Hearing, listening, internalizing, approaching G-d

Silence — total and absolute silence. No one moves.

Eight soldiers in the middle of the night, actively listening, straining for the slightest sound that might signify something out of the ordinary; a Velcro patch; a clink of metal, the sound of a body moving on earth, an AK-47 machine gun slowly being cocked or, worst of all, the pin of a grenade being pulled.

That was how ambushes always began. Israeli soldiers are trained to work, especially at night, in silence, learning to pick up the sounds one often might take for granted; sounds which, if heard, can make all the difference between life and death.

How many thousands of soldiers, in how many trenches, back alleys and abandoned houses in Aza had to stop to listen these past weeks?

And in this war civilians, too, were on the front lines, ever listening for the wail of a siren signaling incoming rockets, giving them scant seconds to make it to shelter.

This week, Ekev begins (Deut. 7:12) with the promise that all will be well, if we will but listen. Which of course follows last week’s portion (of Va’etchanan) containing the ultimate injunction to listen: the Shema.

“Hear O’ Israel, Hashem is our G-d; Hashem is One.” (ibid. 6:4)

For thousands of years this statement has been the ultimate source of faith; indeed, countless martyred Jews over the ages died with the words of the Shema on their lips.

So why is our faith all about listening? Moshe asks (in last week’s portion) to cross over and see the land of Israel; so what is the relationship between seeing, and listening?

When we were given the Torah at Mount Sinai, the entire mountain was enshrouded in a cloud (Exodus 19:9) suggesting that we needed to hear G-d when He spoke to us. Yet, at Sinai, it appears the Jewish people somehow saw sound!? (ibid. 20:15) and after all, as everyone knows, seeing is believing, right?

Ancient idolatry and pagan worship was all about the worship of nature; they saw beauty and cruelty, power and majesty in the world around them, and they worshipped these forces of nature. In ancient Greece and Rome, which so glorified the body through art and sculpture, worship was visual.