Shavuot marks the end of our counting of the Omer, a countdown to when we received the Torah at Mount Sinai. There are many accounts of how we received and accepted the Torah that day, each providing different frameworks for how we might see ourselves relative to God and Torah.
Two models come from the Torah itself. There are the biblical verses that detail the fear the Israelites experienced due to the thunder, fire, and lightning of the theophany. This image suggests that the Israelites might have felt pressured into serving God, as opposed to worshiping God out of their own volition and desire. This issue and potential coercion is laid out in the Talmudic passage on Shabbat 88a in which there is the metaphorical image of Mount Sinai being forced upon Israel like an overturned tub, threatening the Israelites with destruction unless they agree to follow the Torah. We also have the biblical model encapsulated by the verse na’aseh v’nishma/we will do and we will listen. This foregrounds our willingness to take on the Torah, even before fully understanding what was being asked of us. Both of these models of taking on Torah–through coercion or blind devotion–present challenges. Not being coerced seems important not just from a legal culpability standpoint, but also from an ethical one. Taking on the Torah willingly, but without being aware of its contents, feels sheepish and naive. What might a more satisfying and compelling model look like? Both models come with their own drawbacks.
When learning Masechet Shavuot this year, I stumbled upon a mishnah, which might provide a third approach to how to relate to revelation at Sinai. Masechet Shavuot, a tractate of Talmud all about oaths, often feels a bit distant from our everyday experience, as we no longer take these formal oaths. The tractate is filled with different kinds of oaths that can be made in different circumstances, explanations of what happens when one does or does not fulfill an oath as taken, and the different kinds of oaths made in a court of law. When I think of oaths, I think of Shakespearean chivalry—a statement or articulation on a grand scale of belief, commitment, or devotion. However, this mishnah complicates that framework:
If one takes an oath to refrain from performing a mitzvah and he does not refrain, he is exempt from bringing an offering for an oath on an utterance. If he takes an oath to perform a mitzvah and he does not perform it, he is also exempt, though it would have been fitting to claim that he is liable to bring the offering, in accordance with the statement of Rabbi Yehuda ben Beteira.
Here, the mishnah explains that if someone takes a vow that they will not perform a commandment, but then performs it anyway, he does not have to bring a sin offering for violating his oath. This is in distinction from what would happen if someone took an oath not to do a non-commanded action but then did it anyway, where he would be obligated to bring an offering. Similarly, if he took an oath that he was going to perform a commandment, but then does not perform it, he is also exempt. This is presumably related to the fact that failing to perform a commandment is its own category of violation. However, as the mishnah goes on to explain, it is not so obvious that this should be the case.
Rabbi Yehuda ben Beteira said: Just as, with regard to an oath concerning an optional matter, for which one is not under oath from Mount Sinai, he is liable for breaking it, then with regard to an oath about a mitzvah, for which he is under oath from Mount Sinai, is it not logical that he would be liable for breaking it?
The mishnah brings the opinion of Rabbi Yehuda ben Beteira, who disagrees with the claim made by the anonymous first voice of the mishnah. Applying a system of logic known as a kal v’chomer, Rabbi Yehuda ben Beteira points out that, if violating an oath that is not about a commandment requires an offering, should it not be even more so the case for failing to fulfill a commandment, where there are two violations—the violation of the oath and the failure to fulfill the commandment?!
The Rabbis said to him: No, if you said that one is liable for breaking an oath concerning an optional action, where the Torah rendered one liable for a negative oath not to perform it like for a positive oath to perform it, shall you also say one is liable with regard to breaking an oath concerning a mitzvah, where the Torah did not render one liable for a negative oath like for a positive oath, since if one takes an oath to refrain from performing a mitzvah and did not refrain, he is exempt (Mishnah Shevuot 3:6).
The rabbis reject Rabbi Yehuda ben Beteira’s kal v’chomer. To them, oaths about commandments are inherently distinct from oaths that are not related to commandments, and therefore, the two cannot be compared. For a non-commandment related oath, the action or inaction would be inherently neutral if not for the oath. However, for an oath about a commandment, the action or inaction inherently has consequences, since failure to perform or violate a commandment goes against the nature of the commandment itself. Therefore, these two kinds of oaths are not similar enough to have the same consequences extrapolated from each other.
What is going on here? It seems that this dispute is about the functionality of oaths and if one can negate previous oaths with current ones. However, if we probe deeper, we will see that actually, this specific conversation about types of oaths actually represents a larger philosophical debate about our relationship to mitzvot. In this way, this seemingly esoteric mishnah gives us a window into how both Rabbi Yehuda ben Beteira and the rabbis perceived revelation at Sinai.
By positioning shevuat reshut she’eino mushba v’omeid mei’har sinai (an oath that is regarding something not commanded at Sinai) against shevuat mitzvah she’mushba ve’omeid mei’har sinai (an oath regarding something commanded at Sinai), we learn that revelation at Sinai on Shavuot was not just an experience of passively receiving the Torah. It was a moment in history in which we—each and every Jew throughout the generations—swore to keep the mitzvot. When the rabbis and Rabbi Yehuda ben Beteira debate these concepts, they are imagining that we all were at Sinai swearing to keep God’s Torah. This vow is so eternally binding that if I were to swear to do something against a mitzvah today, it would not just be a contradiction in actions. Instead, it would also be a violation of the oath I had taken during the revelation, many millennia ago.
This idea helps us rethink the Sinai experience. In contrast to the Torah models of coercion or blind commitment, the mishnah suggests knowing agency. The Israelites taking on an oath at Sinai, is a model of both religious autonomy and of religious obligation. They are binding themselves to God, but doing so actively and willingly. The idea that taking on the Torah at Sinai as a kind of personal transformational experience is poignant. To frame one’s religious practice as an intentional choice one took upon oneself long ago, welcomes a more empowering way to be thinking about ourselves in relation to Jewish law. Inside of being beholden to what our previous ancestors took upon themselves, we ourselves made an oath to keep mitzvot at Sinai—we too were there, along with all Jews past and future, and we all chose to take this vow.
For the rabbis, oaths are serious. The Gemara itself describes warning an individual in court before taking on an oath to be aware:
that the entire world trembled when the Holy One, Blessed be He, said at Mount Sinai: “You shall not take the name of the Lord, your God, in vain, for the Lord will not hold guiltless one who takes His name in vain” (Exodus 20:7) (Shevuot 38b-39a).
If this is true for an oath in court, how much more so for an oath committing to keeping the Torah in full. But with this great responsibility, there is also great possibility—the ability to enact such powerful statements is almost Godlike. That we have power to make demands of ourselves that shake the very foundations of the world, speaks to God’s desire to empower us in our practicing of God’s Torah.
May we receive the Torah this year with full appreciation of the weighty oath we took upon ourselves at Mount Sinai. May that empower us to uphold what we ourselves committed to long ago.
