The Ten Commandments - Part 1

Parshat Yitro

 

In this week's parsha, the greatest moment in the history of the world transpires: the Revelation of G-d at Mount Sinai. Despite the magnitude of the event, the nature and content of the Revelation remain somewhat obscure: From G-d's perspective, what was revealed. On the receiving side, what was man's response to this epic event?

The Torah introduces the Aseret HaDibrot-the Ten Commandments-with the following declaration:

And the Lord spoke all of these things, saying. . .(20:1)

Rashi, citing the Mechilta, explains:

"This teaches that the Holy One, Blessed be He, said the entire decalogue in one saying (moment), that which a person can not possibly articulate. If this is the case, why does it subsequently say "I am the G-d who took you out..., You shall have no other..."? (G-d) returned and explained each commandment independently" (Rashi 20:1)

According to Rashi the entire Ten Commandments were revealed simultaneously, in a manner "which a person can not possibly articulate," or, to use the language of the Midrash:

"That which a mouth could not say, nor could ears hear, is what was revealed."

According to Rashi and the Mechilta this verse is not merely an introduction to the Revelation, it describes the essence of the Revelation itself! This communication by G-d, independent of its content, is qualitatively different from any other.

This being the case, we must examine the message itself before attempting to understand its content. An obvious question emerges: What is the purpose of a Revelation which cannot be cognitively understand? If indeed G-d spoke all Ten Commandments at once, no one could possibly have understood a word. Why should G-d speak in a manner which man can not hear? What did the people hear, or experience, when G-d spoke to them in this manner?

Perhaps the people did not hear at all! The verse immediately following the Ten Commandments states:

And the entire nation saw the voices and the thunder, and the sound of the shofar, and the mountain was consumed with smoke. The people saw and were frightened; therefore they stood at a distance. They said to Moshe "You speak to us and we will hear, but the Lord shall not speak to us lest we die" (20:15-16)

Here the Torah does not say that the people heard the Word of G-d. Quite the opposite: The people saw the sounds, and this frightened them. They ask Moshe to speak, in order that they might hear. Moshe counters, and tells the people:

Do not be frightened. The Lord desires to uplift you, that the fear (awe) of G-d will be upon you, that you will be unable to sin. The people stood from afar, and Moshe approached the mist from where the Lord (communicated)" (20:17,18)

That the people saw, rather than heard the sounds, is further confirmed by the following verse:

G-d said to Moshe; 'Thus tell the people: "You have seen that from heaven I have spoken with you" (20:18)

Or in the words of Rashi:

"They saw the sounds; they saw that which is usually heard, that which was impossible to see under different circumstances" (Rashi 20:15)

Again the term "seen" is used instead of "heard", and the image we have is one in which G-d spoke in a miraculous way, in which the people could see, but could not hear. When G-d invited them to listen, they were so awestruck that they recoiled.

Thus far, our understanding is that G-d spoke in a manner which was unmistakable. The Revelation was completely supernatural. No one could doubt that the sounds they saw emanated from G-d. However, the people still did not know what G-d had said, because they could not hear, only see. Therefore, G-d began to repeat the Commandments in a manner that the people could hear. It was at that point the people failed to seize the moment and missed their historic opportunity. Instead of continuing their rendezvous with G-d they requested an intermediary:

The people saw and were frightened; therefore, they stood at a distance. They said to Moshe "You speak to us and we will hear, but the Lord shall not speak to us lest we die" (20:15-16)

Our sages teach that the first two Commandments were repeated by G-d prior to the people making the plea to Moshe:

'I am' and 'Thou shalt have no [other Gods]' we heard from the mouth of the Mighty [Divine] (Rashi 19:19 based on Makot 24a).

To make matters even more complicated, we are taught, in next week's parsha:

G-d said to Moshe, 'Ascend to me to the mountain, and be there, and I will give you the Tablets of Stone, the Torah, and the commandment, which I have written to instruct thereof' (24:12)

This verse seems to indicate that the Torah, which Moshe received at Sinai, was more than simply Ten Commandments. Rashi explains:

"All 613 mitzvot are subsumed in the Ten Commandments (Rashi 24:12)

This teaching complicates matters even more, for if all of our mitzvot are embedded in the Aseret HaDibrot, the nature of their Revelation is truly perplexing: Did G-d communicate all 613 Commandments at Sinai, despite the fact that the people could not hear even one word? That the communication at Sinai consisted of, or was to have consisted of all 613 Mitzvot, is a theme which is well-developed and represented in Midrashic, Kabbalistic, and Chassidic thought. If the Torah which Moshe received at Sinai contained all 613 commandments and this is what we mean by "Torah from Sinai", then perhaps this may also explain the nature of the Revelation per se. For if all 613 commandments are included in the Aseret HaDibrot, then when G-d said all 10 simultaneously, He actually communicated all 613 commandments at one time! If this is the case, we further understand why the people were unable to hear.

Chaz"al explain that Moshe received the totality of Torah at Sinai-everything from the 10 Dibrot through the question raised by the "precocious student, commenting in front of his master" millennia in the future.

R. Levi b. Hama says further in the name of R. Simeon b. Lakish: What is the meaning of the verse: And I will give thee the Tablets of Stone, and the law and the commandment, which I have written that thou mayest teach them'? 'Tablets of stone': these are the Ten Commandments; 'the law': this is the Pentateuch; 'the commandment': this is the Mishnah; 'which I have written': these are the Prophets and the Hagiographa; 'that thou mayest teach them': this is the Gemara. It teaches [us] that all these things were given to Moses on Sinai. (Brachot 5a)

This was certainly more information than the people could possibly have assimilated at one time, in terms of quantity and substance.

In that case, we return to our previous question: What was the purpose of a Revelation of Torah that the people could not have heard? Let us consider the fundamental difference between seeing and hearing: A person can see an incredible amount of material at once, but may only hear and comprehend one sound at a time. The nature of the Revelation at Sinai should be seen in this context: The primary significance of the Revelation was the unmistakable fact that the ineffable, transcendent G-d was, in fact, communicating with man. In order to accomplish this, the nature of the communication had to be fundamentally different from any other ever known. The reversal of the senses, or the suspension of the boundaries between vision and hearing which make up our perceptions, established this as a completely supernatural experience.

The second aspect of the Revelation was the presentation of the entire Torah as one organic whole. This required that vision be employed instead of normal hearing: Only if the people saw what would otherwise have been heard could they take in the entire Torah in the way G-d wanted it presented.

The third aspect was that G-d wanted the people to hear all the details. After the entire Torah was presented at one time, G-d began to enumerate the Commandments one by one.

The first objective was clearly accomplished, and the Revelation at Sinai was so powerful an experience that it has served as the basis of belief for millennia. The second objective was accomplished as well, and the people received a complete, organic vision. However, without the details that constituted the next step, this second level could not have been appreciated. The difference between seeing the beauty of Judaism, versus listening to the details, is ultimately the difference between an appreciation of Judaism versus observance.

Perhaps we can make a leap, and say that, had the Jews been willing to listen to the details they would never have been able to worship a "Golden Calf". Once the details break down, the whole system becomes deficient. The people flinched, as it were, and were not prepared to accept the Torah that G-d wanted to give at Sinai. This is precisely what Moshe said to the people:

Do not be frightened. The Lord desires to uplift you, that the fear (awe) of G-d will be upon you, that you will be unable to sin. (20:17)

The inability of man to hear and directly receive the word of G-d at Sinai leads to the sin of the Golden Calf. The people allowed their relationship to based on the general, amorphous "big picture" which they viewed, while what they actually needed was to hear and internalize the details. This big picture is a wonderful mosaic, which consists of 613 interlocking pieces. It was essential for the people to see the big picture in order to be focused on the ultimate objective of Torah. The people saw this wonderful image, but failed to appreciate that they needed to learn for themselves how to bring the Torah down to earth. In order to build their own edifice, to forge their own way to G-d, they required tools--the details which G-d wished to impress upon them. But alas, the people preferred the beautiful, aesthetic view over the details needed to perfect the world.

G-d provided a second opportunity to bring all the details to earth:

G-d said to Moshe, 'Ascend to me to the mountain, and be there, and I will give you the Tablets of Stone, the Torah, and the commandment, which I have written to instruct thereof" (24:12)

Again, G-d offered the people all the details of Torah, wrought by G-d's own hand. When G-d spoke to them at Sinai, the information was “compacted” in a supernatural manner. Here, too, when G-d writes, the transmission of information is supernatural. When Moshe descends, holding the Tablets of Stone, which were written by the hand of G-d and contained all 613 commandments, he sees the Jews worshipping the Golden Calf and throws the Tablets to the ground. The Yalkut Shim'oni then says that the letters then returned to heaven:

Moshe looked at the Tablets and he saw the letters flying up in the air (toward heaven). The stones then became heavy and fell from his hands (Yalkut Shimoni Ki Tisa remez 393)

The Beit Halevi explains (Drasha 18) that the letters which returned to heaven were the 613 mitzvot and the Oral Tradition. There were, then, two occasions on which G-d desired to give man far more than 10 Dibrot, but man was simply not ready to accept that gift from G-d. Our path to the Torah becomes a circuitous route, a route filled with sin and the resultant distance from G-d, a route not at all resembling the one G-d originally planned for us.

G-d desires that man accept the Torah, both its numerous details and the magnificent mosaic, which results from embracing those details bit by bit. For when man does succeed in accepting the Torah, he becomes a partner with G-d, and a beautiful perfected world results.