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consider the opening verse of the Torah – “In the beginning God in conferring the appropriate blessings or curses on the Jewish people
created the heavens and the earth” – an all-encompassing utterance. in the future.
Thus, according to the Oral Torah, which was given along with the The second day of creation describes God’s creation of the firmament
Written Torah, the world was created with ten utterances; Divine in the midst of the waters and His separation of the upper and lower
speech is quite literally the instrument of creation.
waters. In Ha’azinu’s second verse Moses compares his words to
Another permutation of the letters of “bereishit” creates the various types of precipitation that descend from the heavens and to
formulation “shir ta’av” (a song of desire). This permutation alludes dew which comes from below: “May my teaching drop like the rain,
to an enigmatic Midrashic statement: “God had a passion to have for may my speech flow like the dew; like storm winds on the grass, like
Himself a dwelling place in the lower worlds” (Midrash Tanchuma, raindrops on the herbs” (Deuteronomy 32:2). Rashi, explaining the
Naso 16). The world, the product of Divine song, is mysteriously the connection between precipitation and Moses’ teachings, notes that
object of God’s desire, for He wishes to dwell in it, in the lower worlds. just as rain brings the vegetable kingdom to life, the Torah’s words
Thus, this permutation alludes to one of the reasons God created the imbue human beings with life.
world.
Ha’azinu’s third verse proclaims: “When I call upon the name
The Rabbis considered writing a Torah the last of the 613 of God; give greatness to our God” (Deuteronomy 32:3). This verse
commandments. The Torah and creation begin with “the song of the reminds us that our prayers bring the life-giving rains, which are
father,” “the song of the alef-beit,” “the song of longing,” while the symbolic of all spiritual and physical bounty. This message echoes
last commandment is to write the entire Torah, which the Torah what God taught man by creating vegetation on the third day of
defines as a song. Thus, the circle is complete. This fulfills what is creation but not allowing it to sprout until man was available to work
written in the Sefer Yetzirah (1:7), one of the oldest Kabbalistic the soil. Rashi explains that all the vegetation had been created, but
texts: “Their end is embedded in their beginning and their beginning it did not sprout above the earth’s surface until Adam was created.
in their end.” When Adam realized, as Rashi explains, that nothing would grow
without the rains, he began to pray for rain and God answered his
The Talmud teaches that people who sing the Torah that they
have learned will not forget it. Singing the Torah means to fully prayers by causing everything to grow.
integrate its teachings and wisdom into our hearts and minds. We Parenthetically, the symbiotic relationship between mankind,
must connect the Torah we learn to our most essential selves and not precipitation, and the earth is further emphasized by the following
treat Torah study as an intellectual pastime or pursuit. Singing our verses: “And a mist rose up from the earth and watered the face of
Torah connects its teachings to our deepest selves. the land. And God, God formed the man of dust from the ground.
And He blew into his nostrils the soul of life and man became a living
The essential thread connecting the Creator and the Torah (His
Divine instrument of creation) with all of creation is music. God being” (Genesis 2:6-7). According to Rashi, the aforementioned mist
wrote the musical score – the Torah – and gave it to humanity, so formed clouds that moistened the earth, creating the right mixture
that human beings could perceive the Divine symphony surrounding for man to be created from, much like a baker adds water to flour in
them. Ultimately, we must decide whether we wish to learn the notes, order to knead it into dough.
hear the music, and become partners with God in developing the The Shema’s second paragraph also describes how the reward for
harmony, or whether we wish to go about living our lives deaf to the doing God’s will is that the rains will fall in the appropriate season. The
beautiful symphony we call the universe. (This insight is discussed in rain’s power to facilitate the earth’s capability to sustain vegetation
The Mystical Power of Music, pp. 51-54.)

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