OK, let’s pretend.
Let’s pretend you were a slave in Egypt. Subject to merciless slave-drivers and inhumane conditions, you despair of ever escaping and having a “normal” life. It doesn’t help that everyone seems to know that the Egyptians are obsessive about slave-security and the total number of escaped slaves in recent Egyptian history in zero.
Everything is bleak, miserable, abysmal and hopeless. Dirty, hungry, weary and hopeless. Overworked, underfed, impoverished and most of all, hopeless. (Your wife insists that things will get very better, very soon, but try as you might, you can’t wrap your heart around that fantasy and you envy her faith.)
Now flash forward one short, quick year. In an incredible turn of events, everything has changed. As you stand with your brethren at the foot of Mount Sinai, you reflect on how far you’ve come. You’re clean, healthy and fit, and you also to happen to be, like everyone else, fabulously wealthy. Most of all, you’re the furthest thing from hopeless.
Your bleak and dismal existence has been utterly transformed into a lively, joyous, meaning-filled and purpose-driven life. Over the past year, things you never even dreamed possible happened in front of your eyes. The haughty, hated Egyptians were repeatedly humiliated and that fearsome King Pharoah was last seen in his pajamas, wild-eyed and frantic in his desperation for you and all the Jews to get out of town. You witnessed what everyone is calling “the ten plagues” and you watched in awe as the sea split for you. You shamelessly and exuberantly sang out with everyone else when Moshe Rabbeinu (Moses) led you in a song of praise and gratitude. (Imagine you singing anything a year ago??)
And now, in an unbelievable climax, G-d is going to speak to you. This is the G-d about Whom you have heard so much. The G-d of your world-famous great-great-great-grandfather Jacob, the father of the twelve brothers who were the forerunners of the twelve Jewish tribes you know so well. This is the G-d your wife has always believed in, the G-d your parents reminded you about constantly, pleading with you to remain different, even in exile, even when being different earned you only pain and suffering, deprivation and forced labor. This is the G-d of your People, and you’re about to hear from Him.
Moshe Rabbeinu has prepared you all for this moment. He has spent the last three days lovingly and patiently explaining to you that as unbelievable as it sounds, G-d loves you all dearly, says He is choosing you and exalting you, calls you His “treasure.” Moshe has been joyous but serious in his approach as he works to impress upon you the lofty privilege but also the earnest seriousness of accepting this role in the world and in history.
And here you are, it’s early morning and suddenly the world seems to be on fire. Thunder is crashing and booming, lightening is flashing non-stop, but no rain! The mountain in front of you is suddenly beautiful, draped with a stunning array of flowers and blooms, and yet it's aflame and quaking. The distinct sound of a Shofar is blaring clearly over the din, and getting louder every minute. You’re not sure your heart can bear this experience much longer and then, just as suddenly, it’s perfectly, absolutely, unnaturally…silent. Nothing. Not a breeze. Not a chirp. Not a drop. Nothing stirs. No one breathes. The silence is louder than the uproar!
And then a sound you’ve never heard before and you’ll never hear again. It’s a voice and it’s talking to you. It sounds like someone speaking gently in your ear. You turn around to see who’s talking to you but the voice is coming from everywhere. It’s indescribable, like seeing color for the first time. The voice’s combined quality of power and softness is just supernatural. It’s firm, sweet, kindly, authoritative, beseeching, unbelievably loud and unbelievably still. And just as you remember where and what you were a year ago, this Divine voice says to you:
“I am G-d, your G-d, Who took you out of Egypt.”
*****
Never give up hope.
Shabbat Shalom, good Shabbos!