ספר דברים

Deuteronomy 28,1. “it will be if you will meticulously ‎hearken to the voice of the Lord your G’d, etc;” ‎‎[Our author zeroes in on the meaning of “the voice,” ‎seeing that we do not all merit hearing G’d’s voice speaking to us. ‎‎” Ed.]‎We can understand this verse better when we recall a ‎statement of our sages in Chagigah 15 that a heavenly echo ‎emanating from Mount Chorev (Sinai) is heard daily calling on ‎the sinners to return to G’d in penitence.‎In accordance with the Talmud there, every individual Jew, ‎according to his spiritual level, is able to hear this voice in ‎accordance with Megillah 3 where we are told that once ‎when Daniel (Daniel 10,7) describes himself as meriting a heavenly ‎vision, one that his companions were unable to see, [his ‎companions being the prophets Zecharyah, Chagai and Maleachi, ‎who were unable to share this vision with him. Ed.] ‎Nonetheless, according to Daniel’s own testimony, these three ‎prophets were overcome by a great fear all of a sudden at that ‎very time. In examining this phenomenon, the Talmud asks that ‎if those prophets were not shown the vision why were they ‎overcome by such an unreasoning fright? They answer that ‎although they personally did not see the vision their ‎‎mazzal, (alter ego in the celestial spheres) saw it. The ‎Talmud uses this example to prove that when some of us are ‎sometimes overcome by sudden weakness bordering on ‎unconsciousness, this may be an indication that our alter-egos ‎have heard or seen a heavenly message. Our sages whom we ‎quoted in Chagigah claim that every person does possess ‎such an alter ego in the celestial spheres, one that is privy to ‎hearing G’d’s voice, the exception being Acher, i.e. elisha ‎ben avuyah famous for having become an apostate although at ‎one time being a close friend of Rabbi Akiva. He himself told Rabbi ‎Meir, who asked him to become a penitent, that his alter ego had ‎heard in heaven that his penitence would not be accepted. What ‎matters to us in all this is that penitence is something that must ‎not be put off. We must act as if we had been invited to become ‎penitents with the implication that our repentance will be ‎welcomed by G’d, and therefore we must not “wait” for a second ‎invitation. According to Devarim Rabbah 7,3 the ‎קול‎, ‎‎“voice,” which the Israelites must hearken to if they want to ‎become recipients of all of G’d’s promises is this heavenly echo ‎calling us to become penitents. The introductory word ‎והיה‎ in ‎that verse, alludes to the joy which will result from listening of ‎G’d’s instructions.