In Tehillim (103:20) we find, “... גִבֹּרֵי כֹחַ עֹשֵׂי דְבָרוֹ לִשְׁמֹעַ בְּקוֹל
דְבָרוֹ/… strong warriors who do His bidding, in order to hearken to
the sound of His word.” It would seem
that this pasuk is worded backwards. One
needs to hearken to God’s word and understand what He requires of us in order
to do His bidding. The pasuk states in
reverse order – strong warriors do His bidding in order to hearken to his
word. What does this mean?
Chazal[1]
teach that the strong warriors in this pasuk refer to the malachei hashareis/ministering
angels and yet we find the same construct when we accepted the
Torah. Just as the angels first agree to
do God’s bidding before knowing what that bidding is, Chazal praise the nation
of Israel for learning from the angels. When offered the Torah we responded, “... נַעֲשֶׂה וְנִשְׁמָע/… We will do and we
will listen.” (Shmos 24:7) We
were committed even before we knew what God required of us.
This needs an explanation, though. We certainly trusted in God and believed that
He would not require us to do anything beyond our capabilities. We certainly knew that anything God would ask
of us would be for our own benefit. Why
the great praise, therefore, when we committed to comply with God’s
commandments even before understanding them fully?
The Sfas Emes explains that while the simple meaning of
listening to God’s word is understanding how to perform his commandments, it
also implies something much deeper. God’s
דִבּוּר/speech teaches us how to perform the
commandments. However, the קוֹל דְבָרוֹ/sound
of his word mentioned in the pasuk in Tehillim implies a deeper
understanding. There is speech and there
is the underlying sound that comprises speech.
The underlying sound suggests the underlying spiritual meaning of the
words. The Zohar makes this distinction
between דִבּוּר/speech and קוֹל/sound as well when it refers to
speech as components of sound[2]
(i.e. sound is the כְּלַל /general term; speech is the פְּרַט/specific term)[3]
At Mount Sinai we committed to comply with God’s commandments
and we accepted the yoke of Heaven upon ourselves in order to merit hearing the
sound of God’s voice within the commandments, as it were, to experience the
underlying spirituality that the manifests as speech. By committing to do whatever God required of
us we would merit understanding that which would otherwise be impossible to
attain. This is the reason we said, “נַעֲשֶה וְנִשְׁמָע /We will do and we
will listen.” We committed to do in
order to merit hearing (the underlying sound of God – understanding the inner
meaning of the commandments and experiencing the underlying spirituality.) This is also the reason the pasuk in Tehillim
states first, “עֹשֵי דְבָרוֹ/do
His bidding” and only afterwards, “לִשְמֹעַ בְּקוֹל דְבָרוֹ/to hearken to the sound of His word.” Even the angels, by committing first to do,
would merit hearing the sound within His words; they would merit understanding and
experiencing the deeper meaning of their actions.
[1]
Shabbos 88a
[2]
For more detail on this Zohar and the relationship between קול/sound and דיבור/speech see the Sfas Emes on Shmos 5631 Second Ma'amar from "Undifferentiated sound". Also, for a
fascinating exposition on this concept as it relates to the names of God, the
Tetragrammaton and Adnus and the different sounds we are required to blow with
the Shofar on Rosh HaShanah see Ya’aros Devash Chelek 1 Derush 6.
[3]
Zohar 2:3a
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