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On Shavuot, the Jewish people celebrate both the giving and the receiving of the Torah at Mount Sinai. But what was the nature of the relationship forged between God and Israel at that singular moment? How did the Jewish people understand themselves in relation to the Creator when heaven descended upon earth and God spoke directly to an entire nation?
To begin answering these questions, we must turn to the Jewish people’s astonishing response upon being told of the precious gift they were about to receive and the sacred responsibility they were about to bear: “All that the Lord has spoken, we will do and we will listen” (Shemot 24:7).
According to the Talmud, Israel’s decision to declare “we will do” before “we will listen” was not merely admirable. It revealed something extraordinary about the spiritual stature of the Jewish people at Sinai. “When the Jewish people accorded precedence to the declaration ‘we will do’ over ‘we will listen,’ a Divine Voice emerged and said to them, ‘Who revealed to My children this secret that only the ministering angels know?’” (B. Talmud, Shabbat 88a).
The Talmud’s language is striking. The Jewish people responded to God in the very manner of the ministering angels themselves, those celestial beings who stand nearest to the Divine Presence. At Sinai, Israel ascended, in some sense, to the spiritual plane of the angels. Even more moving is the language God uses in response: “My children.” At the moment of Revelation, the relationship between God and Israel was not distant, contractual, or cold. It was intimate. God related to Israel as a parent to a beloved child, and Israel approached God not merely as subjects before a king, but as children standing before a loving parent.
But how exactly does the declaration of “we will do and we will listen” express this intimacy?
Rebbe Meir Shapiro of Lublin offers a beautiful explanation. There is, he says, a profound difference between the child of a king and the servant of a king. A servant fulfills only that which he is commanded to do. Once his labor is complete, his relationship to the king has ended for the day. He wishes to return home, to rest, and to be left alone. His connection to the king is transactional and limited to obligation alone.
A child, however, experiences the relationship entirely differently. When a loving parent asks something of a child, the child fulfills the request, but then waits eagerly to hear more, longing for another opportunity to deepen the bond. The child does not view the parent’s request as a burden, but as an expression of closeness, trust, and love.
This, explains Rebbe Meir Shapiro, was the greatness of Israel’s response at Sinai. “We will do and we will listen” was not the language of servants reluctantly accepting duties. It was the language of children yearning to remain close to their Father. The Jewish people were saying: It is not enough for us merely to fulfill what You have already commanded. We long to hear more. We desire to remain constantly connected to Your Will, continually listening for another mitzvah, another opportunity to serve, another way to draw close to You.
Sinai, then, was not only the moment of law giving. It was the moment a relationship of love was revealed.
This Shavuot, we must ask ourselves how we approach Torah and mitzvot. Do we relate to them as servants completing assigned tasks, eager only for the moment we are finished? Or do we approach them as children of the King, grateful for every opportunity to deepen our relationship with the One Who loves us and calls us His children?
At Sinai, the Jewish people stood as close to God as the ministering angels. This Shavuot, may we merit to feel that closeness once again. May our hearts open not only to doing God’s Will, but to yearning for it. And may we always remain attentive for one more mitzvah, one more act of chesed, one more sacred opportunity to hear the voice of our Creator calling lovingly to His children.
Shabbat Shalom!
-Rabbi Dan
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