MISHPATIM: Hearing Reality

Reality in Surround Sound


It is unfortunate, but unavoidable: the superficial encounter with words of Torah will not shake us -- it will barely move us -- hardly touch us.  It will surely look nothing like the account in last week's parsha (Yitro) of the giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai:    

"...there was thunder and lightning and a cloud was heavy on the mountain, and the voice of the shofar was extremely loud, and the whole nation trembled...and all of Mount Sinai was [billowing with] smoke because Hashem had descended upon it with the fire..." (Shemot 19:16-18)

This is our paradigm for what a "Torah experience" can look like.  For most of us, it's a bit hard to relate to.  Words of Torah can seem flat and lifeless.  Where are we going wrong if the Torah's own image for what learning Torah ought to be does not resonate with our personal experience?

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The Torah describes what it was like to hear Hashem speak...

...וְכָל-הָעָם רֹאִים אֶת-הַקּוֹלֹת

And the entire nation saw the voices... (20:15).

They did not "hear" the voices -- 2.5 million Jews experienced seeing the sound of G!d speaking His Torah to them.


If this is more than a matter of special effects, what is it?


The answer comes in this week's parsha.


Not Simple Obedience


Among the most famous and misunderstood phrases in the Torah is the Jewish response: 

כֹּל אֲשֶׁר-דִּבֶּר ה' נַעֲשֶׂה וְנִשְׁמָע

Everything that Hashem says We will Do and We will Hear (24:7).

The simple, bare-bones meaning of this is "we will obey... and ask questions later."  


As much as this may be true, it's not sufficient.  It sucks the life-force out these holy words.  It makes us sound like a bunch of motorized, unthinking robots, when really the power of this statement is how deeply human it is...


No matter how much people can tell you about love, until you experience it, it is as if until then, you had never heard of it.  When, after years of maturing, you experience a deeper love, you realize that "no, this is the first time I've ever felt love" -- and this is the way life goes.  


A sensitive person understands that our knowledge is rooted and given contour by our experience.  The blind from birth can have no concept of the color green.


The pleasure of having a child.  There are no words that can describe it to a person who does not yet have one, certainly not to a person who does not want to have one.  If you ask a couple, "how much can I pay you to have a child?," they may name some exorbitant amount after crunching numbers for the child's education, insurance, baby formula etc. etc.  Once that couple has had a child, ask them how much they would have to receive to sell that same child...  There is no figure in the world they would agree to.


This is the concept of נַעֲשֶׂה וְנִשְׁמע We will Do and We will Hear.  


Before we said, "נַעֲשֶׂה וְנִשְׁמע," the Almighty spoke to us.  


When we speak, it can often be "hot air," and people may ask us to "put our money where our mouth is" because "actions speak louder than words."  Meaning, human speech does not necessitate action -- it doesn't even have to be true!  But Hashem's speech IS reality.  ברוך שאמר והיה עולם "Blessed is the One Who spoke and brought the world into Being..."  What He speaks is by definition Truth itself.  What the Jewish people witnessed at Mount Sinai was G!d's speech -- words with Divine weight behind them -- "And the entire nation saw the voices..."  Hashem literally allowed us to see His speech so we would understand just how real it is.      


The Alter miSlobadka, in the Ohr haTzafun, explains that this sensory experience was not just for the sake of special effects, but functioned as the key to unlock the epiphany within us of נַעֲשֶׂה וְנִשְׁמָע.  


The mitzvot are not just hollow directives -- "rituals" that are connected to some prize in the distant future.  They are not carnival games that you get rewarded with tickets, and exchange them at the end for over-sized stuffed animals.  Every mitzvah is a reality -- a world we have yet to experience.  Only through our commitment -- only through our sustained experience, weaving the mitzvah into our lives and our lives into the mitzvah (נַעֲשֶׂה), can we possibly come to "hear" (נִשְׁמָע).  


Look at any mitzvah that you keep -- let's say: not using your phone on Shabbat.  You have probably found that people who know you, who themselves do not keep that particular mitzvah, cannot relate to the immense pleasure of not having to think about the phone for an entire Shabbat.  They may say, "it must be stressful to not be able to use your phone...how do you do it?"  Little do they know that Shabbat is your salvation from the non-stop ringing/buzzing/beeping/chiming of your Blackberry.  


Similarly, if you light Shabbat candles every week -- a woman who does not light will not be able to grasp how lighting two candles on a Friday evening does anything for you.  "What can be possibly be so rewarding about lighting candles?"


Rav Yehudah haLevi in the Kuzari writes that the wealthiest kings on the planet do not know the royal pleasure of the simplest Jew.  Even on holiday in his summer chateau, with his mind racing to the things he "needs to do," "can do" and "feels like doing," he will never find the real inner quiet and enjoyment of the present that is Shabbat (III:5:10).    


Hashem gave us 613 worlds of pleasure to partake from.  He asks for our commitment because without it, we will never come to taste that pleasure that is at first, far removed from our imagination.  The Torah we hear that falls flat is very often because we have not yet developed the tastebuds to savor it.

"שכר מצוה מצוה"          

 "...the reward for a mitzvah is the mitzvah itself..." 

(Pirkei Avot 4:2 according to the Arizal as taught by Rav Moshe Shapira shlit"a)