The central subject of this week’s Sedra is Ma’amad Har Sinai. The Torah places strong emphasis on the strict need for the People to stay away from the Mountain. The Torah tells us that anyone who comes close and touches “the Mountain” – the site of Ma’amad Har Sinai – is liable to be stoned. Should that person happen to be too far from the rest of Am-Yisroel to be stoned, the rest of Am-Yisroel is even duty-bound to shoot arrows so as to kill him. While stoning is a form of death prescribed elsewhere by the Torah for various crimes and transgressions after due process, it is here applicable even without a tribunal. What was it with Kabbolos HaTorah that called for such strict measures? Furthermore, aside from a tribunal not being needed, there is no provision in the Torah for execution by shooting. Why is it that here the Torah required someone who merely touched Har Sinai to be shot dead?

Maamad Har Sinai was an auspicious site; it was a place filled with Kedusha. The power of the moment at Kabbolos HaTorah was amazing. It was so because the Torah is holy and awesome. Most probably the fear from the awesomeness of Matan Torah was on its own sufficient to have kept everyone away from Har Sinai. So why was it necessary for Hashem to forbid it and to forbid it so strictly?

The mere fact that it was superfluous for Hashem to have forbidden us from coming close it implies that the prohibition wasn’t for its own sake rather for the sake of something else. It would appear that Hashem wanted to emphasize that one has to realize that a distance must be placed between oneself and the source of Kedusha.

We are mere mortals and as such are quite limited. Hashem and His Torah are unlimited. Hashem gave us the Torah because He wishes for us to have to toil to fulfill it and to comply with it. In order for us to implement Torah into our life we must first recognize the gap between ourselves and Hashem the Omnipotent.

We must understand what it means to be human, for only then can we implement Torah in our lives. If we don’t know and understand the world in which we exist, we cannot expect to understand Hashem and his Torah. We must always realize that we perceive Torah from a human perspective. At the same time we must remember that this is precisely the vantage point from which Hashem expects us to see the Torah.

A very warm Good Shabbos, Rabbi Y. Dov Krakowski