Torah is a closed book

until it is read with an open heart

It is not a mystery far beyond our reach

It is as close to us as we allow it....

Weave its text into the texture of your life.

The Ten Utterances, Aseret Hadibrot, commonly known to the world as The Ten Commandments, was read on Shabbat Yitro, the portion in the Torah named after Moshe's (Moses') father-in-law, a non-Jewish priest who was one of the most righteous personages in the Torah.

As the rabbi so eloquently explained, the Revelation at Har Sinai (Mt. Sinai) was comprised of three interrelated events, not only the single event as is commonly understood with trumpets blaring and thunder cracking as the people stood at the bottom of the mountain and heard the word of G-d.

The essence of our experience at Mt. Sinai is G-d's making a Covenant, a Partnership-Vow with us as a nation and with each of us individually and for all time, and within the intimacy of this relationship revealing the Torah to us, promising that G-d's teachings are and always will be true and just.

The Talmudic rabbis and fifteenth century Kabbalists knew that an event of this magnitude could not be comprehended by description alone. They understood that the deeper meaning of what occurred at Sinai could best be evoked and apprehended through the resonance of metaphor. They envisioned G-d's relationship with us and our relationship with G-d as the marriage between G-d, the Bridegroom, and us, the Jewish people, the Bride.

Therefore, the complete Revelation to the Jewish people begins before the Big Ten. G-d begins our relationship together by expressing this as a betrothal. G-d "coaxes" us to enter this betrothal with G-d by professing G-d's great love and caring for us, much as a man might court his fiancee.

"You have seen what I did to Egypt, how I bore you on eagles' wings and brought you to Me.

Now, then, if you obey Me faithfully and keep my Brit (Covenant), that is, I, G-d am creating this Partnership, this marriage, with you and if you will be faithful to Me--so that you and I will be bound in love--you shall be My treasured possession...."(Sh'mot/Exodus Chapter 19, verses 4--6)

The next phase is the "Marriage" itself. Mt. Sinai is the "Wedding Ceremony and Reception," the consecration of the Jewish people to G-d. As the rules and conditions are laid out in the ketubbah (the wedding contract that spells out the duties a bridegroom has to his bride), the rules and obligations are laid out for the Jewish people, beginning at this juncture with the Aseret Hadibrot.

The third phase of this "Marriage," this consecration, is G-d helping us, the Jewish people, digest and understand what has just happened to us. G-d knows we are at a very "high" place, having been part of this miraculous experience with G-d. We are "deeply in love" and G-d knows that this is the right time to reiterate Who G-d is by reminding us of what G-d has done for us. Since we are feeling so "intimate" and "loving," G-d knows this is the perfect time; that we, the Jewish people, are the most receptive to G-d's defining G-d to us through a stern negative command once again: "You have seen that I have spoken to you from heaven. Do not make a representation of anything that is with Me. Do not make silver or gold gods for yourselves." (Sh'mot/Exodus Chapter 20, verses 19--20)