Exodus 20:15

וְכׇל־הָעָם֩ רֹאִ֨ים אֶת־הַקּוֹלֹ֜ת וְאֶת־הַלַּפִּידִ֗ם וְאֵת֙ ק֣וֹל הַשֹּׁפָ֔ר וְאֶת־הָהָ֖ר עָשֵׁ֑ן וַיַּ֤רְא הָעָם֙ וַיָּנֻ֔עוּ וַיַּֽעַמְד֖וּ מֵֽרָחֹֽק׃

All the people saw the thunder and lightning, the blare of the horn and the mountain smoking; and when the people saw it, they fell back and stood at a distance.

From this verse, Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Kotzk taught a powerful lesson. This verse appears immediately after the Ten Commandments and seems unnecessary. Earlier in the chapter, the Torah already described the thunder and lightning, the sound of the shofar, and the overwhelming experience at Sinai. Why, then, does the Torah repeat that the people saw and heard these things? How could they possibly have missed them?

The Kotzker Rebbe explains that the verse is not merely telling us what the Israelites saw, but what they only saw. Human beings, he teaches, tend to perceive at a surface level while missing the deeper meaning. Even at the peak moment of revelation, the giving of the ten commandments, the people still perceived only the external phenomena: the sounds, the sights, the lightning, and the thunder.

If this was true at the height of revelation, how much more so in our ordinary lives. How often do we miss what lies beneath the surface, distracted by appearances and externalities? There are the words people say, and then there is what they are truly trying to communicate. A person’s outward appearance may reveal little about who they are within. The world around us is filled with wonder, yet our eyes are often too hurried to perceive it.