Standing at Sinai

The custom of standing for the chanting of the Ten Commandments reminds us that each one has a memory of having heard God at Mt. Sinai.

Parashat Yitro / 22 Sh’vat 5770

This morning, when we read the Torah we stood up for the recitation of Asseret Ha-Dibrot (the Ten Commandments). This custom of standing for Asseret Ha-Dibrot is based on the Torah itself, which describes how all of the Children of Israel – young and old, man and woman, every last one – stood at the foot of Mount Sinai and had a direct experience of God’s word. But this custom of standing during parashat Yitro is not merely symbolic – it isn’t that we stood here “as if” we were at Sinai. It is not a re-creation of a past event. Our standing during the 10 Commandments this morning was actually a re-living of something we all experienced. According to the Talmud, the soul of every Jew was at Sinai.[1] Every soul that was every born and every soul to be born was there. We believe that even converts were there too (for they too have a Jewish soul). Every one of us was there.

I don’t know exactly what the Talmud means by telling us that we were all at Sinai. My mind cannot grasp that literally, nonetheless, I sincerely believe it to be true. Regardless of what the Sages had in mind, I think they meant to tell us that each of us, somewhere deep within us, somewhere in our spiritual chromosomes, has an experience of the Divine imprinted upon us.

The traditional Biblical Commentators debate what it is that we actually heard standing at the base of Mt. Sinai. (Can you remember what you heard?) From the biblical account itself, we know that whatever we heard was utterly overwhelming. The Torah says that after God’s revelation to us, we recoiled in fear.[2] So, what did we hear? Some say we heard God proclaim every word of the Ten Commandments. Others say that God actually uttered only the first two, in which God speaks in the first person. The remaining eight, which are worded in the third person, were perhaps spoken by Moses. And there is also a Hasidic teaching that says that we only heard the first letter of the first word – the silent letter alef in Anochi.[3] I like that teaching because there is something deeply true expressed in it. Whatever God “spoke” at Sinai, I find it hard to believe that the experience for us was anything like what we call “hearing.” Indeed the Torah reports that when God finished speaking, we “saw the sounds” (“ve-kol ha-am ro’im et ha-kolot”). So, whatever it is that happened, it was an experience like no other on this plane of existence.

So, if we were all present at Sinai and if each of us encountered God there, the question is how do we unlock that memory of God’s essence that is deep in the recesses of our soul’s memory? How do we experience Sinai again? Two weeks ago, I had the privilege of attending a rabbinic retreat with Rabbi Arthur Green, who is the rector of the rabbinical school at Hebrew College in Boston. Rabbi Green teaches that at the core of a religious life is the human response to God’s silent call. He writes:

To stand in covenant with God is to accept a challenge to regard one’s entire life as a channel for bringing divine presence and blessing into the world. We as a Jewish people, the people of Sinai, made such a commitment, one to which we remain bound forever. To understand us Jews is to realize that we are eternally devoted to that vision. No matter how secular we may declare ourselves, something within us remains priest at that altar.[4]

As I understand Rabbi Green, we relive Sinai every time we pursue the values embodied in the Torah. Our commitment to a more perfect world is the way we make God visible again. Rabbi Harold Shulweis teaches that if you ever want to know how God works in the world, look at your own hands. The Kabbalists talked about collecting up the Divine light that is scattered all over creation. No matter how you describe it or what metaphor you use, God’s essence is waiting to be found by us.

With regard to the 10 Commandments, Art Green goes on to write:

The essential principles… are contained in the first two commandments. “Know the One!” and “Worship nothing less!” The remaining eight are there to define and shape the way we do this, to help that transcendent message enter safely into the lives of real, fallible human beings and societies.[5]

I think Art Green would say that the same goes for all of the commandments. In other words, Judaism – with all of its rules, ethical imperatives, and rituals – is our community’s unfolding response to God. It is the language we speak in response to God’s silent call. If we want to hear God’s word as we heard it at Sinai, we have but to look into our tradition. Torah study, acts of kindness, words of prayer and ritual are all ways of tuning our ears to God’s reverberating call.

According to our tradition we all stood at Sinai. Each of us has an innate sense of what that call sounds like and looks like. Our task is to tune our souls into its echo and to respond.

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[1] BT Shabbat 146a

[2] (Ex. 20:15-16)

[3] Attributed to Reb Menachem Mendel of Rymanov

[4] Arthur Green. Radical Judaism: Rethinking God and Tradition. Chapter 3 (forthcoming from Yale Univ press)

[5] Ibid.