Hearing The Voice
You have affirmed this day that the LORD is your God, that you will walk in His ways, that you will observe His laws and commandments and rules, and that you will obey Him.
Isn’t this odd? If we walk in G-d’s ways and guard his chukim and mitzvos and mishpatim, then why does the Torah tell us further, that we should lishmo’a b’kolo, which is translated in the above as “obey him”?
Isn’t that phrase redundant?
Perhaps it is not – if we start by acknowledging that all translations are flawed, because they never include essential context.
lishmo’a b’kolo does not – really – mean “obey him.” So what does it mean?
Shomea in the Torah is much more about internalizing or considering, than it is about obedience, isn’t it? Na’aseh is about doing what we are told, as in na’aseh v’nishma: “we will do, and we will listen/seek to understand.” “Do and Obey” would be redundant.
What might explain it?
The first time phrase lishmo’a b’kolo is mentioned is:
They [Adam and Chava] heard the sound of the LORD God moving about in the garden
The first shomea kol is not a commandment at all! It instead describes the awareness of G-d’s presence – the knowledge that G-d is near and seeks to communicate with us!
So does this change the meaning entirely, and add a different dimension to our relationship with G-d? Isn’t it telling us that in addition to commandments of all kinds, G-d is actually asking for something much greater and yet much more basic: that we should be sensitive to G-d’s presence in our lives and in the world around us, just as Adam and Chava, after eating the fruit, were sensitive to G-d’s presence?
In which case, the Torah is telling us to be more like Adam and Chava were, in a world before there were any formal commandments from G-d to mankind at all. Specifically, that we are supposed to sense G-d’s presence. That we, like Adam and Chava after eating the fruit, are supposed to be cognizant of our failures, and embarrassed by them, knowing that G-d will call us to account for all that we do. That we do not get to merely go through life by doing what we are told, painting by numbers: instead, that there is a dimension to our relationship to G-d that is meant to be mindful and sensitive, instead of mere obedience?
This meaning is echoed elsewhere in the text, reinforcing the message: Abraham heard my voice and guarded my charge: my commandments, my laws, and my guidance. (Gen. 26:5)
With the same explanation, right? After all, with Avraham, being sensitive to G-d’s presence in the world was what enabled everything else?
The very same phrase is used to describe the golden pomegranates on the robes of the kohen gadol, the High Priest:
… a golden bell and a pomegranate, all around the hem of the robe. Aaron shall wear it while officiating, so that the sound of it is heard when he comes into the sanctuary before the LORD and when he goes out.
Isn’t this the same meaning? That the sound reminds us to be mindful of G-d’s own presence, especially during the avodah, the service, of the kohen gadol on Yom Kippur?
Is there a lesson in this as we approach Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur? After all, in addition to filling our waking time with trying to fulfill commandments, is the Torah telling us that there is a qualitative requirement that, no matter how many commandments we do or Torah we learn, always has room for improvement? That we can always seek to be more sensitive of G-d’s presence in ourselves and other people and the world around us?
Is that why the Torah includes the seemingly-extra lishmo’a b’kolo in this verse?
Problem with Images?
Cursed be anyone who makes a sculptured or molten image, abhorred by the LORD, a craftsman’s handiwork
Isn’t it interesting that there are no illustrations in the Torah at all? That there seems to be almost an aversion to anything visual?
Could it be because images affect our minds, but they don’t require higher order thinking?
An animal reacts in a way that makes this very clear: a hungry cat sees or smells or hears the sounds associated with food, and they react immediately. But you won’t get that same reaction if you show Whiskers the ingredient list for Meow Mix. Cats can’t read words or think abstractly.
In a person, an image of delicious food provokes an instinctive reaction – the craving is almost instant. But a written description of that same food has to be read, processed, and then the imagination needs to engage in order to achieve the same result!
The Torah contains only words (and not even any vowels or punctuation). It is a document that refuses to tell the viewer anything unless and until the person learns Biblical Hebrew, and mentally engages in order to parse the text and then try to understand it on its own terms.
The text itself even gives a clue leading to this conclusion! We are forbidden to make a sculpted idol, a pesel, and commanded to destroy the idols of others (inside the Promised Land). We are even forbidden to create a three-dimensional representation of anything found in nature!
We are forbidden to make a pesel of any image. But Moshe is commanded to make the pesel of the Ten Commandments!
Perhaps images are forbidden because G-d is trying to always push us toward higher level thinking? Instead of creating images that require only animal-level mental processing, we create the canvas upon which words go, words that can only be read and understood by an educated person. We are always pushed to higher-order mental processing.