The Many Voices of Torah — Kendell Pinkney

When I was young, I was certain that I knew G-d’s voice. Every Sunday morning, when I woke up to the sounds of my mother’s tape deck blaring the ecstatic harmonies of the Mississippi Mass Choir, or the sweet refrain of the latest Ceci Winans song, I knew that I was about to have an “encounter” with the voice of the divine. In these songs - G-d was not simply an idea. Quite the contrary - G-d was present, G-d made themself known, and most importantly, G-d stated clearly and explicitly what was desired from humanity. This picture of G-d was further reinforced by the preaching of the various ministers who filled the church roster at my parents’ place of worship. As they rotated through their scheduled sermons at appointed times in the year, they each spoke passionately of a G-d who could be immediately understood if you just read scripture. All you had to do was read the text - and you would see. 

If only things were, in fact, that simple.

In parashat yitro we read about the arguably most important moment in Jewish history - the giving of Torah. Because we are all so familiar with the story, it seems like a fairly straightforward narrative, right? G-d tells Moses to get the people ready for the revelation of Torah, G-d descends on the mountain in a spectacular display of natural power, G-d speaks the 10 commandments to the people, the people respond in fear and submission - agreeing to do all that G-d has charged them to do. And voila! Now you have a covenant between G-d and the Jewish people. It’s all pretty clear right? Or is it? If you had asked me a few years ago, I would have said case-closed, let’s move on. However, if we look deeper into the text of the portion, we find a far more complicated reality. 

One of my favorite Bible teachers at JTS, Dr. Benjamin Sommer, likes to say that all good theology begins with grammar. Little by little, I have come to see his point. This parasha is filled with grammatical peculiarities and linguistic ambiguities that trouble our understanding of the text that we were taught in day school, or Sunday school, at camp, or in our own private study. Let’s start with the linguistic ambiguities and work our way up to the grammar. 

In Yitro, the Hebrew world qol plays an outsized role in the narrative. As those with a bit of modern Hebrew will recall, this word means “voice,” “sound,” or “noise.” In Biblical Hebrew, qol, additionally, can translate as “thunder.” It just so happens that in this portion, the word qol is mentioned no fewer than 9 times. The first three times the word appears, it is used in a somewhat expected way to indicate the voice of a human or the voice of G-d. However, the next six appearances of the word qol take place during the climactic event of the giving of Torah. In the matter of a few sentences, we travel from the typical, every-day world of our ancestral narrative to an awe-filled scene in which Moses and the Israelites witness a wild display of earthquakes, lightning, smoke, and fire as G-d descends on a mountain to deliver Torah. As if to signify the sheer overwhelming quality of this event, the text goes through the multiplicity of meanings for qol in quick succession. 

In Exodus 19:16, early in the verse, qol indicates “thunder,” whereas later in the verse, when the word reappears, it clearly represents the “blaring” of the shofar. In Exodus 19:19, the first instance of qol refers to the “sound” of the shofar yet again, but at the end of the verse, surprisingly, the qol appears to be the actual voice of G-d speaking in response to Moses, or as it says in the Hebrew - מֹשֶׁ֣ה יְדַבֵּ֔ר וְהָאֱלֹהִ֖ים יַעֲנֶ֥נּוּ בְקֽוֹל. It is worth taking an extra moment here. 

This verse - מֹשֶׁ֣ה יְדַבֵּ֔ר וְהָאֱלֹהִ֖ים יַעֲנֶ֥נּוּ בְקֽוֹל - has historically been translated a couple of different ways. According to the JPS Tanakh, this verse is translated as “Moses spoke, and G-d answered him in thunder.” This translation gives us a sense that revelation is not a straightforward endeavor. Rather, it is cryptic and requires Moses’ interpretation. Contrarily, the famous King James translation renders the verse as “Moses spake, and G-d answered him in a voice.” This interpretation establishes that G-d speaks in a clear voice - presumably one that the humans can hear and understand. Both interpretations are plausible, and given the ever-shifting meaning of qol in this section of Exodus, it seems as if this ambiguity is encouraged. Maybe G-d spoke in a clear direct voice, or maybe G-d spoke in some mysterious way through thunder. 

Moving on, in Exodus 20:15, we get the final two examples of qol in the portion. After G-d has given Israel the 10 commandments, qol is presented at the end of the verse as the “blaring” of the shofar, while at the beginning of the verse, it is written in the plural - qolot. What is more, the verse says וְכָל־הָעָם֩ רֹאִ֨ים אֶת־הַקּוֹלֹ֜ת - Apparently, the Israelites see these qolot with their own eyes. So what exactly is qol? Thunder? Shofar? The voice of G-d? A mixed multitude of voices/sounds/thunders? I don’t know about you, but I barely know what to make of this.  It is as if the experience of receiving Torah is such an overwhelming event that the physical senses of the text become crossed, producing a vivid rush of sensory synesthesia. I must admit, as a rabbinical student, this unsettles me. What am I to make of this qol? It forces me to ask the question, “What exactly did the people hear and witness at Sinai?” As if these questions weren’t complicated enough, the grammar surrounding this revelation moment further complicates our picture.

In the portion, it is not only unclear what kind of qolot Moses and the Israelites hear/encounter, it is also unclear whether the Israelites hear that qol at all. Now, before you run me out of Ammud, let’s unpack just one of the instances that points to this. In Exodus 19:25-20:1 we find the following:

 וַיֵּ֥רֶד מֹשֶׁ֖ה אֶל־הָעָ֑ם וַיֹּ֖אמֶר אֲלֵהֶֽם׃ 20 1 וַיְדַבֵּ֣ר אֱלֹהִ֔ים אֵ֛ת כָּל־הַדְּבָרִ֥ים הָאֵ֖לֶּה לֵאמֹֽר׃ אָֽנֹכִ֖י֙ יְהוָ֣ה אֱלֹהֶ֑֔יךָ

These verses are typically translated as “ Moses went down to the people, and said to them. 

And G-d spoke all these words, saying, open quote I am Adonai your G-d...” 

This translation makes a fair amount of sense given the presence of the word   לֵאמֹֽר - “saying” which acts like a quotation mark in biblical Hebrew. However, if we go back to the beginning of Exodus 19:25 and slowwwwwww downnnnnn our reading, we realize something strange. 

Moses does not actually speak after the text says “Moses said to them...”! Instead, the narrative jumps from Moses’ perspective to G-d’s, and then G-d suddenly begins delivering what we now know as the 10 commandments. This. Is. Strange. To put it another way, imagine that you are reading a good novel and the narrator sets up a character quote only to interrupt the quote with another set-up quote. The result would be a narrative mess, not to mention a bad book review. 

I don’t think this grammatical oddity is a coincidence. 

Rather, I want to suggest that in the same way that the portion presents multiple, ambiguous interpretations of the word qol, so too, the text opens up the possibility for multiple readings of this verse. Put more sharply,  maybe it is G-d who speaks the 10 commandments to the Israelites, or maybe, it is Moses who comes down from the mountain and says to the people “G-d spoke all these words, saying ‘I am Adonai your G-d.” In this latter case, Moses interprets all of the 10 commandments on behalf of the Israelites, who possibly don’t even hear a word of the revelation. Just as there are many ambiguous interpretations for the word qol throughout the passage, so too both readings of this verse are possible.

Now, I’m sure some of you might be thinking, “Not so fast, Kendell! Aren’t there other portions in the Torah that settle this question over whether the people heard G-d or not?!” Well, yes and no. But we’ll need a couple of hours and many drinks to go through that. But if we limit our discussion to what we see here in Yitro, and think about these ambiguities of meaning that we encounter, what are we to make of it?

Did G-d speak to the Israelites or not? Did G-d speak in a “human like” voice, or thunder, or via some other medium? How is it that we can take all of this uncertainty that is written in this Exodus account of revelation and make it into something that is at once aligned with our tradition and is also honest to the text? To suggest one possibility, by emphasizing the ambiguity of what it is that our ancestors and forebearers heard at Sinai, maybe the text is encouraging us to embrace the uncertainty of “what” was said on the one hand, while holding onto the certainty that something was experienced on the other hand.  In a world where so many peoples are absolutely certain that they know and understand the voice of G-d and thus act in ways that are unbecoming of holy community, maybe the text is signaling to us that we should endeavor to walk a path that holds fast to the true religious experience of what happened at Sinai, while also acknowledging that our predecessors were human, and they might have been limited in understanding the fullness of what was revealed to them in that overwhelming, divine moment. And that reality should encourage us to be humble in how we go about using the name of G-d to justify our actions, to claim that our way of seeing things is the absolute right way, or to discredit the faith systems of other peoples. 

So why am I going on and on in such a potentially overwrought way? I’m glad you asked. First, yitro  is my favorite parasha, can’t you tell?! Secondly, and more importantly, in the coming weeks, we will have the opportunity to “hear the voices” of many different folks from our community and how they “take hold” of Torah. Some views might be challenging to us. Others might chafe in unexpected ways. My hope is that we will find a way to listen with open ears and open hearts to the Torah of others, just in the same way that we hope that they will listen to our Torah. This at once is a theology committed to tradition and to humility. What is more, this is a theology worthy of this community.

When I was young, I was certain that I knew G-d’s voice. Now, I am not so sure. And funnily enough, I think that I’ve become a better Jew because of it.

Kendell Pinkney is the Rabbinic Fellow at Ammud: The Jews of Color Torah Academy