Is Mt. Sinai under construction in this week’s parashah? One could be forgiven for thinking so, since Hashem’s intructions to Moshe regarding preparation for His revelation to Am Yisrael include the erection of a fence around the mountain!
You say you don’t remember any fence? Take a look at the verses leading up to the the Ten Commandments: “Hashem said to Moshe, ‘Go down, give testimony before/warn the people, lest they destructively break through to Hashem to see, and many fall (i.e., die) from amongst them. Even the priests, who draw close to Hashem, must sanctify themselves, lest Hashem break out amongst them.” Moshe said to Hashem, the people are not able to ascend the mountain, for You warned us saying, ‘Set up a boundary around the mountain and sanctify it.”
Hmm, the people aren’t able to ascend, something is preventing them – there’s a boundary there, set up precisely to avoid rash, impulsive spiritual overload. Clearly, this boundary can’t be made merely of stern warnings taken to heart, since Hashem knows that whatever they see at the moment of revelation is likely to overwhelm their caution and good sense. He insists on an extra level of protection, while Moshe insists it’s unnecessary, since the boundary constructed stands firm.
Of what was this boundary constructed? Let’s go back to the initial passage a few verses earlier, where Hashem gives instruction as to the preparations to be made in advance of Matan Torah:
Hashem said to Moshe: Go to the people and sanctify them today and tomorrow, and let them wash their clothing. Be ready for the third day, for on the third day, Hashem will descend upon Mt. Sinai before the people’s eyes. Bound the people around, telling them, ‘Guard yourselves from ascending the mountain, or even touching its edge. Whoever touches the mountain will surely die”.
At first glance, it would seem we’re not closer to finding the raw material from which the fence was constructed. In fact, it looks like the initial supposition, that the best de-fence is a good of-fence, is born out – the boundary is nothing more than the fear of divine punishment for those who, literally, trans-gress.
R. Meir Simcha HaKohen of Dvinsk, in his marvelous work MeSHeKh Hochmah, interprets the words, Bound the people around differently. The Hebrew reads Hagbel et ha’am saviv, with the word for people serving as a direct object to the causative verb, make a boundary. Thus, Hashem is telling Moshe, “Use the people as raw material for the fence”. Here are his words:
The Divine Presence and the attendant phenomenon of prophecy extended up to the place where Yisrael stood facing the mountain, as it is stated (Devarim): Face to face did Hashem speak with you at the mountain. Just like with the Beit Hamikdash, it was permitted to touch the walls of the courtyards but forbidden to come into their space, since the walls served as partitions between the Sanctuary of Hashem and outside of it, likewise here, Yisrael served as the partitions between the revelation of the Glory of Hashem and that which is otherwise. Thus, the mountain was forbidden to be touched, since the holiness did not end at the mountain. Therefore, it states that the Glory had a boundary, and what was that boundary? The people!
(There were a couple more paragraphs here, full of ideas that to me were really exciting, but Windows updated itself without adequate warning for a simpleton like me, and so lost them!! Can you cry over spilled Torah? But, not to end too abruptly, I'll reconstruct the gist of it and say…)
Nothing can exist in our realm w/o being manifest via a vessel; everything of the world is a vessel, and the Kodesh, ultimately not of this world, becomes manifest in a place/time/soul vessel called Am Yisrael at Mt. Sinai. The containment vessel which is Am Yisrael doesn’t merely enable the manifestation of the holy, but it also defines the secular (means literally: temporal) realm – a realm cleansed of the overwhelming, radioactively-dangerous wholly holy, a realm which IS space for that which is other than holy. Ultimately, the secular is created to be MADE holy, but the tension of, on one hand, keeping the sacred at bay, to allow for the human, and, on the other hand, transforming our OWN material to become more G-dlike, more holy, less “vessalic” and more penetratingly liquid with holiness – this tension is the exasperating blessing of Am Yisarel from Hashem, for the world. No surprise people might wish to run away from the mountain, as the midrash on Parashat Beha’alotecha teaches us. No surprise people might be carried away by the smidgen of eventual ecstasy they were allow to taste at Sinai and want to run up the mountain to attain the intimacy they felt they couldn’t bear to be without.
Ulysses was lashed to the mast by his crew to heart the Siren’s song. Hashem has lashed us to the mast of His world with the rope of our own will bending to do His in this as-yet-unredeemed realm. With the strong rope of his Torah – a Mobius strip that, followed to the end, will turn out to have been, all along, that holiness which we sought to hold back, now embracing us for eternity.
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