(13) I make this covenant, with its sanctions, not with you alone, (14) but both with those who are standing here with us this day before the LORD our God and with those who are not with us here this day.
Sefer HaAggadah – the Book of Lessons
"And they stood under the mount" (Exod. 19:17). R. Avdimi bar Hama said: The verse implies that the Holy One overturned the mountain upon them, like an inverted cask, and said to them: If you accept the Torah, it is well; if not, your grave will be right here.
(Martin Buber to Franz Rosenzweig, July 13, 1924)
"...God is no lawgiver, rather only man is a receiver of law...I do not regard the Law as universal, but personal: namely, only what comes from it that I am forced to acknowledge as addressed to me..."
Franz Rosenzweig to Martin Buber, July 16, 1924
"For me too, God is not a lawgiver. But he commands...Man turns the commandments into systematized, executable, doable law..."
Norman Lamm in "The Condition of Jewish Belief'
"By "God-given", I mean that He willed that man abide by his commandments and that will was communicated in discrete words and letters"
Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik
"We do not have here a person who strains against the chains of the ethical and the reign of the norm and accepts them against his will. Rather, we have a...union of an outside command with the inner will and conscience of man...We do not have here a directive that imposes upon man obligations against which he rebels, but delightful commandments which his soul passionately desires."
Pirke Avot 1:1
”Moses received the Torah at Sinai and transmitted it to Joshua; Joshua to the elders; and the Elders to the prophets; and the prophets to the men of the Great Assembly”