Torah & Reality

Our sages tell us that when G-d spoke the Ten Commandments at Sinai, the Divine voice had no echo.

Our mission as a people, entrusted to us at Sinai, is to implement the ethos and ideals of Torah in our world: to teach humanity that no matter what the conditions of a particular time or society might be, there is a transcendent, unequivocal, divinely ordained truth and code of behavior to adhere to.

But often one may feel challenged by a seemingly unresponsive and resisting world. It may appear that one or another of the Torahs precepts does not fit in with the prevalent reality. So the Torah tells us that the voice which sounded G-d's message to humanity had no echo.

An echo is created when a sound meets with a substance that resists it; instead of absorbing its waves, the substance repels them, bouncing them back to the void. The voice of the Ten Commandments had no echo, because it permeated every object in the universe. So any resistance we might meet in implementing them is superficial and temporary. Ultimately, the essence of every created being is consistent with, and wholly receptive to, the goodness and perfection that its Creator desires of it.