Post-Sinai
Before Sinai, there was earth and there was heaven. If you wanted one, you abandoned the other.
At Sinai, the boundaries of heaven and earth were breached and the human being was empowered to fuse the two: To raise the earthly into the realm of the spirit, and to bring heaven down to earth.
Before Mount Sinai, the coarse material of which the world is made could not be elevated. It could be used as a medium, an aid in achieving enlightenment, but it itself could not be enlightened. The spirit was raised, but the earth remained dark.
At Sinai we were empowered to take physical objects and transform them into spiritual artifacts.
Our forefathers’ task was to enlighten the souls. Ours is to transform the darkness of a material world into light.
Mission From Sinai
The first laws the Torah deals with, immediately after the Ten Commandments, are the laws protecting a Jewish servant.
Because the first thing a Jew must know to fulfill Torah is that it is his mission in life, his entire life.
We are all servants of the Infinite Light, the channels by which it enters the universe.
With One Heart
“Israel camped there by the mountain.” Exodus 19:2.
“They camped like a single person with a single heart.” Rashi ad loc.
We Jews are a diverse people of many minds and opinions, fond of dispute for the sake of heaven. It is a strategy that has stood us well, fostering wisdom and resilience throughout our long history.
Admittedly, at times, the heavenliness may vacate the discussion. That's when anger and rage erupts, tearing us apart into stubborn factions, weakening the integrity of the whole.
Invariably, our enemies take advantage of this rupture with a vicious attack.
But in response to the crisis, we become one again. The rupture is healed, and the enemy is swiftly vanquished.
You might imagine that this phenomenon of unity under duress is a chimera, a mere artifact imposed by external circumstances.
Not so, says Rashi, the wise teacher who teaches Torah to every Jew, tucking precious jewels of wisdom within the cloak of his simple commentary.
When Pharaoh and his entire army came chasing after the Jews as they were entrapped by the Sea of Reeds, the Torah writes only that “Pharaoh approached.” Rashi explains that the Egyptians came with one heart, as though they were a single person.
Note the nuance: First the heart, then the person. Meaning: Their hearts were driven by the same greed, so they acted as a single person.
When the Jewish nation camped before Mount Sinai, the Torah refers to the entire nation in the singular—unlike all other encampments. Rashi explains that they camped there like one person, with one heart.
First the person, then the heart.
We, the Jewish people, are truly a single being. That integral oneness may surface through many means, an unfortunate circumstance being one of them.
But if we want that oneness and harmony of a multitude of parts to last, there is only one way.
When our hearts are open to receive G‑d's Torah from wherever it may come, with humility and with joy, only then are we a healthy and whole people.
Penetrating Wisdom
At Mount Sinai, tradition tells, there was no echo.
Why? Because Torah penetrates and is absorbed by all things.
There is no place where it does not apply, no darkness it does not illuminate, nothing it cannot bring alive.
Nothing that will bounce it back and say, “Torah is too holy to belong here.”
Dressed in G‑d’s Clothes
G‑d is not understandable.
But G‑d ponders Himself.
And this mode of pondering Himself He gave to us, dressed in many stories and rituals and ways of life.
Dressed in those clothes, we unite with G‑d in His pondering of Himself.
Do, Then Know
When you approach any human wisdom, you must first understand and discern. You must say, “This makes sense to me; I will follow this. This is a teacher with a good reputation; I will consider her lessons. This doesn’t fit for me; I will put this aside for now.”
Not so with learning Torah. We already know Who is behind this wisdom. We are not interested in the knowledge per se, but in Him. To make His thoughts our thoughts, His mind our minds. To achieve perfect oneness with the One Above.
At Sinai, we understood this well. When Moses asked us if we were ready to accept the Torah, we answered, “We will do, and we will understand.”
First, we said, “We will do.” Because we understood Who was asking us and we desired to connect with Him.
Then we said, “We will understand.” We would take upon ourselves a venture that should be entirely impossible, only now made available to us through divine intervention:
To know the divine. To bring His thoughts into our thoughts, His mind into our minds. To become one with Him.
Disruptive Torah
I am G‑d, your G‑d who took you out of the land of Egypt to be your G‑d…Do not steal. Do not kill. Do not covet.
If Torah is divine wisdom, you would expect it to enter the world in a serene voice. You would expect to hear that voice speak of the mysteries of life and open wide paths of profound contemplation.
Instead, amidst thunder and lightning, we heard simple, obvious morals: don’t steal, don't kill, don't covet.
Because G‑d was telling us that from this point on, everything will be turned on its head.
Before Sinai, where did you find divine wisdom?
Within an enlightened soul sitting beneath a tamarisk in deep contemplation, communing with the oneness of the universe.
After Sinai, you can find Torah in a human being enslaved to a substance that kills, incapable of escape—until thrown this rope of divine wisdom and choosing of his own will to pull himself out with it and rewrite his entire journey.
For him, G‑d said, "I am G‑d who took you out of Egypt."
You can find Torah in the guy who is tempted to theft and murder, who sees these as convenient alternatives—but refrains because G‑d said, "Do not steal. Do not murder. Do not even covet."
And if you can’t find Torah there, because you haven’t sunk to that extreme, and you don't know anyone who has...
...then find Torah by changing the way you live day to day, the things you speak, the actions you take. By disrupting your everyday world. By leaving nothing as it is.
That is why Torah was given with lightning and thunder.
Because, post-Sinai, Torah is found in this busy, noisy world. Torah is where the action is.
Post-Sinai, everything has changed. Because Torah has to change everything.
Breaking Limits
Everything a human being is given comes in a finite package. Even the tablets Moses carried down from Mount Sinai were defined and bounded.
And so, when G‑d saw Moses mourning over the broken tablets, He said, “Your powers were focused when you smashed the tablets. For now you will receive a Torah you may extend wider than the sea.”
When a human being fails, he shatters the treasures G‑d has put in his trust. But then he cries and picks up the shards to restore what he has ruined.
That is when he discovers that G‑d Himself was hidden inside.
That is when he discovers the Infinite.
Anochi
When Torah first entered our universe through its portal on Mount Sinai, its first word was an Egyptian word: “Anochi,” meaning “I.”
And indeed, when the angels claimed that Torah belonged in their ethereal domain, Moses demanded of them, “Did you descend to Egypt? Did you set your bloody hands to form a brick from straw and clay? Have you felt the sting of a taskmaster’s whip upon your sunburnt back? How could you have Torah?”
For to have Torah is to have G‑d raw.
Not G‑d as an idea for the mind to grasp, not G‑d as a transcendent spirit for the soul to find. No, G‑d as He is beyond any description or name. As He is simply “I.”
And where will you grasp that I?
In the Egypt of life into which you were cast from birth. In your daily struggle to preserve your integrity, to save your soul from drowning in a world that no one can explain, where G‑d appears at times entirely absent.
He is there. His “I” is there. And you will find Him there, as you bring Torah into that place.
“There is one short chapter of only a few words,” teaches the Talmud, “and upon it hangs the entire Torah.”
“In all your ways, know Him.”
In your ways, in your personal Egypt. Know Him—He who is beyond all knowing.
Begin with Alef
At Sinai, He said, “Let us bond together. Let us embrace in these mitzvahs, commune in this Torah, and in them we will be one.”
But He is an infinite, unknowable G‑d. If we cannot know Him, how can we bond with Him?
And so, when He came to us in His Torah at Mount Sinai, He began with an alef. And when we begin to learn, we begin with an alef.
In that first, infinitesimal point of not knowing, in that is contained all wisdom.
Secrets First
People think that the instructions come first, the dos and the don’ts, thou shalts and thou shalt nots. Later comes a sense of the divine, the mystical, the transcendental.
But let’s say you encountered a Jew returning from Mount Sinai, where he shivered from the thunder, trembled from the lightning, where he heard G‑d’s voice speaking to him directly, loud and clear.
And you asked, “So what did He say?”
“What did He say? The entire world disappeared for us! The heavens opened wide! We saw with our own eyes, experienced with every bone in our body, that there is truly nothing else but Him!”
That is the starting place of Torah, and the first approach of even the simplest Jew—that there is really nothing else but G‑d. From there comes every mitzvah he does.
Study the inner wisdom of Torah and re-experience Mount Sinai.
Become Truth
There is no truth about G‑d.
Truth is G‑d.
There is no one who learns Truth.
You become Truth.
There is no need to search for Truth.
You have inherited it and it is within you.
You need only learn quietness
to listen to that inheritance.
The Freedom Connection
We are limited by the very fact that we have human form. There is no freedom in following our whim, or even our most reasoned decisions. As a prisoner cannot undo his own shackles, so we remain enslaved to our own limited selves.
And so Moses was told, “When you take the people out from Egypt, you shall all serve the Infinite G‑d on this mountain.”
The Infinite G‑d is the only one who is not compelled by any bounds. What makes us free? Simple deeds done each day, as agents of the One who is absolutely free.
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