Seeing the Sounds

"All the people saw the sounds…they saw and trembled." (Ex. 20:15)

These Ten Commandments of the Torah include all the commandments of the Torah and all matters Above and below, including the Ten Utterances by which the world was created. (Avot 5:1)

All of the commandments derive essentially from these ten. This is also hinted at by the numerical value of the word "Torah", 611, plus the first two of the Ten Commandments that we heard from G‑d Himself, for a sum total of 613 - the number of commandments in the Torah. (Makkot 24a) In addition, the total number of letters comprising the Ten Commandments is 620 - the sum of the 613 Biblical commandments plus the seven rabbinical commandments.(Megaleh Amukot, Ranav Ofanim ofan 197)

The Midrash (Bereishit Rabba 1:1) explains that just as an architect uses a blueprint to build a palace, so too did G‑d use the Torah to create the worlds. "G‑d looked into the Torah and created the worlds from it." (Zohar II 161a) Accordingly, all of Creation is contained therein.

These [Ten Commandments] were engraved into tablets of stone and all the secrets contained within them were revealed to all [the Israelites who stood at the foot of Mount Sinai.] They saw all this with their own eyes, and their hearts were able to peer into the wisdom that illuminated them.

This wisdom affected their emotions as well.

At that moment none of the mysteries of Torah and the secrets above and below were withheld from them, for they saw the radiance of their Master's glory eye to eye. This had never before happened since the creation of the world. For the Holy One, Blessed be He, was revealed in His glory upon Mount Sinai. And if you argue that we were taught [in Mechilta, Beshalach, on the verse "This is our G‑d and we will glorify Him"] that a servant girl at the Splitting of the Sea saw that which even the Prophet Ezekiel did not see and therefore you might think that this was equal to [the level of revelation] that the Israelites experienced when they stood at Mount Sinai - this is not so, for the day that they stood at Mount Sinai their spiritual impurity left them and [even] their physical bodies became as refined as the material element of the angels… [Furthermore] their souls shone like the brightness of the heavens as they received the light.

The Talmud, Shabbat 146a, states that when Eve ate from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, the serpent [the symbol of primordial evil] infected her with spiritual impurity. When the Israelites received the Torah at Mount Sinai, this spiritual impurity was removed from them.

This was the situation with the Israelites who saw and gazed upon the glory of their Master, which did not happen at the [Red] Sea, since their spiritual impurity did not leave them at that point in time.

Although the Talmud (Sotah 30a) states that this took place when they sang the Song at the Sea, commentaries explain that this was only the beginning of the process, which was completed at Mount Sinai (see Nitzutzei Zohar).

Whereas at Mount Sinai all of the spiritual impurity flew out of them so that even babies in their mothers' wombs saw the glory of their Master, [nevertheless, not everybody perceived to the same depth. Instead] each person received as was fitting for them.

That day was more of a day of rejoicing for the Holy One, Blessed be He, than the day He created the world, for the day that He created the world had no permanence until the Israelites received the Torah, as the verse states, "If not for My covenant [the Torah], I would not have set the boundaries of heaven and earth." (Jeremiah 33:25) But when the Israelites accepted the Torah on Mount Sinai then the world became stable, and the heavens and earth became secure and G‑d's glory became known Above [by the angels and inhabitants of the upper worlds] and below [in This World].

[Based on Zohar II p. 93b; translation and commentary by Moshe Miller]