The Echo-Less Sound of Torah Ii

Torah is unique because it is G-d’s only direct communication with every Jew. Nature, although G-d’s creation, can only pick up an echo of His original voice.

Why the Miracle?

In this week’s Torah portion, Moses describes the voice of G-d at the Revelation at Mount Sinai, saying:

A great voice, which did not continue.

One of the explanations that the Midrash offers for this is that G-d’s voice did not have an echo.

The Midrash’s answer seems to present a few problems.

First, how does the absence of an echo indicate greatness? If the voice was indeed strong, would it not have produced an echo?

Second, why would G-d seemingly alter the laws of nature just so that his voice would not produce an echo?

A Penetrating Sound

The Rebbe explains that an echo is produced when sound waves hit an object. When the sound waves reach a wall, a mountain, or any such obstacle, they are bounced right back. The only condition to produce an echo is that the object which deflects the sound waves must be strong and rigid. If the object is soft and yielding, the sound will just be absorbed and no echo will result.

When G-d said, “I am G-d your G-d,” his voice was so overwhelmingly powerful that there was nothing in the world that was strong enough to deflect the sound. G-d’s voice actually penetrated and permeated the physical world. Every object in the world, from the inanimate to the higher forms of life, absorbed the G-dly voice and was affected by it.

The phenomenon of the Revelation at Sinai is akin to what will take place after Moshiach’s arrival, which is described in these words: “And the glory of G-d will be revealed, and all flesh will see.” Even our very bodies will be able to perceive G-dliness.

This is why G-d’s voice had no echo. This was no miracle, and the laws of nature were not at all abrogated. It is, indeed, in keeping with physical law that when a sound is absorbed, no echo is produced. And since the voice was totally integrated into physical reality, there was nothing which can bounce the sound back. Therefore, the absence of an echo shows the infinite strength of the voice, rather than the opposite.

Whenever a Jew studies Torah, the holy voice of Torah penetrates his physical surroundings and elevates the world.

Our Rabbis say that in the World To Come, “the very beams of the house will bear witness,” for they have been absorbing all the holiness produced when a person learns Torah in his home.

This explains why many tzadikim commanded that their coffins be made from the wood of their desks and tables where they learned Torah and gave food to the poor, for the Torah and Mitsvos were “absorbed” by the very planks themselves!

The power of Torah is such that nothing can stand in its way. The world was created in such a manner as to enable the continuing voice of Revelation to penetrate the corporeal world even today.

One may suggest an additional aspect of the echo-less aspect of the communication at Sinai.

Daughter of a Voice!

The term used for an echo in Hebrew Bas Kol. This expression translated literally means the “daughter of a voice.” It implies that the voice or sound is not the original but a derivative.

This term is also used for a heavenly voice which is akin to, but not quite the same, as a prophetic measure. The communication from G-d that is described as a Bas Kol is one in which the original message comes to the recipient in an indirect fashion.

We can now better understand why the voice of G-d at Sinai had no Bas-kol. Not only does this mean that there was no echo because it was absorbed into every fiber of existence. It also depicts the directedness of G-d’s message to the world. It did not have to travel from on high and make many stops through various intermediaries to reach us down here on earth. It was G-d’s direct communication to us.

Objection

One can raise an objection to this assertion.

Tanya, the classic work of Chabad Chassidus describes (Chapter 5) the way Torah had to journey through hidden steps to descend into our world. This would seem to imply that Torah does indeed come to us in secondary and tertiary intermediate steps and not a direct line from the “mouth of the Almighty.”

Moreover, our Sages teach that only the first two commandments were heard directly from G-d, but the rest we did, in fact, get through Moses and other intermediaries.

Unchanged

Two interconnected answers can be given:

The first is that though the Torah goes through many stages it does not fundamentally change its essential Divine nature. As Tanya itself asserts that the Torah we have down here is G-d’s very wisdom and will, and G-d and His wisdom and will are one.”

Although all of existence goes through many contractions and so does Torah, what is the difference between the two ways in which G- d instills His energy?

A simple distinction is that there are two ways something can travel from point a to point b: either stopping at each juncture and experiencing and being affected by the culture of that area or just passing through.

For example, when one writes an idea, the idea passes through one’s hand and pen, but it is not tainted or diminished in the least or watered down. The hand and the pen are mere conduits for the idea not teachers. By contrast, a teacher who uses a parable to explain an abstruse subject takes a lofty concept and simplifies it.

When G-d’s energy entered our world in the process of Creation the G-dly energy undergoes major contractions and diminutions, referred to in Kabbalah as tzimtzum.

But the process through which Torah came into our physical world is comparable to the ideas that flow through the hand and pen. While it makes the idea accessible it has no effect on the idea. Torah down here is not any different than the Torah in the higher spheres; it is just made accessible.

The second answer is that, in fact, it was only the sounds of Sinai that penetrated all of existence. However implicit in those original sounds are all the subsequent teachings of Torah.

We really only had to hear the first two commandments because they comprise all the other commandments much like a seed contains within it all the future plants that come from it.

In effect, every Jew who stood at Mount Sinai heard the entire Torah as it was encapsulated in the first two commandments.

Connection to Moshiach

The above will help us in understanding what the prophet meant when he said that “a new Torah will emerge from Me.”

It certainly does not mean that the Torah will change one iota, G-d forbid. It does, however, mean that new dimensions of Torah understanding will be revealed by Moshiach But these new teachings were already implicit in the original communication at Sinai.

From the book Light from the Future: Shavuos by Rabbi Heschel Greenberg, published by the Jewish Discovery Center.