Why did Moshe abstain from eating and drinking throughout his forty-day stay atop Mount Sinai?
We cannot work to acquire Torah before we work to acquire derekh eretz, basic manners and decency. This is why the Yalkut Shimoni extracts such a basic, “pedestrian” message – “If you come to a city, follow its rules of etiquette” – from Moshe’s superhuman conditions atop Mount Sinai. The greatness of Moshe during this period lay in not only his remarkable self-denial, but also his basic manners and etiquette Chazal thus teach that one cannot try to be great before making sure he is good.
In Parashat Eikev, Moshe recalls the period he spent atop Mount Sinai receiving the Torah, telling the people, “I remained on the mountain for forty days and forty nights; I did not eat bread and I did not drink water” (9:9). The Midrash Tanchuma (Beshalach, 10) cites this description of Moshe’s experiences atop the mountain as a reflection of Moshe’s devotion to Torah: “Moshe selflessly devoted himself [‘natan nafsho’] for Torah…as it says, ‘He was there with the Lord for forty days and forty nights; he did not eat bread or drink water’ (Shemot 34:28).” The Midrash comments that in reward for Moshe’s devotion to studying Torah, God refers to the Torah as “the Torah of My servant, Moshe” (Malakhi 3:22). Through his extraordinary efforts to master the Torah, Moshe succeeded in “acquiring” the Torah as though it were his own.
The simplest reading of the Midrash’s comment, it would seem, is that it seeks to emphasize the importance of minimizing – or at least limiting – physical indulgence as a necessary prerequisite for achieving Torah excellence. Moshe’s forty-day period of study, during which he abstained from food and drink, sets an extreme example that subsequent scholars must follow in more moderate fashion. As the Rambam famously writes (Hilkhot Talmud Torah 3:12), “Words of Torah are not sustained in one who is slothful with regard to them, or in those who learn amid indulgence and eating and drinking…” Students who wish to become accomplished Torah scholars must be prepared to limit, on one level or another, their comforts and worldly pleasures.
Rav Baruch Mordechai Ezrachi, however, in one of his published discourses, suggests a much different reading of this comment of the Midrash. Why, in fact, did Moshe abstain from eating and drinking throughout his forty-day stay atop Mount Sinai? Couldn’t God have provided him with some nourishment during this period?
The Yalkut Shimoni (Parashat Eikev, 9) famously explains that Moshe refrained from food and drink in order to follow the “protocol,” so-to-speak, of the heavenly sphere: “If you come to a city, follow its rules of etiquette.” During his stay in the spiritual domain of the heavens, Moshe felt it was proper for him to follow the “heavenly” protocols; it would have been ill-mannered and unbecoming for him to act like a human while residing among angels. Moshe had to refrain from eating throughout his forty days spent in the heavens as a measure of common courtesy and manners, out of sensitivity to the habits and conventions of his “hosts.”
Rav Ezrachi boldly suggests that this is the “devotion” to which the Midrash Tanchuma attributes Moshe’s success in “acquiring” Torah. Mastery of Torah requires not only devotion to the study of Torah itself, but also to the indispensable prerequisite to Torah: “Derekh eretz kadema la-Torah.” We cannot work to acquire Torah before we work to acquire derekh eretz, basic manners and decency. This is why the Yalkut Shimoni extracts such a basic, “pedestrian” message – “If you come to a city, follow its rules of etiquette” – from Moshe’s superhuman conditions atop Mount Sinai. The greatness of Moshe during this period lay in not only his remarkable self-denial, but also his basic, elementary manners and etiquette. Chazal thus teach that one cannot try to be great before making sure he is good, that proper manners and courtesy must come before our pursuit of greatness in Torah.
Courtesy of Yeshivat Har Etzion - www.etzion.org.il