ALIVE, Chapter 70 Ahhhh Torah!


Perambula and Gracefeld were hovering in the heavens on a perfectly beautiful day, which is common since there is no nighttime there at all, but let’s pretend. It was their time off as Israel was busy being scared out of their wits by the smoky mountain and the thunderous trumpeting bellows from God which He did Himself without the assistance of Gracefeld’s skill in creating sound effects.


“Do you know what the Lord is going to tell them to do?” asked Perambula.


“Yes, we discussed it.” replied Gracefeld in the angel’s most condescending tone.


Ignoring the slightly rancid whiff of arrogance, Perambula said, “Well, what? After all, so many of them are already old and set in their ways. What can the Lord expect?”


“My dear naive Perambula, these souls are mere seeds. The Lord will treat them as the infants they are, but more importantly He speaks to every man to be born from now to Kingdom Come.” replied Gracefeld.


“Kingdom come?” asked Perambula.


“Don’t ask. It’s too soon to explain it to you. Just know that these instructions will illuminate and define the path to immortality.”


“Will they know that?”


“The sages will. Some will thrive on the guidance, others will rebel against it, still others will be challenged by it and others will feel threatened by these simple, albeit obvious rules. Some will see freedom through the Commandments, others will see constraints.”


“Can’t the Lord of all just make sure everyone understands the purpose and value of these Laws?”


“NO, NO, NO” retorted Gracefeld getting impatient with Perambula’s simplicity.


“Okay, you don’t have to snap at me. I was just asking a question.” replied wincing Perambula. “Let’s get back to work, I don’t want to miss this.”


Aaron and Moses carefully climbed Mt. Sinai together in silence, dodging rocks to avoid tripping and falling. Each old man was thinking his own thoughts about what to expect, and about the difficulty of the climb. Some parts were so steep that it was hard to catch one’s breath. Aaron stayed behind Moses. The intense dry heat made it even harder to climb. God waited and watched patiently as the exhausted elderly brothers drew near.


The people stood in their pack patiently below, while Moses and Aaron approached the thick darkness, not daring to go beyond the limit set for them. Some not daring to look up as the old men made their way to God, until the two dissolved into tiny specks. There was murmuring below, but fear kept most of the people, except the oblivious children, from becoming boisterous.


Hours passed before the elderly brothers reached the spot where they could receive the commands of God. Like receiving instruction on how to breath, or how to make your heart beat, or how to digest your food and sort the elements of it into nutrients to send to the bloodstream, so did Moses, with Aaron as the witness, receive from God almighty instructions on how to exist, and coexist in a world constantly threatened by evil.


Dear reader, imagine a factory where the maker and the made interact. So fantastic and magnificent was this moment, the moment wrapped in time, yet outside of time so as to challenge every flesh-wrapped soul that ever graces our earth. To be told, like an ancient secret, the Will of God, for the very first time, is to hear the echo of “Let there be light.”


Thousands of angel eyes and angels ears witnessed this moment and were in awe that their God cared so much about   humankind that He would not give up, but time and time again interact with this divine animal to form it, to mould it, to teach it. Why, to what end all this effort? A blazing bonfire from which only a candle here and there will be lit.


Aaron stood at a distance away, frightened to the point of numbness. While Moses faced the sound of God, afraid but reverent. Moses stood straight and tall, like an ancient soldier. The babe of a slave who had grown up with mighty Pharaoh as his stepfather was fully prepared to be fathered by God. In fact Moses was visited with a sense of nostalgia every time he approached the Lord.


Moses heard clearly God say:


  1. I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me.
  2. I am a jealous God, you shall not make for yourself an idol, that you would bow down and worship. I will punish to the third and fourth generation of those who reject me, but show love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commands.
  3. Do not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God.
  4. Remember the Sabbath and keep it Holy. The seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. The Lord blessed the Sabbath day and consecrated it.
  5. Honor your father and your mother so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord is giving you.
  6. You shall not murder.
  7. You shall not commit adultery.
  8. You shall not steal.
  9. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
  10. You shall not covet your neighbor’s house, or wife, or slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.


The Lord God bellowed these instructions consecutively without hesitating between them. Moses and Aaron could hardly remember them all but went from listening to one and the next without the opportunity to pause and reflect. The ones that pierced each brother’s soul the most were those that he felt most guilty of.


Silence followed the admonition to be grateful for what one has and to look neither to the left nor to the right with envy, something that was so unlikely for these nomads that the mention of it was absurd. This last rule relieved Aaron who was glad of his innocence on this one point.


For the giver of the Law, that which is wrong is illegal. It is a false measure, it is a broken clock, worthless, and destructive. It is poison. To disobey, which resulted in death and curses to Adam, likewise means the death of sin to his seed. With his disobedience Adam was banished from utopia, and with disobedience his seed is unable to return.


“Is that all, my Lord,” asked Moses to break the silence.


“That’s enough for now. Go and tell my people these basic precepts. There will be more. Hurry down this mountain for the sun will be setting soon, and I won’t delay that for you. Go! But Moses...”


“Yes, my Lord?!”


“Return without Aaron and I will write this down for you.”


Moses and Aaron were quite relieved to hear that as they bowed and departed down the steep mountain in the sunset as quickly as their stiff legs could take them.


While the two men carefully made their way down Perambula who had been listening intently to the rules turned to Gracefeld and said, “Correct me if I am wrong Gracefeld, but did the Lord just say the same thing ten times?”


Gracefeld replied, “You are not wrong. He just said the same things from ten different perspectives. Brilliant!”


Both angels looked at each other and said simultaneously, “Respect Reality!” Then they shared a hearty laugh and the thought of how simple and obvious the Rule was. Gracefeld added, “Now let’s watch them complicate it and disobey in a thousand different ways.” Perambula nodded with a smirk.


Meanwhile, the people below saw only lightening and heard loud peels of thunder and trumpets. They saw smoke billowing out of the mountaintop. In an attempt to endure the fear they remembered Moses say, “Do not be afraid for God has come only to test you and to put the fear of Him upon you so that you do not sin.”


But they didn’t yet know what sin was. Hours and hours passed as the sun was setting behind Sinai, but the congregation still waited patiently for Moses and Aaron to return to tell them what they had to do to satisfy the thunder.

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