How much of the Torah did Moshe receive at Har Sinai?
The most popular answers I’ve heard when asking students this question are “Ten Commandments” and “all of the Torah until that point.” The midrash (Shemot Rabbah 47:1) expands it much further: all of Tanakh, Mishna, Gemara and Aggadah and even what a student will ask his teacher—everything was transmitted to Moshe at Har Sinai during the revelation at Sinai.
But then what do we do with the Gemara in Menachot 29b? Therein Moshe asks God what the purpose of the crowns on the letters of a sefer Torah are as he writes it. God answers that one day Rabbi Akiva will expound upon each and every one of them. God miraculously allows Moshe to sit in the back of Rabbi Akiva’s classroom, and Moshe could not understand what they were saying. Moshe was greatly distressed that he couldn’t follow or understand. When a student asked for a source, Rabbi Akiva answered by saying, “It is a halakha transmitted to Moshe from Sinai.”
But how didn’t Moshe know?
Rashi offers that Moshe simply hadn’t learned it yet. Rabbi Yosef Albo in Sefer HaIkarim explains that Moshe was taught general principles, not all of the details.
The Maharal delves deeper into the connection to Torah itself. Not that Rabbi Akiva knew more Torah, rather what Moshe received was through prophecy and not through his own efforts at trying to understand the Torah. Moshe didn’t fail to understand what they were saying, rather he couldn’t understand how Rabbi Akiva achieved it without prophecy.
On Shavuot we are given the opportunity to celebrate the anniversary of receiving the Torah from God at Har Sinai. Many of us will stay up learning late into the night trying to understand profound new insights and connect to all of the beautiful and varied flavors of Torah that are offered. No matter what we are learning, when we devote energies to discovering Torah truths we reach a level that left even Moshe Rabbeinu speechless.
Rabbi Metzger is on the faculty of three gap year programs for young women in Israel, Midreshet Amudim, Machon Maayan and Midreshet Amit. He and his family now live in Alon Shvut, Israel. Rabbi Chaim Metzger was Rabbinic Assistant at BAYT from 2020 to 2022, and an Avreich of Beit Midrash Zichron Dov. Please send questions and comments to [email protected]
