Go Tell it On the Mountain (Moriah)

Mount Sinai Versus Mount Moriah

In Parashas Terumah, the Ramban explains the relationship between the Aron Hakodesh and Mount Sinai. The relationship is that the same Voice with which God spoke to Moses when revealing the commandments was the Voice that spoke from atop the Aron HaKodesh, In effect, this created a portable Mount Sinai that the Jews took with them through the desert on their way to Israel. When they arrived to Eretz Israel they installed the Mount Sinai program on the Beis HaMikdash hardware and could plug in whenever they wanted.

What this means is that the Aron HaKodesh links Mount Moriah to Mount Sinai, two locations pivotal to the Jewish religion in different ways. The Voice from Mount Sinai was heard on Mount Moriah. However, this link as well raises a serious question.

If God spoke to the Jews from Mount Moriah with the same Voice as on Mount Sinai, why didn’t He reveal the Torah to them on Mount Moriah instead? In other words, we can imagine God taking the Jews out of Egypt and instead of giving them the Torah on a mountain in the desert, giving it to them in (or near) the Kadosh HaKedoshim in Jerusalem. Certainly that seems to put all of the holy elements together in one neat little package. It would have been a nice way to bring the promise of Abraham into fruition.

It also raises some issues.

Go Tell It on the Mountain

Issue 1
The Torah is the heart of Judaism and is applicable to the Jews wherever they may live, whether in Israel or anywhere in the world. If God chose to reveal the Torah in Jerusalem, i.e., in Eretz Israel, this might have been taken to mean that the Torah is only applicable when in Eretz Israel. It would have been overpoweringly tempting to come to this conclusion. While the Torah takes on particular properties in Israel, it is applicable to the entire world.

Issue 2
The second reason is related to the first. If it ever came to pass that the Beis HaMikdash was destroyed, people might come to the erroneous conclusion that the Torah had been abrogated along with it. The converse is true, even after the Beis HaMikdash was destroyed, the Torah continued to be operative for the Jewish People, which is perhaps what the separation between Jerusalem and the Torah was intended to teach.

Issue 3
The third issue is that the land of Israel does not tolerate impurity, as it says in Vayikra, “And let the land not vomit you out for having defiled it, as it vomited out the nation that preceded you.” (18:28) The Jews required spiritual sensitivity training before entering because the Land of Israel is sensitive to the behaviors that take place on its soil. If the Jews had been brought into it without it, they might have sullied it and would not be able to last there even for one moment (אפילו שעה אחת). Therefore, God prepared the Jews by giving them the Torah before entering Eretz Israel.

Issue 4
The fourth issue is that if the worship of the Golden Calf was a reason to wipe out the Jews, it seems that partaking in a similar act in the holiest place on earth would have been significantly worse. We can suggest that perhaps God “avoided” this experience by giving them the Torah in a place that was less holy.

Conclusion

Taking into account these reasons (and many more which must exist), God's choice to reveal the Torah outside of Eretz Israel reflected His Will in a way that revealing it in Eretz Israel could not.