In this Torah portion is the description of the giving of the ten commandments at Sinai, the quintessential “kernel” of all the commandments in the Torah. The idea of the ten commandments representing all the commandments can be seen in a beautiful mathematical gem. There are 613 commandments in the Torah, as well as seven universal commandments known as the seven commandments of the children of Noah. Together they equal 620, the exact number of letters in the ten commandments!
The word keter, crown, also equals 620. In many synagogues around the world the curtain hanging before the ark where the Torah is kept is decorated with a crown, as are many mantels around the Torah scroll itself. Additionally, many congregations put a silver crown on the Torah when it is taken out of the ark. Keter in Kabbalah represents the unconscious and super conscious source of intellect. This is also considered the source of music and song in the soul.
Significantly, the Torah itself is called song. After God revealed through Moses the blessing and the curse and the prophesies concerning the future of the Jewish people, God taught him the song HaAzinu, whose teachings are to be impressed upon all the people: “And now write this song for yourselves and teach it to the children of Israel…” (Deuteronomy 31:19). The oral Torah explains that this verse is commanding not only the song of HaAzinu to be written down, but that each person is commanded to write the entire Torah. From this we learn that all the Torah is considered song!
When we sing we come into contact with a force much greater than ourselves. When we listen to music it resonates so well within us, because similar to prayer being something more than something we do, rather something we are, so too music is not something we merely enjoy, but on a deep level is the essence of Divine creation and the universe we live in and who we actually are. Music opens us up to the myriad of physical and spiritual forces all around us, allowing us to unify and identify with all creation and the Infinite Source of all.
The giving of the ten commandments at Mount Sinai was accompanied by a number of natural and metaphysical phenomenon: “And it came to pass on the third day in the morning, that there were thunder and lightening and a thick cloud upon the mountain, and the sound of a shofar exceedingly loud…” (Exodus 19:16). Later it states: “And all the people saw the sounds of the thunder and the lightening and the sound of the shofar and the mountain smoking…” (Exodus 20:15). Rashi comments that all the people were able to see that which is heard, something which cannot ordinarily happen. This phenomenon is called synesthesia, a state where the senses are able to cross each other and one of the senses can comprehend another sense in a new way. The ability of all the people to see the sounds of the shofar, which were not man produced, represents a heightened state of consciousness, where the harmony of the spheres, the music of creation is not only heard but seen.
The word for “smoking” [mountain] in Hebrew ??? is comprised of three letters, which form an acronym for the various dimensions of reality, as taught by the Sefer Yetzirah. The letter ayin ? represents olam, world or space; the letter shin ?represents shana, year or time; the letter nun ?represents nefesh, soul, which is understood to be a moral and ethical dimension as real as the other physical dimensions. Albert Einstein was able to reveal just one hundred years ago that time is also thought of as a dimension and that space and time form one unified continuum. Science has yet to grasp soul as a “dimension.”
It is explained in Kabbalah that as God uttered the ten commandments, the quintessential essence of Torah morals and ethics, all the dimensions of physical and spiritual reality were perceived by the people as one and unified. In fact, Rashi quoting the Mechilta tells us that at first God said all the ten commandments simultaneously, and only after repeated them word by word (Rashi on Exodus 20:1).
The sentence introducing the ten commandments: “And God spoke all these things saying” consists of twenty-eight letters and seven words, the exact number of letters and words in the first sentence of the Torah, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” We are taught that the giving of the Torah represents the fulfillment of the purpose of the creation and that in fact all of creation was “on condition” that the Jewish people would accept the Torah at Mt. Sinai (Rashi on Genesis 1:31).
The ten utterances of creation are thus transformed and revealed in a new form as the ten commandments. Just as God, as it were, “sang” the world into existence, so too were the ten commandments revealed, as it were, through Divine song. That is the symbolism of the sound of the shofar growing exceedingly louder during the experience of receiving the Torah, which as we have learned is itself called song. It is as if the shofar acted as the background music for the ten commandments.
The thread connecting the Creator and the Torah, His Divine creative instrument, with all of creation, is in essence music. God writes the musical score, the Torah, and gives it to man in order to perceive the Divine symphony all around us. It is ultimately up to us though whether we learn the notes, hear the music, and become partners with God in enriching the harmony, or go about our business deaf to the beautiful tapestry of sound we call the universe.
