"It may be said that the Bible as a whole is a detailed account of the conflicts, the rises and falls, the deviations, the errors, and the reconciliations in the process of receiving the Torah.
And this is true not only of the time the Torah was being absorbed but even prior to Sinai, the long period of inner preparation.
Time is needed for any truly revolutionary teaching to be understood, and there are any number of intermediate stages."
–Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz
From The Strife of the Spirit , p, 88 by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz