to give away the commandments to the various tribes in the wilderness. Everyone rejected them for one reason or another, but the Israelites said ok (in so many words). But there is the other side of the story, namely that we also did NOT want them. The rabbis said that God was furious, ripped Mount Sinai from the earth, held it over their heads and said, “If you choose to turn down these commandments I will drop the mountain and you shall be buried underneath it for all eternity!” And by the way, that’s not the joke; both of them are found in our literature.
These two stories point to the dilemma we faced, but the nature of the festival of Shavuot clarifies what the law means to us despite our reluctance.
Passover celebrates the freedom “from” slavery; Shavuot celebrates the freedom “to” be servants to the will of God. It’s much easier – or so it seems – to live a la-la-land free life with no worries and no obligations. Harder it is to live a life with obligations that on the surface limit what you can and can’t do. In fact, after a while that “idyllic” life gets boring and monotonous. And on top of it, society runs amok! We need – everybody needs – structure, and it was the Big Ten and the other 603 that was the foundation of that legal structure that allowed our ancestors to fashion a working community with purpose. We are told that it was only when the Children of Israel accepted what is called “the yoke of the Sovereignty of Heaven” that we actually became a nation; the Decalogue became our Constitution. But note that while a “yoke” slows down, even pulls down, the animals attached to it, the yoke of the law lifted us to a new level of Divine understanding. We were now free to pursue a meaningful rather than a la-la-land life.
(Speaking of the commandments, as I indicated above, God offered the law to every tribe. The Midianites asked, “What’s in it?” and God responded, “Thou shalt not murder.” That didn’t sit well with that bloodthirsty tribe, so God went to the Amorites, and when they heard they could no longer steal, they said “No way, we don’t want them.” When the Jebusites found out that idolatry was to be abolished, they, too, walked away from the deal. But when the Israelites were approached, Moses said to God, “How much?” God said, “Well, they’re free.” So,Moses said, “OK, we’ll take ten.”)