The Poetry of Sinai

I rarely encounter texts like the midrash above that so completely challenge static notions about Torah. This midrash, instead, presents Torah as a transformative force that also requires its audience to transform itself radically in order to receive it.

Before one can begin to appreciate the first half of this midrash, one must face the radical assertion of its latter half regarding one’s openness to new ideas or experiences. By stating that one must “make oneself open to all like a wilderness,” the midrash presents the desert as a metaphor for a spiritual state of being that is untamed, boundless, beyond our ordinary realm. We must enter the “wilds of Sinai” in order to internalize the wisdom we wish to acquire.

Once we have taken that extraordinary step, we are prepared to move beyond the Sinai story we generally read and tell. Instead, the process described above—of God’s giving the Torah—expands revelation into a dynamic multimedia experience beyond the written text and it becomes immediately accessible to anyone today. We know how flames and rainfall both represent physical changes in nature and generate sensations and emotional reactions that we perceive internally. Likewise, the desert environment becomes a medium for spiritual metamorphosis by testing our physical limits through its desolation, dryness, and heat.

The subsequent poetic depiction of Torah as priceless water that quenches our thirst complements the previous statements well and resonates with me deeply. That metaphor aptly describes what drew me to study both our classical texts and Jewish meditation. Nonetheless, my rabbinic training definitely cost money—a lot of it. We thus uncover again a most difficult task: since Torah was initially given in ways “free to all creatures,” we must keep dreaming of and working toward providing high-quality Jewish learning experiences in ways that are affordable to all. Achieving such a vision will truly transform Judaism and the world.