Aggada -- Translations into English; Bible. Old Testament -- Legends; Jewish legends; Midrash -- Translations into English
Although Moses now devoted both night and day to the study of the
Torah, he still learned nothing, for hardly had he learned something
from God when he forgot it again. Moses thereupon said to God: "O Lord
of the world! Forty days have I devoted to studying the Torah, without
having profited anything by it." God therefore bestowed the Torah upon
Moses, and now he could descend to Israel, for now he remembered all
that he had learned. [256]
Hardly had Moses descended from heaven with the Torah, when Satan
appeared before the Lord and said: "Where, forsooth, is the place where
the Torah is kept?" For Satan knew nothing of the revelation of God on
Sinai, as God had employed him elsewhere on purposes, that he might not
appear before him as an accuser, saying: "Wilt Thou give the Torah to a
people that forty days later will worship the Golden Calf?" In answer
to Satan's question regarding the whereabouts of the Torah, God said:
"I gave the Torah to Earth." To earth, then, Satan betook himself with
his query: "Where is the Torah?" Earth said: "God knows of its course,
He knoweth its abiding-place, for 'He looketh to the ends of the earth,
and seeth under the whole heaven.'" Satan now passed on to the sea to
seek for the Torah, but the sea also said: "It is not with me," and the
abyss said: "It is not in me." Destruction and death said: "We have
heard the fame thereof with our ears." Satan now returned to God and
said: "O Lord of the world! Everywhere have I sought the Torah, but I
found it not." God replied: "Go, seek the son of Amram." Satan now
hastened to Moses and asked him: "Where is the Torah that God hath
given thee?" Whereupon Moses answered: "Who am I, that the Holy One,
blessed be He, should have given me the Torah?" God hereupon spoke to
Moses: "O Moses, thou utterest a falsehood." But Moses answered: "O
Lord of the world! Thou hast in Thy possession a hidden treasure that
daily delights Thee. Dare I presume to declare it my possession?" Then
God said: "As a reward for thy humility, the Torah shall be named for
thee, and it shall henceforth be known as the Torah of Moses." [257]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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