T orah P ortion
Bridging the Worldly and the Heavenly
BY RABBI JON CUTLER
Parshat Yitro
“The grand premise of religion
is that man is able to surpass
himself; that man who is part
of this world may enter into
a relationship with Him who
is greater than the world.”
(Abraham Joshua Herschel)
CHAPTERS 19 AND 20 in
this week’s Torah reading,
Yitro, are among the most
difficult and mysterious narra-
tives in the whole of Torah.

God reveals himself on Mount
Sinai to the people of Israel
using his “voice,” which is
heard through a mountain
enshrouded by smoke and fire.

These few verses may be among
all the verses in Torah which
both conceals and defines.

God appears in the earthly
world, the world of flesh and
bone, the world of mortality
and Moses on Mount Sinai
enters the transcendent world
of angels and immorality, a
world unfettered by time and
space. And when God speaks,
shattering the barrier that
exists between the world of
flesh, the Torah tells us: “all
the people who were in the
camp trembled.” (Exodus
19: 16) After the recitation
of the Decalogue, the Torah
further tells us “All the people
Attack Continued from Page 10
about what was happening
inside the synagogue, the
last two years of streaming
at Congregation Beth Israel
generated much more detail.

Watching videos of previous
services, viewers can see that
Cytron-Walker, a transplant
from Michigan, has become
a real Texan since becoming
Beth Israel’s rabbi in 2006
and frequently slips “y’all”
20 JANUARY 20, 2022
CAN DL E L IGHTIN G
Jan. 21
Jan. 28
4:49 p.m.

4:57 p.m.

witnessed the thunder and
lightning, the blare of the horn
and the mountain smoking;
and when the people saw it,
they fell back and stood at a
distance. ‘You [Moses] speak to
us, and we will obey, but let not
God speak to us, lest we die.’”
(Exodus 20: 15-16)
After a pause in the narra-
tive, the Torah picks up the
story to tell us that Moses
together with Aaron, his two
sons and a group of elders
numbering 70 ascended and
“they beheld God, and they ate
and drank.” (Exodus 24: 11)
It was as though the veil that
separated the mortal from the
immortal world had been lifted.

But only Moses could go up
the mountain, into the divine
realm, spending 40 days and
nights concealed and covered
by the cloud enshrouded over
the mountain. Moses had
crossed over and disappeared
into the realm of the unknown.

The Midrash elaborates the
Torah account. Rabbi Joshua
ben Levi envisions Moses,
after ascending the mountain,
standing in the divine domain.

And Moses’ presence is
immediately challenged. The
ministering angels object to
Moses’ presence saying: “what
business does one born of
woman have in our midst.”
Moses is an intruder, a
mortal figure in a world of
pure spirit and immateriality.

God replies that Moses has
come to receive the Torah, to
which the angels protested by
proclaiming “this precious item
which has been in Your posses-
sion since before creation You
will now give to mere flesh and
blood?” At this point in Rabbi
Joshua’s ingenious story, God
turns to Moses and asks him
to justify why He, God, should
give the Torah to Moses and
the children of Israel. That’s
an odd request. Why should
God have to justify anything
He does? Master of the divine
world, He need only speak, and
it becomes. He commands, and
it is done.

But Moses steps forward
and asks God about the content
of the Torah. “I am the Lord
your God who brought you out
of Egypt” (Exodus 20:2) and
turning to the angels Moses
declares “Did you go down
to Egypt? Were you enslaved
there?” The Torah has nothing
to do with your experiences.

What else is written in the
Torah, Moses asks? God replies,
“You shall have no other gods
beside me.” (Exodus 20:3)
Turning to the angels Moses
says: “Do you live among idol
worshippers?” And Moses goes
down the list of command-
ments. None of them apply to
this otherworldly region that
Moses has entered.

The angels having been
overcome, concede and Moses
returns with the tablets, the
letters having been engraved
onto the tablets by the finger of
God. (Exodus 31:18)
Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish
recognized that the tablets
of stone upon which were
engraved the letters of the
commandments were a symbol
that connected this world and
the transcendent world that
Moses had just left. The tablets
were the physical connection
between the world of flesh
and blood and the world of
the transcendent, the symbol
linking the two realms.

And hence Shimon ben
Lakish described the spiri-
tual essence of those letters as
written with black fire upon
white fire, sealed with fire and
embraced with bands of fire.

The Torah was a fusing between
the physical and the spiri-
tual, between the substance of
human life, and the profound
words with its spiritual power
to lift the human being into
a life of sanctity and wonder.

(Jerusalem Talmud, Shekalim
6:1) Never again would God
reach down and lift the veil
between this world and the
world of the ministering
angels. Never again would God
reveal himself so openly, to
an entire people, awe-inspiring
the senses, and allowing the
Divine to descend from the
heavenly world into the world
of flesh and blood.

It is impossible to imagine,
that this story can only
approximate the experience
of revelation. Even after those
who experienced the moment
when the finger of God touched
the living letters inscribed on
stone, the Israelites still turned
to a golden calf.

Hence, we humans, live in
the eternal struggle between
the flesh and the Divine, the
worldly and the heavenly,
the absurd and the transcen-
dent. And every rabbi, every
student, every scholar who
studies the Torah brings to
life new interpretations which
bridge once again the worldly
and the heavenly, the flesh and
the Divine, the reenactment of
Matan Torah, the giving of the
Torah. l
into his speech. They can see
that Cytron-Walker likes to
intersperse his livestreamed
services with videos of cantors
and choirs from around the
world singing some of the
prayers in the service. And
they can see firsthand evidence
that Cytron-Walker may be, as
Smith lovingly identified him
in a Zoom vigil, the “worst
singer in the world.”
Strangers could even see
what Cytron-Walker was
planning to teach in a Torah
study session; his lesson plan
for the day was posted to
Sefaria, an online database
of Jewish texts. In it, Cytron-
Walker planned to talk about
the sense of uncertainty and
stress felt by many during
the pandemic. He planned to
finish with a comment from
Moshe Greenberg, an influen-
tial 20th-century Bible scholar,
on the verse from Exodus 7:3,
“I will harden Pharaoh’s heart.”
That comment
had resonance for the situation that
Cytron-Walker found himself
in during services. “While
events unfold under the provi-
dence of God,” Greenberg
wrote, “their unfolding is
always according to the
motives of the human beings
through whom God’s will is
done without realizing it.”
In the wake of the incident,
Asin said she was heartened
by the supportive response
from across and beyond the
Jewish community. She also
said she didn’t think that the
unprecedented transparency of
the latest assault on American
Jews would change the shape
of antisemitism in the country.

“I’m personally hopeful —
and skeptical that the public
nature of this event will have
any impact,” she said. l
JEWISH EXPONENT
Rabbi Jon Cutler is co-president
of the Board of Rabbis of Greater
Philadelphia and rabbi of Beth
Israel Congregation of Chester
County. The Board of Rabbis
is proud to provide diverse
perspectives on Torah commentary
for the Jewish Exponent. The
opinions expressed in this column
are the author’s own and do not
reflect the view of the Board of
Rabbis. JTA’s Ron Kampeas contributed
reporting. JEWISHEXPONENT.COM