Synchronous Sin and Synesthesia at Sinai
The Biblical text describing the Revelation at Mount Sinai includes a strange phrase (Exodus 20:15) which can be literally translated as "The entire people saw the thunder and the flames and the sound of the shofar..." In this talk, we'll explore the understanding of this verse from a range of Jewish text sources including the Midrash, the Zohar, an ancient Aramaic translation, and several of the classic commentators. Some of these texts align well with the perceptual phenomenon of synesthesia, literally "joined senses." People with synesthesia involuntarily experience stimulation of one sensory pathway when another is triggered, e.g., seeing images when sounds are detected. We'll learn about a few famous synesthetes and draw our own conclusions about whether or not collective synesthesia occurred at Sinai.
Jack Shlachter is a physicist who worked at Los Alamos National Laboratory for over thirty years with much briefer stints at Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York, the Atomic Energy Agency, and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization, the latter two based in Vienna, Austria. In parallel, Jack was ordained as a rabbi in 1995. He was the rabbi and spiritual leader for the Jewish congregation in Los Alamos for many years, was the rabbi in Center Moriches, NY, during his years at Brookhaven, and now serves as rabbi of HaMakom, a congregation in Santa Fe, NM as well as the Los Alamos Jewish Center. He has also provided itinerant rabbinic support to far-flung Jewish communities including those in Vienna, Beijing, Warsaw, Bangkok, and Guatemala City.
