Preparing for Shavuot this Friday
MSD is Mount Sinai Difficulty. It’s one of the most common difficulties humans have with Judaism. Some events, even if recorded by a thousand cameras and broadcast worldwide, are just too extraordinary to accept. It took years for the world to accept that the Wright Brothers were flying in the air, even after trainloads of people had witnessed it. Similarly, although the evidence for the Mount Sinai Event is difficult to dispute, people remain skeptical nonetheless.
The Mount Sinai Event is the central event of Jewish history, theology and consciousness. It is the shared memory of an entire people who claim to have heard the Creator of the Universe speaking to them en masse. It’s far too outrageous to be a myth - how could you possibly convince an entire nation of such an event if it never happened? People would say, “Why did my father never tell me any of this?” The very fact that no other people ever came up with anything like it screams out its veracity. So why is it so difficult to accept?
Mount Sinai Difficulty stems principally from the way it is conventionally presented: A Big Booming Voice intimidates from the heavens, declaring ten do’s and don’ts that you had better follow or else. It makes G-d look like a complete outsider, spamming the universe by breaking the rules. It reinforces a very dualistic conception of theology: There is G-d and there is a world, and the only way G-d can relate to the world is by being the Big Bully.
The Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneersohn, presents the Mount Sinai Event in fascinatingly different terms. Especially fascinating because nothing he’s saying is really new - it’s just what the classical sources were saying all along.
Take, for example, the Zohar: “There was no place from whence He did not speak…”, or the Talmud: “They looked to the east and saw the voice, to the west, … from each direction they saw the voice speaking: ‘Anochi’-‘ I am the Eternal, your G-d’.” Not a Big Booming Voice from heaven, but the voice of each thing in heaven and earth.
...the world was seen for what it really is: Nothing more than G-d communicating with human consciousness
Now imagine being there at the foot of Mt. Sinai, amidst the entire multimedia explosion, looking about and seeing how each rock and shrub is screaming, “Anochi!”. Every limb of every person about you, every limb of your own, all screaming the same thing. Even every memory of the past, as well as visions of the future, all screaming, “Anochi!”.
Basically, you’re receiving a new vision of the same old world: That which a moment ago appeared to be just a world, now reveals that it is no more than G-d speaking to you.
Why is it so important for everyone - even babies - to attend synagogue on the first day of Shavuot?
If you can, you should aim to attend all the services on Shavuot. But, the mandatory attendance of the first day is so you can hear the Ten Commandments during the holiday Torah reading.
And why should everyone and his fifteenth cousin hear the Ten Commandments?
When we read the “Ten Biggies”, it’s not about something that happened in ancient history. It’s about what’s happening in the here and now.
When we hear the cantor read the Ten Commandments in our suburbia synagogue, G-d considers it as though we were hearing them read to us at Mt. Sinai.
- askmoses.com
The Mount Sinai Event is the central event of Jewish history, theology and consciousness. It is the shared memory of an entire people who claim to have heard the Creator of the Universe speaking to them en masse. It’s far too outrageous to be a myth - how could you possibly convince an entire nation of such an event if it never happened? People would say, “Why did my father never tell me any of this?” The very fact that no other people ever came up with anything like it screams out its veracity. So why is it so difficult to accept?
Mount Sinai Difficulty stems principally from the way it is conventionally presented: A Big Booming Voice intimidates from the heavens, declaring ten do’s and don’ts that you had better follow or else. It makes G-d look like a complete outsider, spamming the universe by breaking the rules. It reinforces a very dualistic conception of theology: There is G-d and there is a world, and the only way G-d can relate to the world is by being the Big Bully.
The Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneersohn, presents the Mount Sinai Event in fascinatingly different terms. Especially fascinating because nothing he’s saying is really new - it’s just what the classical sources were saying all along.
Take, for example, the Zohar: “There was no place from whence He did not speak…”, or the Talmud: “They looked to the east and saw the voice, to the west, … from each direction they saw the voice speaking: ‘Anochi’-‘ I am the Eternal, your G-d’.” Not a Big Booming Voice from heaven, but the voice of each thing in heaven and earth.
...the world was seen for what it really is: Nothing more than G-d communicating with human consciousness
Now imagine being there at the foot of Mt. Sinai, amidst the entire multimedia explosion, looking about and seeing how each rock and shrub is screaming, “Anochi!”. Every limb of every person about you, every limb of your own, all screaming the same thing. Even every memory of the past, as well as visions of the future, all screaming, “Anochi!”.
Basically, you’re receiving a new vision of the same old world: That which a moment ago appeared to be just a world, now reveals that it is no more than G-d speaking to you.
Why is it so important for everyone - even babies - to attend synagogue on the first day of Shavuot?
If you can, you should aim to attend all the services on Shavuot. But, the mandatory attendance of the first day is so you can hear the Ten Commandments during the holiday Torah reading.
And why should everyone and his fifteenth cousin hear the Ten Commandments?
When we read the “Ten Biggies”, it’s not about something that happened in ancient history. It’s about what’s happening in the here and now.
When we hear the cantor read the Ten Commandments in our suburbia synagogue, G-d considers it as though we were hearing them read to us at Mt. Sinai.
- askmoses.com