Yitro יתרו 2021

(31) And when Israel saw the wondrous power which the LORD had wielded against the Egyptians, the people feared the LORD; they had faith in the LORD and His servant Moses.

And the LORD said to Moses, “I will come to you in a thick cloud, in order that the people may hear when I speak with you and so trust you ever after.” Then Moses reported the people’s words to the LORD,

Moses our Master was not believed in by Israel because he delivered tokens, for whosoever bases his belief contingent upon tokens retains suspicion in his heart, for it is possible that the token was delivered by means of enchantment and witchcraft.

But all the tokens delivered by Moses in the wilderness were responsive to necessities, and not as testimony for prophecy.

When it became necessary to have the Egyptians sunk, he divided the sea and drowned them therein; when our need was food, he brought down for us Manna; when they became thirsty, he split open the rock for them; when the Korah confederacy denied him, the earth swallowed them up. Likewise came to pass all the other tokens.

Wherein, then, did they believe in him? In being present at Mount Sinai; for our own eyes saw and not through a stranger's, and our own ears heard and not that of another; the flame, the thunder and lightning, and he drew near the thick cloud and the Voice speaking unto him, we listening, saying: "Moses, Moses, go and tell them thus and such,"

for so he also said: "The Lord spoke with you face to face in the mount out of the midst of fire" (Deut. 5.4); and it is moreover said: "The Lord made not this covenant with our fathers, but with us, even us" (Ibid. –31).

Whencefrom do we know that the standing at Mount Sinai alone is the evidence which makes his prophecy true without a shadow of suspicion? Because it is said: "Lo, I come unto thee in a thick cloud, that the people may hear when I speak unto thee, and may also believe thee forever" (Ex. 19.9).

Evidently, hitherto they did not believe in him with an everlasting belief, but with a belief wherein there is after-thought and reflection.¹See Ikarim I.18. C.

(4) Rabbi Chiya said that the world was in a state of poverty from the time that Adam transgressed the command of the Holy One, blessed be He, until the time when Noah came forward and offered his sacrifice, thereby settling the world.

Rabbi Yosi said that the world was not settled and the land was not pure from the pollution of the serpent until Yisrael stood at Mount Sinai and held onto the Tree of Life. Only then did the world settle properly.

(18) She is a tree of life to those who grasp her, And whoever holds on to her is happy.