Alef Sounds
SIEGEL, DANNY
ALEF SOUNDS DANNY SIEGEL Pharaoh's army lay dead beneath the Red Sea. A few days before, plague upon plague had shattered the Oppressor amid a spectacle of miracles such as had not been since...
...We are pleased to share this piece, which speaks of the Revelation at Sinai, in celebration of Shavuot...
...The Children of Israel were so overwhelmed with memories that were so nearly unbelievable, they would have to pause, to gather their tales, to set them right for their descendants, for all time...
...In articulating His Torah, He chose to draw from the deepest reaches of the N'shamah to announce a new relationship...
...There, at the foot of the mountain, in the Wilderness of Sinai, Moses would tell them that God so treasured them, He would speak unforgettable truths for all to hear...
...They would need time to consider Revelation, to prepare themselves for another mammoth display of God's power...
...Elijah must have stumbled and* grasped for something to hold, to steady himself...
...But God was not in the storm...
...A letter with no sound...
...Did they not still hear the screams of every Egyptian mother, bewailing the death of her firstborn child...
...God was easing His people into Revelations that would soothe them and haunt them and give them a wiU-to-survive far beyond the stretches of human expectation...
...And the Kaddish—words and more words—would impress upon us how He is beyond all verbal blessings and songs and poems...
...Surely all heaven and earth would shake for God's message...
...First was a storm that shattered the boulders all around the prophet...
...And yet another silence: Elijah would be called to another place called the Mountain of God...
...Even the Seraph-angels ceased their songs of Holy Holy Holy...
...A silence such as was heard at Sinai that First Shavuot had not been heard since the moment before God spoke light into existence...
...Then-—silence...
...We would read Psalms and learn that Silence is praise...
...And then there was a universe, and creatures, and an Image to assume...
...When he hears that sound, he will know it is time to lead the Mashiach to God's treasured People...
...Had not the Nile turned to blood...
...Then there was a quaking of the earth...
...A few days before, plague upon plague had shattered the Oppressor amid a spectacle of miracles such as had not been since Creation itself...
...There God would appear to him...
...After die pause...
...Because of an Aleph the world would be forever different...
...inspire awesome feelings...
...We are told that Elijah sits beside the Throne of God, scanning eternity, listening for that unique sound, the whisper which is the sigh of the Holy One...
...And yet, God was not in the earthquake, nor in the fire that followed...
...The wailing of Shofars was a sign that the moment was approaching...
...Had they not seen hailstones the size of barrels crush the wheat of the land...
...The mountain itself was rather modest, that was true...
...But there was thunder and lightning, fire and smoke, and Moses— the Jew who brought Pharaoh begging to his door—disappearing on the slopes, into the mist...
...Then there was a delicate stillness, and in this stillness was the Presence of the Lord...
...With a vowel, an "Ah," a halfword, a root-sound resonating with sighs, moans, intense sobs that would echo for centimes upon centuries...
...Three days they had prepared themselves for the Words, the few Words that would bind them forever to their God...
...Anochi...
...The cattle ceased bellowing, the sheep were hushed, and infants, still hungry for milk, were not heard to cry...
...God was identifying Himself to His Jews with an Aleph, a near-inaudible essence not unlike the sound before the cry-of-life of the dead...
...Silences would be studied for generations...
...And then the Manna fell from heaven, and water sprang from a rock, and a new enemy—Amalek—was brought to its knees by Joshua's sword...
...Until then, there was silence to the ends of a chaotic Nowhere...
...After these events, the Book of Exodus assumes a slower pace, a quieter tone...
...Thus did God speak, "Ah"—an Aleph...
...Bialik would teach us their richness...
...it did not have the breathtaking grandeur mountains were supposed to have...
...Not a single bird chirped or cawed, nor did any fly, lest the fluttering of wings disturb the stillness...
...Sinai did not Danny Siegel, a contributing editor of moment, is the author of two volumes of poetry...
...Heschel would remind us of the wonders of the ineffable, and Wiesel would tell us of other silences...
Vol. 3 • June 1978 • No. 7
