Yitro: Experiencing G-d

The revelatory moment at Mt. Sinai in which the Jewish people receive the Ten Commandments is central to Jewish history, belief and thought. It is a moment of unique magnificence, marked by G-d’s direct interaction with the Jewish people themselves, rather than solely through an intermediary like Moshe. Despite the commonplace assertion in academic criticism that ‘Judaism is the religion in which G-d is heard but not seen’, the Torah’s description of this moment suggests that G-d’s divinity – or at least His presence – appears visually as well as aurally through the sound of His voice, though these elements could be understood theologically as an earthly manifestation of that which is so divine it cannot be understood in human or earthly terms.[1]

The text initially describes קלת וברקים וענן כבד על-ההר, ‘thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mountain’ (Ex.19:16), natural elements which appear incongruous with the surrounding, still desert scenery. The mountain עשן כלו מפני אשר ירד עליו ה’ באש, ‘smoked over all its face, because G-d descended upon it in fire’ (Ex.19:18), these phrases creating what a semantic field of natural imagery making G-d’s presence known entirely and absolutely. It is powerful weather, drawing attention to the site, arresting the viewer. Though perhaps controversial to say so, it could be argued that these weathering images present a way in which G-d might have been indirectly observed at Sinai, His presence depicted in thunder, lighting and smoke as He cannot be corporeal. He is certainly heard aurally – the Torah describes how וקל שפר חזק מאד, ‘the sound of a shofar [was heard] exceedingly loud’ (Ex.19:16), growing louder and louder before G-d’s voice itself is heard (Ex.19:19) as He speaks directly to His nation (Ex.20:1).

Daniel Boyarin explores this idea of the aural and visual in relation to this biblical episode and midrash in ‘The Eye in the Torah: Ocular Desire in Midrashic Hermeneutic’ (1990), arguing that one of the aims of midrash is to recapitulate and reenact moments like this.[2] He writes that ‘for […] midrash, sight of G-d inhabits the very heart of revelation as part of its essential structure’, suggesting that ‘even the very communication of the Law [in Yitro] is at least partly visual’ through the Torah’s imagery.[3] Boyarin goes so far as to state that ‘there can be very little doubt that in early Rabbinic Judaism G-d was understood as a being who could be seen’, and in this narrative moment I would suggest that, to an extent, this is true.[4] The thunder, lightning and cloudy smoke which engulfs this mountain as G-d resides within and around it serves to physically indicate His presence, much like a person’s shadow or corporeal state would within our human understanding of existence. The combination of such awesome imagery and sound as G-d prepares to give the Ten Commandments – the core tenants of Judaism – to His people only serves to deepen the significance of this moment.

Indeed, what Benjamin D. Sommer calls the ‘aural and visual experience […] of loud noises and radiant sights’ were enough to embed the experience within the Jewish psyche.[5] Its influence can be seen in how the narrative is recounted in Devarim and other texts in Tanach, as well as how it is constantly referred to in rabbinic writings like the opening mishna of Pirkei Avot, which details how ‘Moshe received the Torah at Sinai and transmitted it to Joshua’ and onto further generations.[6] Another rabbinic example is the curious and unique story of Moshe attending a class in Rabbi Akiva’s classroom as recounted in the Babylonian Talmud’s Menahot 29b; he learns that the seemingly indecipherable Torah R’ Akiva teaches has been carefully and deliberately derived from the words given at Sinai. In fact, rabbinic tradition has long held the belief that ‘at Sinai, not only the written Scriptures were revealed, but also the Oral Torah – the initially-not-written-down Torah of interpretation, expansion and application of the Five Books of Moses’, something which Jacob Neusner discussed frequently in his extensive œuvre on rabbinic writing.[7]

This second ‘type’ of Torah, the Oral Torah, has a less finite quality than these five written books, in which the words are decided, written on parchment to be copied and relayed. Far from the revelation at Mt. Sinai being a moment enshrined in history, unable to be accessed, the use of the interpretive qualities of the Oral Torah allowed the rabbis, and allow the contemporary reader, to participate in this moment at Mt. Sinai as if it is happening continuously, consistently striving to experience G-d as He was experienced then. Indeed, as Rabbi Yitz Greenberg notes, ‘the Rabbis insist that the process of Revelation at Sinai never stops’, with Mishnah Peah 2:6 stating that ‘everything that a veteran student [of Torah] will express in the presence of his [teacher] was already told to Moses at Sinai’.[8] If this is true, the very act of reading this section of Torah allows one to experience the aural, the visual and possibly another uniquely divine dimension – as the Torah is read out on Shabbat, one hears G-d’s words in all their glory whilst the mind’s eye conjures up images of what is being described in such great detail in the biblical text. One can see in one’s private imagination the lightning and the smoke, hear the thunder and the sound of the shofar as it draws attention to G-d’s presence and the impending direct interaction with Him. Through Yitro’s narrative and language, we as readers and listeners are able to place ourselves within this revelatory moment, ensuring the continuity and constant reliving of the events at Mt. Sinai, experiencing G-d as fully as ever.

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[1] Daniel Boyarin, ‘The Eye in the Torah: Ocular Desire in Midrashic Hermeneutic’ in Critical Inquiry, Vol.16 No.3, (1990), pp.532-550, pg.532

[2] Boyarin

[3] Boyarin, pg.535

[4] Boyarin, pg.540

[5] Benjamin D. Sommer, ‘Revelation at Sinai in the Hebrew Bible and in Jewish Theology’ in The Journal of Religion, Vol.79 No.3, (1999), pp.422-451, pg.427

[6] Pirkei Avot (Ethics of the Fathers), 1:1

[7] Rabbi Yitz Greenberg, ‘What Happened at Sinai?’, <https://www.hadar.org/torah-tefillah/resources/what-happened-sinai> (2023)

[8] Greenberg; m. Peah 2:6 17a