Shavuot 5786 — The Choice of Torah, Difficult Freedom · Holidays · 5786
The mountain suspended like a barrel — and the deepest meaning of freedom
Shavuot 5786 — The Choice of Torah, Difficult Freedom
Shiur by M. Bernard Yossef Paperon · Chag HaShavuot 5786
The mountain suspended like a barrel — and the deepest meaning of freedom
Shiur by M. Bernard Yossef Paperon · Chag HaShavuot 5786 · Shavuot 5786 — The Choice of Torah, Difficult Freedom · Holidays · 5785
God suspended Mount Sinai like a barrel over Israel — an apparently forced choice, even though Israel had already said 'na'asseh ve-nichma.'
The surgeon's anecdote about implanting anti-drinking devices shows that constraining an addiction restores true freedom rather than removing it.
'Charut' (engraved) can also be read 'cherut' (freedom): what is engraved at the depth of the soul is true freedom — the key to Levinas's title.
Two Talmudic answers to why God forced them: the fire of revelation (Tosafot) and the need to also accept the Oral Torah (Midrash Tanchuma).
Cuchet shows how the Church's 1965 aggiornamento diluted its absolute character and emptied the churches — a warning for a Judaism that would call itself 'liberal.'
Today I have not come to speak about the parasha — but about the festival approaching, the festival of Shavuot. Shavuot means "weeks" — a festival that falls this week after Pesach, and which celebrates the giving of the Torah to the people of Israel.
And when I say "to the Jewish people" — the Torah is actually at two speeds. Jews are to keep 613 commandments, and they must teach humanity 7 Noahide laws and their derivatives — which concern, this time, every human being.
2 Part I — The Mountain as a Barrel
וַיִּתְיַצְּבוּ בְּתַחְתִּית הָהָר — "And they stood at the foot of the mountain."Shemot 19:17
The verse says "at the foot of the mountain." One could understand: at its base. But there is one rabbi in the Talmud — Tractate Shabbat 88a — who understands it very literally: under the mountain.
"The Holy One overturned the mountain upon them like a barrel, and said to them: 'If you accept the Torah — well. If not — there shall be your grave.'"
God uprooted Mount Sinai, placed it above the heads of our ancestors like a great barrel, and said: "Either you accept the Torah, or this mountain will crush you." But — what is such a choice worth?
3 Part II — The Surgeon's Anecdote
A woman married to an alcoholic came to me. She described the hell she was living: all the money went to alcohol, the children suffered. But she told me: "We had two happy years."
The husband was to undergo a surgery unrelated to the alcoholism. The surgeon left the operating room while the husband was under anesthesia — and said to the wife: "I can place implants in him — chemical substances that make a person disgusted with drinking." And so it was. For two years — he did not drink.
But the implants dissolve gradually and disappear. And then — he started drinking again.
The hard question One might think — "The surgeon took away his freedom!" But no! The surgeon gave back his freedom. Because the choice to drink is a pathological choice — a compulsion, an addiction. It is not true freedom. When he was pulled out of that mechanism — that is when the surgeon gave him back his freedom.
4 Part III — The Mentality of Slaves
And in exactly the same way — our ancestors, who came out of Egypt, carried the mentality of slaves. They were incapable of accepting the moral law of the Torah. But God knew that the Torah corresponded to their deepest vocation. So He imposed it upon them — a bit like a father who imposes on his children to do their homework while they want to play ball.
And so, the Gemara tells us that later they accepted the Torah of their own free will (Esther 9:27 — "they upheld and accepted upon themselves").
Often by doing what we want in the present moment, we move away from ourselves. If they had been asked without being threatened — they would have said "no, no, this Torah is too complicated." But the mountain-as-barrel brought them back to themselves.
5 Part IV — Charut or Cherut? Levinas's Key
וְהַלֻּחֹת מַעֲשֵׂה אֱלֹהִים הֵמָּה, וְהַמִּכְתָּב מִכְתַּב אֱלֹהִים הוּא — חָרוּת עַל הַלֻּחֹת — "And the tablets were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God — engraved upon the tablets."Shemot 32:16
Secret The Sages teach: "Do not read charut (engraved) but cherut (freedom)." The same letters — two opposite readings. The writing engraved upon the tablets — is freedom itself.
Hence the title of the philosopher Emmanuel Levinas: "Difficult Freedom". In finding what is engraved at the depth of our soul, often through emotion, that is where we are truly ourselves, that is where we are free.
🔹 To do whatever we want — but in doing what we want every day, we are often far from ourselves. 🔹 To truly be ourselves — rare are the moments when we succeed.
Have you noticed that in moments of emotion — people cry? Because in emotion, unconsciously, we understand where we should always have been.
6 Parts V–VII — Why Force? The Fire, the Oral Torah, and History's Warning
The great question Why did God need to force our ancestors to accept the Torah — when they had already said "na'asseh ve-nichma"?
They could have backed away because of the fire that accompanied the revelation. This fire is not only physical — it is of all generations: symbol of drives (Bachelard), but also the fire of guilt, the eye that watches (Cain and Abel).
"The eye was in the tomb and watched Cain."
They had accepted the Written Torah. But before the Oral Torah — tefillin, Shabbat, kashrut — with all these obligations, they would have backed away. They wanted to be, before the word existed, "liberal Jews."
The principle of Nazism is to place truth under the street — suppress what offends, keep what flatters. "The bigger the lie, the more likely it is to be accepted." (Goebbels)
Guillaume Cuchet, in "How Our World Stopped Being Christian" (2018), shows that following the 1965 aggiornamento (Vatican II), Christians no longer saw in Christianity an image of the absolute. Something that changes too quickly is no longer seen as absolute.
7 Conclusion — Two Lessons of Shavuot
1. True freedom is not in doing whatever we want — but in discovering what is engraved at the depth of ourselves. The mountain-as-barrel did not take away Israel's freedom — it gave it.
2. A religion is absolute or it is not a religion — liberal Jews should reflect on what happened to the Catholic Church. "Anatomy of a Collapse."
When you change things — in the end, everything becomes permitted, and we drown the fish. That is why God had to compel. For their good.
Chag Sameach. Thank you for listening.
🎯 Test yourself
Five questions. Click an answer.
1
How does the Talmud (Shabbat 88a) understand "they stood at the foot of the mountain"?
Talmud Shabbat 88a. God uprooted the mountain and placed it over their heads like a barrel — an extremely dramatic image that raises the central question: what is a forced choice worth?
2
In the surgeon's anecdote — what did he do to the alcoholic?
The choice to drink is not a true choice — it is the compulsion of addiction. The surgeon, by removing it, gave back true freedom. Analogy with Israel coming out of Egypt: God "forced" the Torah upon them to give back their true freedom.
3
"Charut upon the tablets" — how do the Sages propose to read it?
Pirkei Avot 6:2. "Do not read charut (engraved) but cherut (free)." This is the source of Emmanuel Levinas's title: "Difficult Freedom."
4
What did the Tosafists explain about the compulsion — when they had already said "na'asseh ve-nichma"?
Tosafot. This fire is not only physical — it is of all generations. Symbol of drives (Bachelard), but also the fire of guilt and the eye that watches (Cain and Abel, Victor Hugo).
5
What is the connection between Shavuot and Guillaume Cuchet's "How Our World Stopped Being Christian"?
Cuchet (2018) shows that after the 1965 aggiornamento (Vatican II), believers no longer saw the Church as an image of the absolute. This is M. Paperon's warning to liberal Judaism: if you modify the Torah following the moods of the time — it crumbles.
Result
📅 7 Days to Shavuot — Living the Engraved Freedom
Sunday
Day 1 — Read the Sinai narrative (Shemot 19-20) and note what "accepting the Torah" truly demanded of Israel.
Monday
Day 2 — Recall a moment when an outside constraint actually freed you from a compulsion or habit.
Tuesday
Day 3 — Meditate on the question: what is engraved at the depth of me that I often forget to live out?
Wednesday
Day 4 — Study one Oral Torah practice (tefillin, kashrut, Shabbat) and trace its hidden root in the written text.
Thursday
Day 5 — Notice a strong emotion this week (tears, joy) and ask what it reveals about yourself.
Friday
Day 6 — Reflect on what, in your religious practice, should never be "modernized" in order to remain true.
Shabbat
Day 7 — Shavuot: revisit "na'asseh ve-nichma" and commit to one concrete point of Torah you want to fully accept.
Four Practical Steps
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