Midrash on Revelation (Shavuot)

Exodus 19:16 Now it was on the third day, when it was daybreak: There were thunder-sounds, and lightning, a heavy cloud on the mountain and an exceedingly strong shofar sound. And all of the people that were in the camp trembled.

Exodus 19:17 Moshe brought the people out toward God, from the camp, and they stationed themselves beneath the mountain.

Exodus 19:18 Now Mount Sinai smoked all over, since YHVH had come down upon it in fire; its smoke went up like the smoke of a furnace, and all of the mountain trembled exceedingly.

Exodus 19:19 Now the shofar sound was growing exceedingly stronger -Moshe kept speaking, and God kept answering him in the sound (of a voice)-

Exodus 19:20 and YHVH came down upon Mount Sinai, to the top of the mountain. YHVH called Moshe to the top of the mountain, and Moshe went up.

Exodus 19:21 YHVH said to Moshe: Go down, warn the people lest they break through to YHVH to see, and many of them fall;

Exodus 19:22 even the priests who approach YHVH must make themselves holy, lest YHVH burst out against them.

Exodus 19:23 But Moshe said to YHVH: The people are not able to go up to Mount Sinai, for you yourself warned us, saying: Fix boundaries for the mountain and make it holy!

Exodus 19:24 YHVH said to him: Go, get down, and then come up, you and Aharon with you, but the priests and the people must not break through to go up to YHVH, lest he burst out against them.

Exodus 19:25 Moshe went down to the people

The Gemara cites a homiletic interpretation on the topic of the revelation at Sinai. The Torah says, “And Moses brought forth the people out of the camp to meet God; and they stood at the lowermost part of the mount” (Exodus 19:17). Rabbi Avdimi bar Ḥama bar Ḥasa said: the Jewish people actually stood beneath the mountain, and the verse teaches that the Holy One, Blessed be He, overturned the mountain above the Jews like a tub, and said to them: If you accept the Torah, excellent, and if not, there will be your burial. Rav Aḥa bar Ya’akov said: From here there is a substantial caveat to the obligation to fulfill the Torah. The Jewish people can claim that they were coerced into accepting the Torah, and it is therefore not binding. Rava said: Even so, they again accepted it willingly in the time of Ahasuerus, as it is written: “The Jews ordained, and took upon them, and upon their seed, and upon all such as joined themselves unto them” (Esther 9:27), and he taught: The Jews ordained what they had already taken upon themselves through coercion at Sinai.

“On this day they came to Sinai” — Did they come today? But rather, it

means that when you study the words of Torah, do not let them be old in your sight, but as if I gave them today.

(15) All the people saw the thunders (hakolot) and lightning, the sounding of the horn and the mountain smoking; and when the people saw it, they fell back and stood at a distance.

And the text says: All the people saw the thunders. It's not written "thunder (hakol)," but rather "thunders (hakolot)." Rabbi Yochanan teachs that When God’s voice came forth at Mount Sinai, it divided itself into seventy human languages, so that the whole world might understand it, and every nation heard it in their own language . . . . When Moses spoke, God answered him so that the power of God's voice was bearable to Moses's ear. Thus it is written in Psalms: "The voice of God in strength." It isn't written "The voice of God in God's strength." The word koach refers to each person's ability to hear God's voice in their own way. Thus pregnant women hear God in their own way, just as each and every person hears God in their own way.

(22) Ben Bag Bag says: Search in it and search in it, since everything is in it. And in it should you look, and grow old and be worn in it; and from it do not move, since there is no characteristic greater than it.