A Treasure Guarded: Exalted Awe at Sinai

1“And now, if you will truly listen to My voice … you shall be to Me a treasure from among all the peoples, for all the earth is Mine.”¹ Rashi explains: “Segulah: a beloved treasure, as in ‘the treasures of kings,’ the precious vessels and fine gems that kings store away. So shall you be to Me a treasure more than the other nations.”² But in what way is Israel like a beloved treasure?

2Later it is written, “They said to Moshe, ‘You speak with us and we will listen, but let not God speak with us, lest we die.’”³ This is hard to understand. At the gathering at Mount Sinai, Bnei Yisrael reached a lofty level, like that of the ministering angels. As Chazal said, the Holy One, blessed be He, said, “Who revealed this secret to My children, a language that the ministering angels use?”⁴ Chazal also said that at each and every utterance spoken at Sinai, their souls flew out of them.⁵ If so, they were surely on a level where they were ready to give up their lives for the sake of His Name. Why, then, were they so afraid of dying to sanctify His Name that they said, “lest we die”?

3aLet us first cite what my holy father and teacher, zt"l, wrote to explain Rashi on the verse “Yisro heard”: “What report did he hear that made him come? The splitting of the Red Sea …”⁶ My holy father explained Rashi by a teaching well known from the disciples of the Baal Shem Tov, zt"l: from everything a person hears or sees in this world, he must learn a lesson for avodas Hashem, the service of Hashem. The holy sefer Be'er Mayim Chaim writes in this vein on the verse “And my sin is before me always.”⁷ These are his words: “At first glance this is astonishing. Surely Dovid HaMelech believed that the Holy One, blessed be He, is God, the King Who pardons and forgives the sins of His people, the House of Israel, when they return to Him. Rather, Dovid HaMelech did not want to put his sins out of sight and remember them no more. He wanted to remember how far the power of the fire of lust and the desire for the delights of this world had reached.⁸ From this he would know the way of avodas Hashem: how far he must bind his soul, with all his longing and all his soul's desire, to Hashem, God Most High.” So far his words.

3bThis is the hint in “What report did he hear that made him come?” Yisro reached this level: he brought every report he heard to holiness, raising it all to the level of “the splitting of the Red Sea and the war with Amalek.” “The splitting of the Sea” hints at what Israel grasped when it saw the revelation of His glory. As Chazal said, “A maidservant saw at the Sea what the prophet Yechezkel ben Buzi did not see.”⁹ “The war with Amalek” hints at what Chazal said: when Moshe raised his hand, Israel would turn its heart in submission to its Father in Heaven.¹⁰ With this my holy father also explained the verse “And it will be, if you truly listen.”¹¹ “And it will be,” vehayah, means there will be joy if everything you hear leads to “you will listen to My mitzvos,” that is, if you learn from it for avodas Hashem. That is the gist of his holy words.

4We can explain all this as follows. As we know, there are two levels in the fear of Hashem, one above the other. The first is the lower fear, the fear of punishment. It is a lesser level, like that of a child who is afraid his teacher will punish him. Above it is awe at Hashem's exaltedness, as the Rambam describes it.¹² When a person reflects on Hashem's great and wondrous works and creatures, and sees in them His wisdom, which has no measure and no end, he immediately recoils, afraid and trembling. He knows that he is a small, lowly, obscure creature, standing with slight and meager understanding before the One Who is perfect in knowledge.

5At the gathering at Mount Sinai, Bnei Yisrael were privileged to reach this awe at Hashem's exaltedness. They reached it because they said, “We will do and we will hear”: even before they heard, they already said “we will do,” subjecting their whole body and all their desires to avodas Hashem. Once they reach such a level, there is no partition between Israel and its Father in Heaven. Only before one who serves out of the lower fear, like a servant before his master, is there a partition and a boundary; before a son who does his father's will out of love, there are no partitions at all. Through this, all the accusers Above are removed and fall away, and the Holy One, blessed be He, in His glory and His very Self, watches over us and guards us from on high.

6This is the level the verse speaks of in “you shall be to Me a treasure,” which Rashi explains as “a beloved treasure.” A beloved treasure is guarded and kept more carefully than anything else, and no stranger may touch it or lay a hand on it. So too, when Israel serves Hashem as a son serves his father, out of love and the awe of His exaltedness that comes from it, Israel is the treasure of the Holy One, blessed be He. He guards it, protects it and watches over it like the pupil of His eye. This is the meaning of “and I carried you on eagles' wings.”¹³ Hashem promises Bnei Yisrael that even if, Heaven forbid, there should be accusers against them Above, He will shelter them and save them, “like an eagle that stirs up its nest, hovering over its young.”¹⁴ For Bnei Yisrael come to receive the Torah out of awe at Hashem's exaltedness, and at such a time no accuser has any power, and there is no partition between Israel and its Father in Heaven.

7This lets us explain the verse “You have seen what I did to Egypt.”¹⁵ The Ohr HaChaim HaKadosh asks why it does not say “that I brought you out of Egypt.” The answer is that the verse means Egypt was a case of “I did”: Hashem struck Egypt with great plagues with a mighty hand. So although dread fell upon the Egyptians, it was only the fear of punishment. But the people of Israel, “children of the living God,”¹⁶ are obligated to serve Hashem not only out of fear of punishment. They are fit to be like sons before the Omnipresent and to serve Him out of closeness, love and awe at His exaltedness. Just as Hashem showed how close they are to Him, and how He watches over and protects them, “and I carried you on eagles' wings,” so, “as water reflects a face back to a face,”¹⁷ they must serve Him with great love and the higher fear. Then His providence will always be drawn down upon them, with the finest protection.

8aAt the gathering at Mount Sinai, then, Bnei Yisrael were brought close and raised up to this lofty level of awe at Hashem's exaltedness. But they were seized with dread that they might not be able to bear such a high level of fear within themselves. It was like what the holy Rebbe R' Simcha Bunim of Peshischa, zt"l, said about the holy Ibn Ezra, the great Torah commentator. The Ibn Ezra's yiras Shamayim, the fear of Heaven, and his dread were so great that R' Simcha Bunim did not understand how he stayed alive. This is what Bnei Yisrael meant when they said, “You speak with us and we will listen, but let not God speak with us, lest we die.” They were afraid that they might not be able to endure this higher fear.

8bMoshe Rabbeinu answered them that they need not worry. The fear the Holy One, blessed be He, was giving them was not the very highest awe of His exaltedness, which no human being can bear within himself. This fear has a limit. It is the kind of fear that keeps them from sin, and it is a vessel for keeping the mitzvos. This is the meaning of “so that His fear will be upon your faces, so that you do not sin.”¹⁸ With this fear, Moshe told them, you will be able to stand before Hashem. This is also the meaning of “The people stood from afar.”¹⁹ The people were still far from the highest awe of His exaltedness, and only “Moshe approached the thick cloud where God was.” Moshe came close before Hashem and reached the awe of His exaltedness in its highest perfection, and from Moshe's awe a measure of this fear was drawn down to all Bnei Yisrael.

9As the Tikkunei Zohar teaches, something of Moshe extends into every generation:²⁰ in every generation there are true tzaddikim who are privileged to attain such fear. My holy father too was privileged to attain this higher fear, and everyone who saw him felt it at once. And “tzaddikim are greater in their death than in their lifetime.”²¹ May it be His will that my holy father bestow a measure of it upon us, and that we soon be privileged to greet our righteous Moshiach. Amen.