Without addressing the plethora of information already covered in the thread
Masoretic Malfeasance, it can be stated that the second Moses will indeed in some manner produce either a new Torah, or a revolutionary reading of the original text. The Jewish sages read Isaiah 51:4 to imply nothing less. In,
On the Kabbalah and Its Symbolism, Scholem associates the ability to read new revelation out of the old text with the "mystical plasticity of the divine word" (p. 76). But it's Rabbi Samson R. Hirsch who connects this plasticity of the divine word directly to the scriptures that portend the setting aside of Israel precisely at a time when a new reading concerning the old words comes into vogue precisely as the testament to the setting aside of Israel.
If we consider the special characteristics of the tablets and of the writing that was on them, and the fact that these characteristics are reported precisely here and not above at the end of chapter 31, it becomes clear that they must be closely connected with the grave event that was taking place at this time.
The Hirsch Chumash, Exodus 32:15-16.
The grave event taking place immediately prior to the notation of the special characteristics of the tablets in Moses' hand is the event whereby God speaks of setting aside Israel and starting a new people or dispensation with Moses as an individual. It's this grave event that immediately precedes the notation concerning the special characteristics of the tablets of the law.
If the tablets of the testimony were written on one side only, the person responsible for reading to the people the laws written on the tablets would be placed in a dictatorial position vis-a-vis the masses listening to his speech. He alone would have the text before his eyes, and the masses would have to simply accept what they would hear from his mouth. Clearly, he would be the intermediary between the people and the law.
Ibid.
The grave event preceding the narrative concerning the special characteristics of the law is precisely a result of Israel's desire that what Rabbi Hirsch calls a dictatorial mediatorship indeed be the case. In Exodus 20:19 Israel reply that they don't want the fiery words of God to descend on them individually for fear of dying. They specifically call for Moses to be the dictatorial mediator of the law. Let him read it to them and they will accept what they hear from his mouth.
And they said to Moshe: You speak to us; we will listen. But let not God speak with us, for we might die.
Nevertheless, Rabbi Hirsch reads Exodus 20:19 against the grain of its seemingly clear meaning when he insinuates not that Israel preferred the intermediary of Moses rather than the direct contact with God, but that God established the covenant with them without mediation after all:
The truth of the revelation was secured against all acts of deception, in which people try to turn God's revelation to man into a revelation from within man, God's revelation to Moshe into a revelation from within Moshe, thereby turning revelation into a non-revelation.
The Hirsch Chumash, Exodus 20:16 (which is 20:19 in the KJV).
This seems deceptive? This seems like double-talk? God's original intent was to speak directly to every individual Jew. The divine language of fire (the plasticity of revelation) would descend not on, or for, Moses to translate/mediate, but on, and for, every individual Jew to negotiate freely for themselves. It's this "freedom" to interpret individually, rather than receive the traditional interpretation from a sage, a religion, or dictator, that Israel undeniable rejected and rejects to this day:
Jesus and his disciples went their way, off the stage of Israel's enduring life, and I would have thought then, and I think now, that Israel was right to let them take their leave. For theirs--- at least in the spectacle of Matthew's picture--- was a message for the individuals, but the Torah spoke to us all. Leave home, follow me; give it all up, follow me; take up your (personal) cross, follow me --- but then what of home, what of family and community and the social order that the Torah had commanded Israel to bring into being?
Rabbi Jacob Neusner, A Rabbi Talks with Jesus, p. 157.
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter [community or social order] more than me is not worthy of me. And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me. He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.
Matthew 10:37.
The two quotations above perfectly circumscribe the scene Rabbi Hirsch negotiates when Israel refuses to accept the word of God individually, for fear of having to take up a cross and follow God through the hymen of the morgue. Like Jesus later, so God in speaking to Moses, claims that those who fear losing their life for the word of God, the name of God, will lose it anyway (the grave event that preceeds Moses turning from God with the tablets), while those willing to lose their life by receiving God's fiery word on the tablets of their heart will find true life for the sake of God.
John
