What was it like to stand at Mt. Sinai?
“There was thunder and smoke. The cloud of glory was over the mountain and the sound of the shofar grew increasingly loud,” the Torah tells us.
For the rabbis, creation and the giving of the Torah were intimately connected. “An architect creates plans before he builds a building,” they taught, “and so, too, the Holy One created the Torah before He created the heavens and the earth.” For the rabbis, the world could not exist without Torah.
Carefully mis-translating one word, the taught that God held Mt. Sinai over out heads. “If you accept my Torah, very well” said God, “and if you do not, I return the world to emptiness and void.”
What could it be about Torah that was so important to the rabbis? They studied it, the dissected it. And in one rabbi’s words, they turned it over and over until they grew old and gray with it.
The rabbis rarely spoke about core Jewish values. Instead, they expressed their values through the details of Jewish law. “What is the blessing for Torah study?” the rabbis asked. “And what time of day do you say it?”
The rabbis answer was remarkable: You say the blessing for Torah study when you wake up, they taught, even if you will not be studying for hours. Why? Because every action we take, every word that we say, is a chance to teach Torah.
Or as one of my teachers put it: I say the blessing when I wake up, and then I do my first task of the day, changing my baby’s diaper. It reminds me that they little things I do – counting my baby’s toes and reacting to her coos – will change her life. Those moments, too, are moments of Torah.
Next Friday morning, we will celebrate Shevout, and we will read the story of revelation. The words are dramatic: “There was thunder and smoke, and the sound of the shofar grew increasingly loud.”
But Torah is in the small things too. And for Sefat Emet, one of the great Chassidic masters, revelation came in a still, small voice. It was a moment when we realized that all of us are connected, when we realized that everything in the universe is a gift from God.
Like all of the Chassidic masters, Sefat Emet wrote for the Jew in the schtetl. But there was something universal in his tone. Again and again, he says that there is a spark of holiness in everyone – not just in every Jew. In a teaching about Mt. Sinai, he wondered about one verse in the Torah:
And all the people saw the voice. At the moment that the words came forth, “I am Adonai your God”, the people saw the root of life. They looked in each other’s eyes and saw God’s presence in each other’s souls. They did not have to believe the words; they only had to see the voice of God in each other.
Perhaps, this is the essence of revelation. We do not have to believe. All we have to do is see the voice of God in each other. If we can do that, the world will be redeemed.