A Thought on Parshas Yisro

"...v'Har Sinai oshon kulo...va'yech'erad..." "...and all of Mt. Sinai was smoking...and shaking..." (19:18) "..v'kol ha'am ro'im es ha'kolos..." "...and all the nation saw the sounds..." (20:15) The scene at the foot of the mountain was awe inspiring and has never been replicated. As our nation prepared to receive HaShem's Torah, a majestic aura cloaked the peak where Moshe awaited the apocalyptic encounter with the Divine. The Torah says that HaShem's Presence was sensed, ka'ya'yochol, as "eish" (fire). Our first verse above declares that the entire mountain was smoking, and also shaking. The Panae'ach Raza ponders that phenomenon: our Sages (Yoma 21b) state that one feature of the "fire" linked to the Divine is that it does not generate smoke. There is a whole discussion about how an ingredient in the Temple incense was "ma'aleh oshon" - a smoke generating agent, and how the fires associated with a Heavenly source do not produce their own smoke. If so, how is it that when the Divine Presence was sensed as if hovering above Sinai, which the Torah depicts as a fiery spectacle, that the mountain below was "fully smoking"? He suggests that this quality of being "smoke free" was indeed a feature of the fire which descended in the Temple as part of our service to HaShem. We needed to contribute to the altar fire, and one thing we contributed was offering up ascending smoke in matching the descending smokeless flame from Above. However, at the scene of Matan Torah the parameters were very different. The fires from Above were not part of a ritual process which would in any way require a responsive service from us below. The function of the fire at Sinai was to imprint on us the magnitude of the event. It needed to be apprehended and perceived and experienced as a life-changing, universe-perfecting moment in cosmic time and in mortal consciousness. Every aspect of the event needed to exude alarm, shock and intensely focused attentiveness to what was unfolding. Therefore, this is why the Torah relates that even below the Supernal Cloud atop the mountain peak, the mountain itself generated smoke. The world itself, in its topographical form, was reaching up in an ascending response. This sobered the nation to heed the events which followed. This particular fire from Above did generate a blanket of smoke, which then ascended from down below. Now, a separate matter is understanding our second verse cited above. The Torah writes that we "saw the sounds" at Sinai, which presents a puzzle: there is a crossing of senses implied, in that we human beings hear sounds, and see only visible events. There are a number of well known interpretations about this. The Panae'ach Raza offers that one level of understanding this image of "seeing sounds" is that we all know that on a cold day, when someone speaks or breathes, we can see the air vaporizing as he expels sounds. In that sense, then, the resounding vibrations emanating from the peak of Sinai, filtering through the smoke which cloaked the mountain, resulted in that same phenomenon - pulsating and nearly palpable - as the smoke vibrated from the sound waves which were penetrating that fiery cloud. The mountain was fully smoking and the sounds could be "seen." The smoky air surrounding Sinai reverberated with each sound which descended from Shomayim. Thus, "Har Sinai was smoking and shaking", as the sounds reverberated visibly through the smoky haze. Good Shabbos. D Fox