Commentaire de citation sur Les Psaumes 68:12

There is yet another lesson contained in these words. "If you will listen carefully and thus prepare yourselves to hear My voice, I, G'd, will allow you to hear My voice, i.e. I will not address you merely through an agent." G'd also hinted that while the Israelites prepared themselves to listen to a single שמיעה, audition, they would find themselves hearing additional auditions, תשמעון, as a reward for having "tuned in" to the Lord. We find that David alluded to something along these lines in Psalms 68,12 where he said: "G'd gives a single command; the ones who bring the news tell about a host of things." As a result of the quality of one's listening, the souls of the Jewish people would "draw upon" living waters, wisdom and insights. The Torah urges the Israelites to tune in so that what they would hear would be of maximum benefit and would be retained in their memories. This is the additional dimension of the words ושמרתם את בריתי, "you will observe My covenant" as a result of having listened בקולי, to My voice directly, instead of merely to the voice of Moses or another human being. Shir Hashirim Rabbah chapter 1 on the line ישקני מנשיקות פיהו, states that any Torah one has learned from a human being is apt to be forgotten. Not so Torah which one has learned from G'd Himself.

To your points of silver: Oral Torah is emanated from the written and it sustains her, just as the spirit upholds the body. Thus written Torah has been compared to points [nekudot], since the vowels [nekudot] function among the consonants like the spirit in the body, as our sages say.⁵⁵See Ecclesiastes Rabbah 8:11, where R. Haninah interprets Zach. 12:1 “God created [yatzar] humanity’s spirit within it” as meaning that the spirit has been tied or bound up within the body in order to animate. See Chavel (cited on page 10 of the editor’s note above), note 39 ad locum. Both Torahs, oral and written, were given through the shekhinah as they state in the Midrash to Psalms, “The Lord gives a command; the women who bring the news are a great host” [Ps. 68:12].⁵⁶Concerning this verse, the Midrash states: “As for the Holy One, blessed be He, His name and might, when He declaims in enunciated speech, the sound is divided into seven voices.” Divine speech creates the cosmogenerative septet ranging from ḥesed to the shekhinah. However, it only becomes audible, giving rise to the differentiated cosmos and producing prophetic discourse through the aegis of the shekhinah, the final rung in the chain of divine being. From here it is clear that the innermost voice was not differentiated and rendered audible until it reached the end of the chain of emanation, the tenth sefirah.
Of this Scripture says: “They dance about, dance about; the beautiful one of the house divides the spoils” [Ps. 86:13].
Now you have to know that which is taught in the Tractate Berakhot⁵⁷b. Berakhot 6b.: “Whoever partakes of a wedding-feast and does not make the bridegroom rejoice transgresses five ‘voices,’ as Scripture says: ‘The voice of gladness, the voice of joy, the voice of bridegroom and the voice of bride, a voice saying “Praise to the Lord”’ [Jer. 33:11], and so forth. And if one does give joy to the bridegroom, what is his reward? He attains Torah, which was given with five ‘voices,’ as its says: ‘It was morning on the third day and there were thunderings⁵⁸The term for “thunder” and “sound” throughout this passage is kol, the same as “voice” in the Jeremiah passage. The thunderbolts are the “voice” of God as Torah is given. From the reading of the Jeremiah passage it appears that the five “voices” are the five lower sefirot from tiferet to malkhut, or from bridegroom to bride. … and the sound of the shofar …’ [Exod. 19:16]. ‘There was the sound of the shofar … and God responded in thunder’ [Exod. 19:19].” Is it true that there are five? Does it not also say: “And all the people saw the thunderbolts?” [Exod. 20:18].⁵⁹This might mean there were six or seven, thus breaking the parallel of five (wedding shouts) to five (Torah-sounds). Sinai is frequently depicted in the Midrash as the marriage of God and Israel. Those had already occurred previously.
Here they spoke of five voices. But we have also noted seven voices, those mentioned by King David in the Psalm [29]: “Render unto the Lord, O sons of gods!” Our sages have said that the divine Word was divided into seven voices.⁶⁰Shemot Rabbah 28, end.
In the Mekhilta [to Exod. 15:26] it says: “If you surely listen to the voice of the Lord your God.” These are the ten commandments, given from mouth to mouth by ten voices.
Now you attune your ear and listen to my words, so that the words of the sages be fulfilled. That which Moses and all Israel attained on that occasion, when they saw eye to eye, was only five voices, no more. That is why they forced Rabbi Helbo to admit that “And all the people saw the thunderbolts” referred to previously heard voices. These five are the totality. Moses asked to attain more, but was not answered. These five voices contain all seven extensions of space.⁶¹North, east, south, west, up, down, and inward. These will be associated below with the seven lower sefirot. From them are derived the seventy divine names that are appointed over the seventy nations. Together with the innermost voice they comprise seventy-one. That innermost voice split [into seventy] as it addressed the seventy nations. Every nation heard the Word, and that is the “great voice that did not cease” [Deut. 5:19]. All this is compared to a hammer, whose power is one but which fragments the rock into multiple pieces. So the totality of all is five voices, their specification is seven, except for the innermost voice, parallel to the singular nation. Of this it says: “A great voice that did not cease.” But the one who refers to ten voices holds fast to the highest total, that of the ten sefirot. All these lead in the same direction, having been “given by a single shepherd” [Eccles. 12:11].

"The Lord gives the word," etc.; each and every utterance. etc. divided into seventy languages, etc.: This is so as not to give to the nations of the world, an opening to complain in the future: If we had it heard it in our language, we would have accepted it. And he brings it from the verse that is written (Psalms 68:12), "The Lord gives the word" - meaning one utterance gives tidings to "a great host," to all of the nations. And a sage of the school of Rabbi Yishmael brought it from the verse that is written (Jeremiah 23:29), "like a hammer that shatters a rock, etc." See about this in the words of Tosafot in the chapter [entitled] Echad Dinei Mammonot and here; and in our novellae there.