בס''ד
Behar-Behukotai
23 Iyyar, 5773
May 3rd, 2013
38th Day of the Omer
A person experiences something extraordinary: fights in the war, saw the
peace treaty signed, heard Hendrix play that electric National Anthem. When
she returns to the rest of us, we have one inevitable question: what was it
like to be there?
Shavuot is around the corner. Its meaning is straightforward – on Shavuot,
God gave us the Torah.
Our Rabbis were gripped with the same question that seizes us: what was it
like? What was it like to hear God’s voice? How did the sky and the mountain
look? How did it happen? Tell us what it was like.
And what some of them said was, “when we heard God’s voice speak the first
word of the first commandment, God’s voice was too much to bear, and we died.”
Weren’t expecting that one, were you?
The midrash* teaches that God spoke the “I” of “I am the Lord your God,”
and the souls of Bnei Yisrael left their bodies. The Torah, embodied, comes
back to God, and says, “Master of the World, I exist, I live! You exist, You
live! Yet you have sent me to the dead!!!”
And the Blessed, Holy One does two things: revives all the Israelites, and
– here’s the kicker – sweetens God’s own voice so that each individual can
stand it.
For those of you midrash nuts out there (legions, I’m sure), this is why
the verse in Psalm 29 (before Lekha Dodi on Shabbat) says, “kol HaShem bakoah”
– “God spoke in strength,” – according to the listeners’ strength – and not
with God’s strength (koho). God spoke to every individual
differently, such that everyone had the strength to hear the Divine. God
sweetens the Truth.
As a person who, by temperament, is full of fire, I need this lesson. Some
of you may feel the same. Every person holds a small piece of the Divine truth.
I know because I see those truths splashed all over Facebook. But the trick is
to speak the sweet truth to others. Through my work with alcoholics, I’ve learned this
gem: before you speak, ask yourself – is it true? Is it necessary? Is it kind?
Then open your mouth.
The point is not to avoid difficult truths; Torah speaks both to who we are
and to who we could be. The point is that spoken truth should point towards
sweetness and healing, not humiliation and destruction. Torah’s sweet truth
gives people back their lives.
“God’s Torah is pure; it revives the soul.”
Psalm 19
*Shir haShirim Rabbah 6:3
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