Put Your Mouth Before Your Ears!
Miracles are usually defined as changes of the natural order as the splitting of the Red Sea. At Sinai, the Jewish people performed their own miracle. They fused a transcendent G-d into their rational mind. This miraculous synthesis will be permanent in the Messianic Age
Putting the Cart before the Horse
When the Torah was offered to the Jewish people at Mount Sinai, they responded, Na’aseh v’nishma, We will do and we will hear and understand.” Our Talmudic sages interpret this to mean that the Jews were willing to accept the Torah before they even heard what was in it and what it was all about.
The Talmud describes this unusual response to G-d on the part of the Jewish nation as: “They put their mouths before their ears,” i.e., they declared their unqualified acceptance of the Torah and pledged their unconditional commitment to it even before they were informed of the content of the Torah or understood the meaning of its commandments.
As a reward for their unconditional acceptance of the Torah, they were rewarded with two crowns, “one for `we will do,’ and one for ‘we will hear.’”
Why Two Crowns?
Upon close reflection, one can raise the question as to why they received two crowns. Had they not prefaced “we will do” before “we will hear” they would have received no reward. Why then did they receive two crowns for saying we will do’ before we will hear’?
The answer lies in the difference between the Jewish people’s desire to understand the Torah after they had accepted it unconditionally, as opposed to the independent desire to understand the Torah that is not preceded by unconditional acceptance of it.
Normally, when we seek to learn something, it is based on our own desire and interest. Understanding leads to appreciation and pleasure. In effect, the desire to understand and appreciate the Torah possesses no inherently special virtue. It is no more and no less than a natural sense of intellectual curiosity, which can be healthy and good if it is used for good purposes. But, intellectual curiosity, in and of itself—while more sophisticated—is no more virtuous than a desire for a nice home, or any other material acquisition.
When the Jewish people said `we will hear and understand’ after first accepting the Torah unconditionally, their desire to understand was of a qualitatively different nature than standard intellectual curiosity. It was as bold and unique as their willingness to embrace the Torah without first hearing what it was all about.
Not only was their acceptance of the Torah based on their desire to subordinate themselves to G-d, but also their desire to learn and understand the Torah was rooted in the conviction that this too was G-d’s will. For not only does G-d want us to perform the Mitzvos because G-d said so, G-d also wants us to understand the Mitzvos—to the extent that we are capable of doing so.
Their desire to understand Torah, thus, was not only born out of intellectual curiosity, but it was grounded primarily in their realization that G-d wants us to comprehend His teachings as well as committing ourselves to their fulfillment.
If they were to say, “We are satisfied with our observance of the Mitzvos, why do we have to tax our minds to comprehend them,” it would have constituted only a partial acceptance of G- d’s will. One’s mind, the most important human faculty, would have remained detached from G- d’s will.
We can now understand why G-d gave them two crowns, because not only were they prepared to surrender their will and actions to G-d, they were also willing to dedicate their minds to G-d. And the willingness to dedicate their minds to G-d was because they sensed that this too was G-d’s will Delayed Response This will also shed light on why the declaration of Na’aseh v’nishma-`We will do and we will hear and understand’ is not mentioned in last week’s Torah portion where the entire narrative of the giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai is featured. Instead, this declaration is mentioned in this week’s Torah portion, Mishpatim, which focuses on those commandments that we can understand.
However, the inclusion of their declaration in this parsha that focuses on the rational aspects of Torah, underscores the extent of their dedication. Not only did they subordinate their will and actions to G-d, but also their minds. After accepting all of the commandments without first understanding them, they then proceeded to a second level: of attempting to get their mindsets conform to the mindset of G-d; to make their human intellect grasp the Divine intellect, because this too is G-d’s will.
Harbinger of the Messianic Age
When the topic of what will life be like in the Messianic Age is broached, invariably images of spiritual life come to mind. We will all become more spiritual, more G-dly like angels. And despite the fact that we’ve never seen an angel before, our image of them and of our future is one that defies rational thought.
In truth, one of the most salient features of the Messianic Age will be the reverse. As Maimonides concludes his classic work Mishneh Torah with the description of the Messianic Age as a time when we will be “great sages and know the hidden knowledge, grasp the Divine mind according to the extent that is humanly possible, as it says, ‘And the world will be filled with the knowledge of G-d as the waters cover the sea.”
Even the most esoteric and elusive Divine knowledge will become accessible to our human minds. What began at Sinai—the declaration of the Jewish people that they want do accept G-d’s will and that they want to fathom G-d’s will as well—will come to fruition during the Messianic Age. That time will be characterized as an age in which G-d’s laws will be accepted and His existence, His Torah and Mitzvos—and even the way that He conducts the world—will become intelligible to our finite human minds.
To take an infinite G-d Who created logic and nature and have Him enter our finite consciousness is nothing short of a miracle of unprecedented proportions. There is nothing more impossible than something infinite being apprehended and grasped by something finite.
For this to happen, G-d must reveal His very Essence, which transcends even the boundaries of infinity! G-d is not bound by the “limits” of infinity which does not allow it to be contained within a finite mind. In the Messianic Age G-d’s Essence—which transcends both infinity and finitude—will enable our finite human minds to absorb and digest infinite G-dly knowledge.
From the book Light from the Future: Parshas Mishpatim by Rabbi Heschel Greenberg, published by the Jewish Discovery Center.
