{"id":46266,"date":"2018-12-23T18:29:04","date_gmt":"2018-12-23T16:29:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=46266"},"modified":"2022-07-17T16:09:54","modified_gmt":"2022-07-17T13:09:54","slug":"a-listening-silence-in-the-soul","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/a-listening-silence-in-the-soul\/","title":{"rendered":"A Listening Silence In The Soul"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"entry-content\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":50634,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[354,410],"acf":{"old_id":"46266","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":33923,"related_cahpter":"118","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"Why the Torah was given in the desert: several suggestions","content":"<p style=\"direction: ltr;\">The opening section of the Book of Numbers \/ Bamidbar is usually read on the Shabbat before Shavuot. So the sages connected the two. Shavuot is the time of the giving of the Torah. \u201cBamidbar\u201d means, \u201cIn the desert.\u201d What then is the connection between the desert and the Torah, the wilderness and God\u2019s word?<\/p>\n<p style=\"direction: ltr;\">The sages gave several interpretations. According to the Mekhilta the Torah was given publicly, openly and in a place no one owns because had it been given in the land of Israel, Jews would have said to the nations of the world, \u201cYou have no share in it.\u201d Instead, whoever wants to come and accept it, let them come and accept it.<\/p>\n<p style=\"direction: ltr;\">Another explanation: Had the Torah been given in Israel the nations of the world would have had an excuse for not accepting it. This follows the rabbinic tradition that before God gave the Torah to the Israelites he offered it to all the other nations and each found a reason to decline.<\/p>\n<p style=\"direction: ltr;\">Yet another: Just as the wilderness is free \u2013 it costs nothing to enter \u2013 so the Torah is free. It is God\u2019s gift to us.<\/p>\n<p style=\"direction: ltr;\">But there is another, more spiritual reason. The desert is a place of silence. There is nothing visually to distract you, and there is no ambient noise to muffle sound. To be sure, when the Israelites received the Torah, there was thunder and lightning and the sound of a shofar. The earth felt as if it were shaking at its foundations. But in a later age, when the prophet Elijah stood at the same mountain after his confrontation with the prophets of Baal, he encountered God not in the whirlwind or the fire or the earthquake but in the \u201c<i>kol demamah dakah<\/i>,\u201d the still, small voice, literally \u201cthe sound of a slender silence.\u201d I define this as the sound you can only hear if you are listening. In the silence of the midbar, the desert, you can hear the Medaber, the Speaker, and the medubar, that which is spoken.<\/p>\n<p style=\"direction: ltr;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">To hear the voice of God you need a listening silence in the soul.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"direction: ltr;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">From: <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Sound of Silence (Covenant &amp; Conversation, Bamidbar 5776)<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n","image":{"ID":106483,"id":106483,"title":"-62d40a117b4b5--62d40a117b4b6num1-meditation 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