“The Mountain over our Heads” Rabbi Jacobson’s 2/6/26 Qabbalat Shabbat Sermon

Rabbi Suzie Jacobson
Qabbalat Shabbat, February 6, 2026
Temple Israel of Boston 

Before rabbinical school, I was a PhD dropout—I don’t usually brag about being a quitter, but the experience shaped me deeply. I spent two years at the University of Chicago Divinity School studying Jewish philosophy, and briefly imagining an academic career. Instead, I discovered I’d rather be at Shabbat Mishpacha than in the ivory tower.

Graduate school taught me to read closely, think critically, and write extremely long papers, but most importantly it brought me to Professor Paul Mendes-Flohr, one of the great Jewish thinkers of his generation. Paul died last year. And though his scholarship will be studied for decades, those of us who knew him remember his extraordinary kindness. We called him PMF, and beyond his brilliance, he was a true mensch—hosting students for dinner, leaving a Diet Coke at my favorite seat in class, and enthusiastically supporting my decision to become a rabbi, believing the synagogue is a vital home for Jewish intellectual life.

PMF was also a character. Like many professors who had been teaching for decades, his classes came with a set of favorite stories, and I can’t think about this week’s parashah, Yitro, without remembering him.

Whenever our conversations turned to Jewish chosenness, the challenge of being Jewish in a hostile world, or our covenant with God, PMF would share a famous midrash. In our portion, Moses ascends Mount Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments, while the Israelites stand below. In the Talmud, Rav Avdimi bar Ḥama bar Ḥasa imagines that at the moment of revelation, God lifted the mountain and held it over the people, declaring, “If you accept the Torah, all will be well. If not, this will be your grave.”

Ok. I can’t do it as well as PMF – you have to imagine a 75 year old man with flowing white hair and a booming voice – “this will be your grave!” 

In this midrash, revelation is not a gift but an ultimatum. We stand in covenant not because we choose it, but because we cannot be other than who we are. That message unsettles modern liberal Judaism, which speaks the language of choice. Reform Judaism teaches “choice through knowledge,” yet living in the shadow of the Holocaust we are reminded that even when we feel Judaism is optional, the world often sees us as Jews first.

This moment of revelation—receiving Torah and becoming a people grounded in shared values and history—is more than an origin story. The way we tell this story reveals how we understand ourselves and our community. Our vision of Sinai becomes a blueprint for our Jewish identity.

What is at stake if we view Sinai as coercion? Does that make Jewish identity feel like a punishment? A life sentence? Or more positively, so essential that without it you would cease to exist, to be who you are? 

Though this midrash is well known because it’s DRAMATIC, the rabbis offered us many creative imaginings of Sinai. 

In the early tannaitic midrash, the Mekhilta de-Rabbi Yishmael the Israelites were frightened by the thunder and lightning, and God lifted the mountain not as a threat but as protection. Reading the love poetry of Song of Songs as an extended allegory of God’s love for the Jewish people, the Mekhilta quotes: “O my dove, in the cranny of the rocks, hidden by the cliff, let me see your face, let me hear your voice.”

Here, God is not intimidation but love. A parent protecting their young. God meets our fear with empathy. Once within the covenant, God’s presence comforts us when we are afraid. And b’tzelem Elohim, created in the Divine image, we are called to be a comforting presence for one another.

There are many other midrashic options for us to explore! 

In different midrashim, God is described as a groom meeting his bride or as a King enslaving his subjects.  The fifth century Pesikhta d’Rav Kahana refuses to choose one Divine attitude, teaching: 

“R. Hanina bar Papa said: The Holy One appeared to Israel with a stern face, with an equanimous face, with a friendly face, with a joyous face. …Therefore the Holy One said to them: “Though you see Me in all these guises [I am still one]—… R. Levi said:  The Holy One appeared to them as though God were a statue with faces on every side, so that though a thousand men might be looking at the statue, they would be led to believe that it was looking at each one of them…”

Not only does Torah provide us with never ending conversations, God is also inherently complex and multifaceted, capable of meeting each of us where we are. Here, Revelation is not a flattening experience of communal conformity, but a relationship that holds us all as individuals and as a pluralistic collective. 

Let’s look at one more. 

In the Sifrei, the midrash on Deuteronomy we read: Before giving the Torah to Israel, God offered it to all the other nations. Each nation asked what was written in it, and when they heard commandments that conflicted with how they understood themselves—such as “do not kill,” “do not commit adultery,” or “do not steal”—they refused. Only Israel accepted the moral responsibility of Torah

When God revealed the Torah, thunder shook the whole world. The nations feared that the world was being destroyed, but they were told that the thunder was the sound of God giving strength—to Israel. Hearing this, the nations responded: “if that is so, may God bless God’s people with peace.”

Here, Jewish identity is rooted in our acceptance of responsibility. The midrash suggests that the Torah was not given to Israel because Jews were inherently better than other peoples, but because they were willing to say yes. Jewish identity is not a privilege but a commitment. 

It also teaches that Jewish distinctiveness comes from choosing to be shaped by Torah, even when its expectations require transformation and restraint. When the nations wish Israel peace, we learn that the purpose of the covenant is not separation for its own sake, but the hope that living by Torah will ultimately bring strength and peace to the world.

Perhaps that is why our tradition preserves not one story of Sinai, but many. Some days we experience Judaism as something we would choose again and again; other days it feels like something that has chosen us, claimed us, even obligated us beyond what is comfortable. Sometimes covenant feels overwhelming, like a mountain suspended above us. Sometimes it feels like shelter, love, and protection. And sometimes it feels like a sacred responsibility we step forward to accept – Judaism asks something real of us.

PMF didn’t judge me when I dropped out of his program. He was excited because he believed the synagogue is where Jewish ideas come alive. Judaism is not meant to be lived in theory alone. Every generation stands again at Sinai—not only asking “What happened there?” but “Who will we be because of it?” May we be a people who hold one another with compassion when the world feels frightening, who accept the moral responsibilities of Torah with courage, and who help ensure that the strength given to our people becomes, as the Psalmist says, a blessing of peace for the world.