Draft:Holding the Mountain over Israel (Shabbat 88a)

The story of God holding the mountain over Israel is a sugya in the Talmud (Shabbat 88a) for Jewish explorations of commandedness and covenant. In this passage, God threatens to drop Mount Sinai on the Israelites if they do not accept the Ten Commandments and concomitant covenant with God.

Text

The passage in the Talmud states:

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

The term for tub, giggit, may refer to a barrel, tank, or other arched vessel, and it plays upon the word for roof (gag). The image of an inverted tub is also used in the Talmud (Sanhedrin 77a) for an individual. (Apple, p.245)

The passage has parallels in rabbinic literature, including Avodah Zarah 2b. (Apple p.244)

Rabbinic commentary

As noted by Rashi, this midrash (exegetical narrative) draws upon a word (takhtit) that can be read as "at the lowermost part" or base of a mountain, yet could also be figuratively read as "beneath" (takhat) the mountain. (Apple, p.244)

The Tosafot asked why God would find it necessary to force the Israelites to accept the covenant, given that they had already said (Exodus 19:8) they would observe any commandments, even before they heard them enunciated. (Shonkoff p.98, footnote 8)

Academic and religious responses

Apple, Raymond. "Sinai upside-down: the theological message of a Midrash." Jewish Bible Quarterly 41, no. 4 (2013): 243-250.

Elman, Yaakov. "Autonomy and Its Discontents: A Meditation on" Pahad Yitshak"." Tradition: A Journal of Orthodox Jewish Thought 47, no. 2 (2014): 7-40.

Kaplan, Lawrence. "Israel under the Mountain: Emmanuel Levinas on Freedom and Constraint in the Revelation of the Torah." Modern Judaism 18, no. 1 (1998): 35-46.

Kavka, Martin. "Is There a Warrant for Levinas's Talmudic Readings?." The Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy 14, no. 1-2 (2006): 153-173.

Milgrom, J. O., and J. O. E. L. Duman. "Through the Looking Glass' at Sinai." CONSERVATIVE JUDAISM 59, no. 1 (2006): 80.

Shonkoff, Sam S. B. "“We Shall Do and We Shall Understand”: Embodied Theology in Modern Judaism." In The Routledge Handbook of Religion and the Body, pp. 86-103. Routledge, 2023.

New applications

Ambalu, Shulamit. "Anan D’Sageinan B’Shleimuta: A Theology of LGBTQ Integrity, Integration and Rabbinic Leadership." European Judaism 49, no. 2 (2016): 34-45.

Comparative

Graves, Michael Wesley. "The Upraised Mountain and Israel's Election in the Qur’an and Talmud." Comparative Islamic Studies 11, no. 2 (2015).

Oliver, Isaac W. "Standing under the Mountain: Jewish and Christian Threads to a Qur’anic Construction." The Study of Islamic Origins (2021): 97.