Yisro

אחר שלוחיה AFTER HIS HAVING SENT HER AWAY — When God said to him in Midian, (Exodus 4:19, 20) “Go, return to Egypt … and Moses took his wife and his sons etc…. and Aaron went forth towards him and met him at the Mount of God”, he (Aaron) said to him, “Who are these?” He answered him, “This is my wife whom I married in Midian and these are my children”. He, thereupon, asked him, “Whither are you taking them?” He replied, “To Egypt”. Where-upon he said to him, “We have cause to grieve over the former ones (the Israelites already there), and you propose to add to their number!” Moses (1)therefore said to her, “Return to your father’s house” — she took her two sons and went away (Mekhilta d'Rabbi Yishmael 18:2).

(29) Moses said to Hobab son of Reuel the Midianite, Moses’ father-in-law, “We are setting out for the place of which the LORD has said, ‘I will give it to you.’ Come with us and we will be generous with you; for the LORD has promised to be generous to Israel.” (30) “I will not go,” he replied to him, “but will return to my native land.” (31) He said, “Please do not leave us, inasmuch as you know where we should camp in the wilderness and can be our guide. (32) So if you come with us, we will extend to you the same bounty that the LORD grants us.”

שם שם לו HERE HE MADE FOR THEM [A STATUTE AND AN ORDINANCE) — At Marah He gave them a few sections of the Torah in order that they might engage in the study thereof; viz., the sections containing the command regarding the (1)sabbath, the red heifer and the administration of justice (Mekhilta d'Rabbi Yishmael 15:25; Sanhedrin 56b). (2) ושם נסהו AND THERE HE TRIED THEM (lit., He tried him) — “him” (singular) means the people; and He saw their stubbornness: that they did not consult with Moses in a respectful fashion: “Entreat mercy for us that we may have water to drink” — but that they murmured.

and it is moreover said: "The Lord made not this covenant with our fathers, but with us, even us" (Ibid. –31). herein, 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); 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. W(1)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.

(2) ויחן שם ישראל AND THERE ISRAEL ENCAMPED as one man and with one mind — but all their other encampments were made in a murmuring spirit and in a spirit of dissension (Mekhilta d'Rabbi Yishmael 19:2:10).

כאיש אחד בלב אחד

“The Jews in the time of Ahasuerus, as it is written: willingly Rava said: Even so, they again accepted it The Jewish people can claim that they were coerced into accepting the Torah, and it is therefore not binding. Torah. the obligation to fulfill the a substantial caveat to there is 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 the Jews teaches that the Holy One, Blessed be He, overturned the mountain above the Jewish people actually stood beneath the mountain, and the verse Rabbi Avdimi bar Ḥama bar Ḥasa said: (Exodus 19:17). and they stood at the lowermost part of the mount”The Gemara cites additional homiletic interpretations on the topic of the revelation at Sinai. The Torah says, “And Moses brought forth the people out of the camp to meet God; 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. which is written: “You caused the meaning of that Ḥizkiya said: What issentence 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. 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. Rabbi 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).

(1) ואתם תהיו לי ממלכת כהנים AND YE SHALL BE UNTO ME A KINGDOM OF כהנים — i. e. princes, just as you say, (II Samuel 8:18) “And the sons of David were princes (כהנים)”, which cannot denote priests since his sons were of the tribe of Judah and not of Levi, the priestly tribe. (2) אלה הדברים THESE ARE THE WORDS — these neither fewer nor more (Mekhilta d'Rabbi Yishmael 19:6).