We are told that the words of the Torah are the words God dictated to and recorded by Moshe; that God descended on Mount Sinai in full view of a multitude of people who heard the first part of the Ten Commandments spoken to them by God Himself; that the people could not bear to hear the voice of God Himself and asked Moses to intercede for they were afraid that they would die.
Although those of us living today were not physically present to witness this historic phenomenon, we are asked to accept this occurrence as fact. What exactly happened at Sinai and how God was able to “speak” to mankind is something we will never quite understand.
If the events at Sinai were all we had to hold on to, it might not be enough to motivate us to be loyal to His Torah. And if the events at Sinai were the most significant occurrence in our Jewish lives, why does the Torah not mention Shavuot as the day we celebrate the giving of the law at Sinai? And if the revelation on Mount Sinai was such conclusive evidence of God’s existence and the divine origin of His Law, how was it that the people of Israel succumbed to worshiping the golden calf a few weeks later?
In fact, in this world there can be no face-to-face meeting between man and God. There can be no experience so unequivocal and obvious as to conclusively prove the existence of God or the divine origin of His Torah.
Even Moshe, the transmitter of God’s word, was not able to see God’s face. God would appear to Moshe wrapped in a cloud, defying the human desire to verify His existence beyond doubt.
If it were all that clear, there would be no challenge and no purpose to our spiritual lives. We would all be angels, constitutionally unable to do anything other than God’s will. But we are higher than angels because we always have the choice to do what suits us, even if it angers God.
God and the divine origin of His Torah are facts even though we do not fully comprehend them. One cannot analyze the soul through a microscope, scan God through a telescope, or view God speaking to man by using the spade of the archeologist. To deduce from this that God and the soul do not exist would be like the fisherman who claims water does not exist because his net did not bring it up. Ultimately, though, we still have the choice to justify our actions by taking advantage of God’s invisibility and by denying His existence.
If this is so, what do we celebrate on Shavuot?
We celebrate the “giving” of the Torah, not that the Torah was given (past tense). The Torah is there for the taking every day. While we may not be able to absorb the whole Torah directly from the mouth of God in one ceremony, we can receive it piecemeal, word by word. Just as each drop of a hospital infusion can revive the body, so too can our souls be revived by each word of the Torah we absorb. Call it “Trickle Down Revelation.” And the body too is not left out. Each of our limbs has its own choreography in the service of God through the practice of the mitzvot.
My teacher Rabbi Dovid Feinstein notes in his commentary to Bamidbar that if the revelation at Sinai and God’s omnipresence in the pillar of fire by night and the pillar of cloud by day would have created a sufficient impression on the people, there would have been no need for them to build the Sanctuary, the Mishkan, in the desert. But merely seeing God is not enough. The only way to internalize His existence is through doing His mitzvot and learning His Torah. And so, even though the people could see God in the desert, in order to “get” Him they needed to busy themselves with the construction of the Sanctuary and the bringing of offerings.
The words na’aseh venishmah – we will first perform the Torah and then understand why – are the passwords not only of our ancestors at Sinai but also for our spiritual lives. For it is a catch-22 situation to insist on proving the existence of God and the divine origin of His Torah as a precondition to savoring His words and performing His mitzvot. The meeting between man and God is not a meeting of the minds. It is a meeting of the souls. We barely understand the workings of our own minds, let alone our souls.
In the Torah we are given an instruction manual of how to communicate with God and how to experience our own personal Revelation. According to my father, Dayan Grunfeld, the only way to perceive God is through the observance of the mitzvot, which he called power stations that generate holiness. That is what we celebrate on Shavuot and what we celebrate each day.
According to Rabbi Dovid Feinstein, the antidote for the ever-present cloud that obstructs our view of God is the study of Torah. Through it, God shines His face on us. The Torah is the light that permeates the cloud.
And to those skeptics among us who need to feel the steps of logic beneath their feet as they ascend Jacob’s ladder: Let’s just admit the possibility that God exists and that the Torah is His Book. Then the events around us will drive the possibility to a high probability.
It is entirely reasonable to assume that the Being that created the world deemed it necessary to inform its inhabitants how to live in it. The laws of the Torah stand out in their ethical definition from the laws of other religions of the time.
“Between Judaism and the coarsely polytheistic religions of Babylon and the old Egyptian faith, there lies an impassable gulf. I can only find one explanation, unfashionable and antiquated though it be,” wrote the religious historian Werner Keller. “It marks the dividing line between Revelation and unrevealed religion.”
The Torah is replete with laws that are so counterintuitive to the Jewish – and indeed the human – psyche, that no human being would have had any interest in inventing them. Take for example the laws of Shabbat, Shemittah, and Yovel. Who in their right minds would volunteer to risk their livelihood by refusing to work on Shabbat, by waiving all debts at Shemittah, and by returning all real estate at Yovel? In today’s cutthroat world, one has to be either mad or divinely ordered not to pick up the telephone on Shabbat for an important business call.
And, of course, many of the Bible’s prophecies have already been fulfilled. The destruction of Judea by the Romans and the dispersion of the Jewish people throughout the Diaspora are foretold in horrifying detail in Deuteronomy. Archeological discoveries are continuing to establish the astonishing accuracy of many details of the Bible.