Parashat Yitro tells the story of Ma’amad Har Sinai – G-d’s revelation to Beneh Yisrael at Mount Sinai. We read that the people came to the mountain ויתיצבו בתחתית ההר – “and they stood underneath the mountain.”
The Gemara in Masechet Shabbat takes this phrase very literally, to mean that Beneh Yisrael were actually beneath the mountain, which was held on top of them. Hashem uprooted the mountain and held it over the people, threatening to bury them underneath the mountain if they did not accept the Torah.
Many commentaries raised the question of why Hashem needed to force Beneh Yisrael to accept the Torah, given that they had proclaimed נעשה ונשמע – “we will do and we will hear,” enthusiastically promising to observe all of Hashem’s commands even before they were given. They accepted the Torah voluntarily – why did they need to be forced by being threatened?
One of the answers given is that of Rav Eliyahu Dessler, in Michtav Me’Eliyahu. He explains that G-d did not actually suspend the mountain over the people. The Gemara means that it was so obvious to the people that they should accept the Torah, that it was as though they were coerced. The Rabbis say that at the time of Ma’amad Har Sinai, the people were at the pristine spiritual level of Adam and Havah before their sin. They had cleansed themselves of the yetzer ha’ra (evil inclination). At this level, the proclamation of נעשה ונשמע was instinctive and intuitive. It was as clear to them that they should obey everything G-d commands even before knowing what was entailed, as it would have been if He had suspended the mountain over them and forced them to accept His will.
This pristine level was lost after the sin of the golden calf. Once the people fell from the level they had reached at Ma’amad Har Sinai, they no longer had נעשה – the instinct to do the right thing. It is no longer clear and obvious to us that we must follow Hashem’s will. We have lures and temptations, that we need to struggle against.
We lost נעשה, but we still have נשמע – listening and obeying. Even though we are not naturally inclined to follow Hashem’s will, we still have the ability to do so. And this must be our most important goal and ambition – נשמע, to do the right thing, to follow Hashem’s script, even when it is not convenient and even when we feel like acting differently.
In contemporary society, we associate success with doing something extraordinary, with standing out, with fame, with being a celebrity. Even within our religious framework, we think that success means being a famous Rabbi, a famous philanthropist, or some kind of public figure.
But this is a mistake. From the Torah’s perspective, success means נשמע, following the script, doing the right thing. It means being a devoted spouse and parent; reciting the required tefilot each day; reciting the required berachot before and after eating; maintaining proper standards of kashrut; observing the laws of Shabbat; and doing all the things the Torah tells us to do. A person does not have to be a famous Rabbi with thousands of students or congregants, or to donate millions to charity, to be a good Jew. He just needs to succeed in the day-to-day struggle of נשמע, of following Hashem’s commands.
The fable is told of a wealthy aristocrat who handed buckets to his servants, and instructed them to full those buckets with water from the river, and bring them to the well, ten times. The servants complied – but there was one problem: the buckets all had holes in the bottom. By the time they got to the well, the buckets were empty. As faithful, obedient servants, they nevertheless did exactly what they were told.
When they were finished, the master approached them and praised them for their work.
“But we didn’t do anything,” they said. “The buckets all had holes. No water got into the well!”
“I didn’t want water in the well,” the master replied. “I wanted the buckets to get cleaned. And you did exactly that!”
In the business world, the CEO is expected to produce results, to “fill the well,” to increase profits. But in Torah life, the goal is not to the end result, but rather to obey the Master’s commands, regardless of what ends up in the “well.”
May we all be truly successful Jews – faithful and obedient servants of Hashem, following the Torah’s script for how to live our lives.