among ye, that ye are in need of the Torah? It is written: 'Thou
shalt not steal.' Is there perchance money in heaven, that ye are
need of the Torah? It is written: 'Thou shalt not bear false witness
against thy neighbor.' Is there perchance any false witness among
ye, that ye are in need of the Torah? It is written: 'Covet not the
house of thy neighbor.' Are there perchance houses, fields, or
vineyards among ye, that ye are in need of the Torah?" The angels
hereupon relinquished their opposition to the delivering of the
Torah into the hands of Israel, and acknowledged that God was
right to reveal it to mankind, saying: "Eternal, our Lord, how
excellent is Thy name in all the earth! Who hast set Thy glory
upon the heavens."

Moses now stayed forty days in heaven to learn the Torah from
God. But when he started to descend and beheld the hosts of the
angels of terror, angels of trembling, angels of quaking, and angels
of horror, then through his fear he forgot all he had learned. For
this reason God called the angel Yefefiyah, the prince of the
Torah, who handed over to Moses the Torah, "ordered in all things
and sure." All the other angels, too, became his friends, and each
bestowed upon him a remedy as well as the secret of the Holy
Names, as they are contained in the Torah, and as they are applied.
Even the Angel of Death gave him a remedy against death. The
applications of the Holy Names, which the angels through
Yefefiyah, the prince of the Torah, and Metatron, the prince of the
Face, taught him, Moses passed on to the high-priest Eleazar, who
passed them to his son Phinehas, also known as Elijah. [248]

MOSES RECEIVES THE TORAH