Rabbi Howard Morrison

One of the fundamental questions pertaining to the Torah is the following - Are the laws and commandments coercive upon us? Or do we accept them freely based on personal choice and autonomy? Simply put, are we the chosen people or the choosing people?

The Sages of the Talmud already debated these questions. Based on a verse in Parshat Yitro, right before the Israelites received the The Commandments, "They took their places at the foot of the mountain (Exodus 19:17)." -  "Rabbi Avdimi bar Hama bar Hasa said: 'This teaches that the Holy One Blessed be He overturned the mountain above them like a tank and said to them, 'If you accept the Torah, good, but if not, here shall be your grave.'"

The afore-mentioned quotation suggests that the obligations of the Torah were coerced upon the Jewish people from our nation's inception. However, on the same page of Talmud (Tractate Shabbat 88a), we find an alternative teaching: "Even so, they accepted the Torah again in the time of Ahashverosh, as it is written, 'Kiymu V'Kiblu Ha'Yehudim - The Jews undertook and accepted (Esther 9:27),' meaning the Jews undertook that which they had already accepted."

Thus, even if the Torah was originally legislated by coercion, the Purim experience teaches us that our Persian ancestors some 2500 years ago freely chose to accept the norms of the Torah.

How do you feel? Coerced? Free to choose? Both? neither? 

Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Howard Morrison