Deuteronomy 30:14

כִּֽי־קָר֥וֹב אֵלֶ֛יךָ הַדָּבָ֖ר מְאֹ֑ד בְּפִ֥יךָ וּבִֽלְבָבְךָ֖ לַעֲשֹׂתֽוֹ׃

No, the thing is very close to you, in your mouth and in your heart, to observe it.

Where is Torah? Seems like a strange question to ask, because we know where it comes from. We read about Mount Sinai and the Torah’s being given from God. We read about Moses’ forty days on that mountain as he wrote down the words of this book. All of a sudden, we are told in this verse that none of that was necessary. The Torah was closer than we thought all along: in our mouths and in our hearts. How could it be that Torah was in our hearts, yet we’re told this grand story about Mount Sinai?

In Our Passover Haggadah, as part of Dayenu  we say a curious phrase: “God, if you had brought us forth to Mount Sinai, and not given us the Torah, that would have been enough.” Really? It would seem awkward to all arrive at Mount Sinai and not be given the Torah. The Kedushat Levi teaches a beautiful interpretation of this. It would have been enough to just be at Mount Sinai because the power of that space opened up our hearts in such a way that we could have deduced Torah for ourselves. The actual giving of the Torah was secondary. Just being at Mount Sinai was enough to open the hearts of those present to discover the Torah within. There are special times and auspicious places that open us up to the truths that lay in our heart. The hope is that we can achieve even a fraction of this heart-opening during these upcoming High Holy Days. Indeed this is an auspicious time, and if we are ready and willing to let the liturgy, the melodies, the sound of the shofar, the feeling of these holidays into our hearts, we may find that as our hearts open to let them in, the inner truth that lies within may be discovered.