Israel Under the Mountain: Emmanuel Levinas on Freedom and Constraint in the Revelation of the Torah

I

The time has come, I believe, to take the title and, even more important, the form of Emmanuel Levinas’s Lectures Talmudiques, Talmudic Readings, ¹ seriously. That is, the essays comprising Levinas’s Talmudic Readings are just that—readings of the Talmud, and they ought to be read as such. Such a proposition may seem simplistic, even tautological; but however simplistic or tautological the proposition itself may or may not be, its implications, so I would claim, are profound and far reaching. For what this proposition means is that these essays, as Levinas himself states, are works of talmudic commentary ² —philosophic commentary, if you will, commentary primarily on the talmudic aggadah, but, nevertheless, works of talmudic commentary—which consequently, and here we go beyond Levinas, ought to be read, studied, and understood within the context of that genre and tradition, that is, the genre and tradition of talmudic commentary. This further means that in studying these essays of Levinas the primary scholarly figures we ought to bring into dialogue with him should not be so much figures from the tradition of Western philosophy, but rather figures from the tradition of talmudic commentary. Hegel, Husserl, or Heidegger should thus not occupy the center of our attention (not that these philosophical giants need to be or should be excluded altogether from our purview), which should rather be occupied by such Talmudic giants among the rishonim as Rashi, the Tosafists, and the Ramban, by such great commentators on the aggadah as the Maharsha and the Maharal, as well as by a host of more recent rabbinic commentators and scholars who have commented upon and elucidated, oftentimes at considerable length and with considerable insight, those very talmudic sugyot which form the subject matter of Levinas’s essays. Indeed, I would go so far as to suggest that before reading one of these essays of Levinas, we should first study in depth the underlying talmudic sugya, together with a representative sample of the standard and not-so-standard commentaries, both classic and more recent, and attempt to identify and classify the major problems, issues, and questions raised, and the major analyses and solutions put forth. Only then should we read Levinas’s essay and see how it fits or does not fit into the various lines of approach we have identified. Does Levinas raise new questions? or offer new answers to old questions? or perhaps just present variants of old approaches in philosophical “Greek” garb? Such a mode of procedure, if it accomplishes nothing else, ought to enable us to define more precisely Levinas’s place within the tradition and context of Jewish thought. It may even, as a not-so-insignificant fringe benefit, contribute to our understanding of talmudic aggadah and talmudic texts in general. This paper will examine one of Levinas’s lectures talmudiques from the above perspective.

II

Scripture, in relating the revelation of the Torah to the Israelites at Sinai, states: “And they stood at the foot of the mountain” (Exod. 19:17). If we choose to read the concluding phrase of this verse, be-tahtit ha-har, hyper-literally, the verse states that the Israelites, when receiving the Torah, stood underneath the mountain. Such a reading is proposed in the Babylonian Talmud (Sabbath 88a) by R. Abdimi bar Hama, who cites the verse and comments: “This teaches us that the Holy One, blessed be He, inclined Mt. Sinai over [the Israelites] like a tilted tub and said: ‘If you accept the Torah, all is well; and if not, here will be your grave.’” This startling interpretation has not surprisingly been the object of much discussion by traditional rabbinic commentators, modern talmudic scholars, ³ and Jewish thinkers in general. A particularly profound and challenging analysis of this statement and the talmudic sugya of which it forms a part may be found in Levinas’s talmudic essay, “The Temptation of Temptation,” ⁴ and, indeed this essay has been singled out for special attention by Levinas scholars. ⁵

Levinas argues that R. Abdimi’s statement means that “revelation [is...