The Gemara cites additional homiletic interpretations on the topic of the revelation at Sinai. The Torah says, “And Moses brought forth the people out of the camp to meet God; and they stood at the lowermost part of the mount” (Exodus 19:17). Rabbi Avdimi bar Ḥama bar Ḥasa said: the Jewish people actually stood beneath the mountain, and the verse teaches that the Holy Blessed One overturned the mountain above the Jews like a tub, and said to them: If you accept the Torah, excellent, and if not, there will be your burial. Rav Aḥa bar Ya’akov said: From here there is a substantial caveat to the obligation to fulfill the Torah. The Jewish people can claim that they were coerced into accepting the Torah, and it is therefore not binding. Rava said: Even so, they again accepted it willingly in the time of Ahasuerus, as it is written: “The Jews ordained, and took upon them, and upon their seed, and upon all such as joined themselves unto them” (Esther 9:27), and he taught: The Jews ordained what they had already taken upon themselves through coercion at Sinai.
Ḥizkiya said: What is the meaning of that which is written: “You caused sentence to be heard from heaven; the earth feared, and was silent” (Psalms 76:9)? If it was afraid, why was it silent; and if it was silent, why was it afraid? Rather, the meaning is: At first, it was afraid, and in the end, it was silent. “You caused sentence to be heard from heaven” refers to the revelation at Sinai. And why was the earth afraid? It is in accordance with the statement of Reish Lakish, as Reish Lakish said: What is the meaning of that which is written: “And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day” (Genesis 1:31)? Why do I require the superfluous letter heh, the definite article, which does not appear on any of the other days? It teaches that the Holy Blessed One established a condition with the act of Creation, and said to them: If Israel accepts the Torah on the sixth day of Sivan, you will exist; and if they do not accept it, I will return you to the primordial state of chaos and disorder. Therefore, the earth was afraid until the Torah was given to Israel, lest it be returned to a state of chaos. Once the Jewish people accepted the Torah, the earth was calmed.
This is a story of a young woman who was sitting in synagogue while the Ten Commandments were being read. That day, the Reader was reading so carefully that the young woman felt it was as though she was hearing them for the first time. And she was astonished at what she heard, and her heart became aggrieved.
She asked in her heart, what is the nature of this "Remember the Sabbath day to hallow it" (Ex. 20:8), of which it is said You shall do no work, you and your son and your daughter, your male slave and your slavegirl and your beast and your sojourner who is within your gates. (ibid. 10) – and his wife, what about her, is she not commanded to hallow the Shabbat?
And what is the nature of this "You shall not covet," of which it is said, "You shall not covet your fellow man’s wife, or his male slave, or his slavegirl, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that your fellow man has." (Ibid. 17) – and his wife, what about her, did the Torah not command her too, not to covet that which is her fellow woman’s?
That young woman was pious, and not until that day had she had a single foreign musing or doubt regarding the truth of Torah. At that moment of questioning, her heart was wrapped in fear, beating and beating, until she thought everyone in synagogue could hear its rhythm. The tears that rose in her throat had the taste of the deep, and the taste of the sea that drowned the Egyptians, and she was shaking and aghast, and her soul fled.
The Holy Blessed One gathered up her soul in the palm of Their hand and was looking and smiling at her. They said to her: How long have I waited for you to come and ask me, so that I would explain to you and give you that which has been hidden away with Me for three thousand years! She looked downward and asked: Did the Holy Blessed One not speak with women at Mount Sinai, and not command them the same things They commanded men with thunder and lightning?
The Holy Blessed One lifted up her head and said, when Moshe ascended I commanded him:
"And have them make themselves ready for the third day, for on the third day, God will come down before all the people on Mount Sinai." (Ex. 19:11). Since Moshe distanced himself from women, for he separated from his wife Zipporah, he brought only men near the mountain, as is said, "And Moshe brought the people toward God from the camp." (Ibid. 17)
And at that time, when Moshe heard the commandments, and there were only men around him, he heard "You shall do no work" and said to himself, ‘and who will be punished for doing work, if not the man? And whose are the slaves and slavegirls, chattel and children, whom he can command to do work, or to rest, if not the man?
And so, Moshe wrote them to keep the Sabbath, in the masculine pronoun. And because he was not me’urav ‘im ha-beriyot, engaged with people, beriyot, in the feminine, for he had not been with his wife Zipporah for a long time, he didn’t remember that women, too, have desire, and so he did not include them in that prohibition.
The young woman asked the Holy Blessed One: If so, and Moshe who separated from women couldn’t hear those words which the Holy Blessed One ordained for them, will a sage (Talmid Chakham) who has separated himself be able to hear?
The Holy Blessed One’s countenance became grave, and They answered her thus: Any house of study (beit midrash) that has no women - My word will not emerge from there whole.