| We Were There
A D’var Torah for Shavuot
By Cantor Sandy Horowitz
וְלֹא אִתְּכֶם לְבַדְּכֶם אָנֹכִי כֹּרֵת אֶת־הַבְּרִית הַזֹּאת וְאֶת־הָאָלָה הַזֹּאת:
כִּי אֶת־אֲשֶׁר יֶשְׁנוֹ פֹּה עִמָּנוּ עֹמֵד הַיּוֹם לִפְנֵי יְהוָֹה אֱלֹהֵינוּ
וְאֵת אֲשֶׁר אֵינֶנּוּ פֹּה עִמָּנוּ הַיּוֹם:
But not only with you am I making this covenant and this oath.
But both with those standing here with us today before Adonai our God,
and [also] with those who are not here with us, this day.
Deuteronomy 29:13-14
We’re nearly there. We’ve been counting the days for weeks, through chaos, and fear, and the anxiety of not knowing what lies ahead.
Wait, are we talking about then, or now? Our biblical ancestors traipsing towards an unknown promised land? Or ourselves here in our own uncertain time, as we count the Omer? Ah, well that’s the point, isn’t it?
That’s been the point since we sat around our seder tables nearly seven weeks ago and retold the story of our ancestors’ liberation from Egypt. At Pesah the point is to tell and retell, like the five rabbis who stayed up all night until it was time for the morning Shema. Since Pesah we’ve more or less returned to our daily lives — except for the counting. The agricultural Omer count from a single sheaf of barley to a fully formed loaf of wheat bread. The reinvented counting from liberation at Pesah to revelation at Shavuot, inviting us to recall our biblical heritage as we count. Their story is our story.
And then the counting ends as we arrive at Shavuot, at Sinai, at the moment of hearing the Ten Commandments.
The two verses from Deuteronomy cited at the beginning of this reflection remind us that when the Divine Voice spoke to the Israelites at Sinai, those words were intended for all of us – past, present, and future. As written in Midrash Tanhuma, Nitzavim 3 with regard to Deuteronomy 29:14,
“But with those who are [standing (‘md)] here with us [today… and with those who are not here with us today].” R. Abahu said in the name of R. Samuel bar Nahmani, “Why does it say, ‘those who are [standing (‘md)] here […]; and those who are not here’ (without using the word, standing)? Because all the souls were there, [even] when [their] bodies had still not been created.
Each year in synagogue on Shavuot, the congregation is invited to stand for the reading of the Ten Commandments, just as our ancestors stood at Sinai. At Passover we remember and retell. On Shavuot we re-create and re-enact.
The system of cantillation – the way the Ten Commandments are chanted – supports our effort to re-create and re-enact the moment of revelation at Sinai.
Traditionally, there are two ways to chant the Ten Commandments. For purposes of private study, we use the cantillation format known as “ta’amei ha’tahton” or “lower accents”. With this format, the verses are similar in length to other verses in the Torah.
What this means with regard to this particular text, is that the two longest commandments, the second (“You shall have no other gods…”) and fourth (“Remember Shabbat…”) comprise three and four verses respectively. The shortest commandments, which are two or three words in length, are bundled together into a single verse.
However, when we chant these same verses publicly such as on Shavuot morning, we use a different cantillation format, known as “ta’amei ha’elion”, or “upper accents”. With ta’amei ha’elion, we chant one verse for each commandment, regardless of word length.
This public rendition therefore offers a more dramatic reading. With regard to ta’amei ha’elion Joshua R. Jacobson writes, “This structure lends the public performance a certain theatrical realism: the ba’al kriah recreates the sound of the theophany at Sinai.” (p365, Chanting the Hebrew Bible)
In an article from JewishEncyclopedia.com the word “theophany” is described as “Manifestation of a god to man; the sensible sign [of the senses] by which the presence of a divinity is revealed.” In this article the authors Kaufmann Kohler and M. Richtmann elaborate on the theophany of revelation at Sinai in this way: “The manifestation is accompanied by thunder and lightning; there is a fiery flame, reaching to the sky; the loud notes of a trumpet are heard; and the whole mountain smokes and quakes. Out of the midst of the flame and the cloud a voice reveals the Ten Commandments.”
When Jacobson refers to the theophany at Sinai as recreated by the ba’al kriah, he suggests that when we hear the Ten Commandments chanted using ta’amei ha’elion, the intention is to provide a sensual re-enactment of the moment of revelation, the moment when our biblical ancestors became one people, Am Yisrael.
Today, particularly in this fractured time within the Jewish community, it helps to be reminded that we were all there at Sinai. However, we choose to interpret the words we received, however we choose to live by those words, it began with this moment of revelation. This coming Shavuot, when the Ten Commandments will be recited in synagogues all over this country and around the world, perhaps we can take a moment and imagine the thunder and lightning, the flame and the trumpet that preceded the Divine Words; and may we be reminded of our single point of origin as a people. |
