Yitro

Revelation, Torah, and the Ten Commandments

Adapted from Rabbi Arthur Green

God's presence rested on Mount Sinai in the form of a severe thunderstorm. Words we now recognize as the Ten Commandments were spoken. We say that the Torah was revealed at Sinai. What is the connection between revelation, the Ten Commandments, and the "Torah"?

Revelation does not necessarily refer to the giving of a truth that we did not possess previously. On the contrary, the primary meaning of revelation is that our eyes are now opened. We are able to see that which had been true all along but was hidden from us. God and universe are related not primarily as Creator and creature, which sounds as though they are separate from one another, but as deep structure and surface. God lies within or behind the faÁade of all that is.

Usually when we speak of the Torah, we mean the concrete document of stories and commandments, words and letters. This Torah is our sacred text - the vehicle through which our people receives and pays attention to the eternal Word. Yes, there is much in the text that causes us to struggle - but we read with an openness that allows us to discover the presence within it.

The first word of the Ten Commandments is anokhi, "I am." The Rabbis taught that anokhi contains every positive commandment in the Torah. That is their way of saying that awareness of God's presence makes a claim on us: it demands that we shape our lives, as individuals and as a community, in response to revelation.

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