Rashi explains that because it took 40 days to receive the Torah, Golias had the koach to taunt us for 40 days. What was the negative quality of the 40 days of waiting for the Torah? Wasn't that what Hash-m asked of us?
Sender Klein, New York, United States
Hi Sender,
The Haga'os Yaavatz understands Rashi as you did, that he his referring to the first (out of three) sets of forty days, Moshe was in the sky. I saw in the Shiurim of R' Michel Feinstein that he asks your question, and answers that Yisrael at Har Sinai were afraid, and asked Moshe to hear the Torah and say it over, as we find in Parashas ve'Eschanan, "Kerav Ata u'Shema". This was not 'planned' and R' Michel offers that this was wrong to do. He says, that if Yisrael would not say this, they would receive the whole Torah in one day.
Others say that Rashi is referring to the other sets of forty days that were a result of the Egel sin, but R' Moshe says that if so, why only forty, and not eighty.
The Radak in Sefer Shmuel and the Maharsha have a different approach. They seem to say that once the Torah was started to be given when Hash-m said the ten commandments on Har Sinai, the world is ready for the Torah, and the fact that the Torah is not totally given, gives the Cochos ha'Tumah extra power. So, this is not a punishment, but just reality.
The Ben Yehoyada does say that the forty days are the last ones, those ended at Yom Kippur and says that this was the same kind of battle we have with the Yetzer ha'Rah when we do Tshuva for forty days and the peek is Yom Kippur.
Kol Tuv,
Aharon Steiner
Thanks R' Aharon, that's a tremendous help.
Someone suggested to me that Klal Yisroel could have gotten the Torah right away if not for krav ata ushma, great to hear that R' Michel gives that approach.
Kol tuv,
-Sender