And Every Soul Heard the Voice: Shavuot, Revelation, and the Call to See Each Child Anew

Introduction: Between Exodus and Embrace

There is a journey woven through the Jewish calendar, a sacred path that begins in bondage and culminates in belonging. Pesach opens that journey with a cry: the anguished voice of a people in pain, a child who doesn’t yet know how to ask, a soul aching to be seen. It is the holiday of rescue, of being pulled from the depths by a hand that listens before it instructs. We celebrate not just freedom from Egypt, but freedom from invisibility, the moment when God heard our pain, and responded with love.

Sukkot, by contrast, arrives after the desert. It is the holiday of inclusion, of sitting side-by-side in a fragile shelter and rejoicing together, not because everything is perfect, but because we are together. With its Four Species and open-air dwellings, Sukkot teaches us that even when we’re still vulnerable, we can find holiness in each other’s presence. It’s about joy amid imperfection, unity through diversity, and embracing the whole community, including the ones who don’t look like they belong.

But Shavuot stands in the middle, quietly powerful. It does not begin with a cry or end with celebration. It is the moment of Revelation, the giving of Torah, not just to a nation, but to each soul. It is not merely a transmission of commandments. It is an act of communication, of being spoken to, and being seen. Every soul heard the Voice at Sinai, says the Midrash, each according to their strength. (Shemot Rabbah 5:9)

This is the heart of Shavuot: not just that Torah was given, but that it was given in a way each person could receive.

For parents, for educators, for those walking alongside struggling teens, this is not just a theological moment, it is a blueprint. Sinai teaches us that real guidance, real love, doesn’t begin with rules or expectations. It begins with presence. With speaking in a voice the other can hear. With seeing each soul not as a project to be fixed, but as a world waiting to be met.

If Pesach teaches us not to leave anyone behind, and Sukkot teaches us to celebrate every kind of soul, then Shavuot teaches us how: by giving Torah in a way that includes, invites, and elevates each individual, not in spite of their struggle, but precisely because of it.

Too often, Torah is misused as a measuring stick, to judge, to divide, to exclude. But Shavuot reminds us of its true purpose. The Torah is not a wall. It is a bridge. A voice that says: I see you. I believe in you. I am willing to speak in your language, to meet you where you are.

Because you matter. Because you are worthy. Because your soul, too, stood at Sinai.

II. Revelation in Relationship

The giving of the Torah was not just a national moment, it was an intimate one. The Midrash teaches that “Each person heard the Divine Voice according to their own strength” (Shemot Rabbah 5:9). Chazal emphasize that even though one voice emerged from Sinai, it splintered into seventy languages (Shabbat 88b), so that every soul could understand it personally. Revelation was not uniform, it was uniquely tailored. It wasn’t just about what was said. It was about how it was heard.

This has profound implications not just for our theology, but for our relationships, especially as parents, educators, and mentors. Torah wasn’t blasted from a mountaintop in one impersonal burst. It was whispered into each soul. It didn’t demand conformity. It offered connection.

The Torah we received at Sinai modeled differentiated guidance.

It is no accident that this same principle is reflected in the way we are taught to speak to our children. In the Haggadah, each child is addressed differently, the Wise, the Wicked, the Simple, and the Silent, not to label or divide them, but to honor their emotional reality. And in the Four Species of Sukkot, we are commanded to hold together all types, even the one who seems to lack Torah and good deeds, because without them, the mitzvah is incomplete.

Shavuot brings both teachings together. It reminds us that true Torah is never “one size fits all.” It must be delivered with sensitivity, with flexibility, with a deep commitment to the individual soul before us. If God Himself adjusted His voice so each person could hear, how much more so must we adjust our tone, our timing, our expectations, especially for children and teens who are struggling.

The Sfat Emet explains that Torah is not only a set of laws but a form of Divine light, uniquely refracted through each person’s soul. And the Zohar adds: “Torah must enter the heart, not just the mind.” (Zohar, Terumah 161a) A parent or teacher can share the most brilliant ideas, but if the heart is closed, nothing penetrates.

Many teens today, especially those labeled “at risk”, feel as though Torah is being shouted at them rather than offered to them. They are given expectations before they are given empathy. They are taught rules before they are shown relationship. And so they pull away, not because they hate Torah, but because they’ve never been seen in its name.

We must never forget that Torah is not a weapon. It is a lifeline, not forged in steel, but in compassion. It must be given in the same spirit it was first received: not as a demand, but as a gift. Not as an ultimatum, but as an embrace.

As Rav Kook writes in Orot HaTorah, “The Torah that comes from the soul must return to the soul. It must not be a yoke that crushes, but a song that awakens.”

For every child who has heard Torah used as criticism… for every teen who has felt judged instead of guided… Shavuot is our moment to start again.

To remember that Sinai was not about perfection. It was about presence. It was about a Voice that didn’t speak to the masses, but to each heart.

And it is our task, as parents, teachers, and community members, to become echoes of that voice.

III. The Role of the Parent as the New Har Sinai

Chazal teach that God chose Har Sinai, the smallest and most humble of mountains, for the giving of the Torah, to teach that greatness lies not in grandeur, but in humility (Sotah 5a). And perhaps the most powerful metaphor of all is this: the mountain itself became the platform through which God’s voice reached His children.

So too with us.

A parent is not just a teacher of Torah. A parent is a Har Sinai. A living platform through which a child hears their worth, or their shame. Their belovedness, or their rejection. Their place in Torah, or their exile from it.

The way we live, speak, and respond becomes the mountain upon which our children receive their own personal Torah.

And this is where it gets personal.

Many parents, especially those raising teens in pain, feel unworthy of this role. They feel broken, confused, or lost. They worry that because they don’t “have it all together,” they can’t transmit Torah properly. But Har Sinai wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t the tallest. It wasn’t the grandest. It was simply the one that was willing to hold space.

What children need most, especially those who are struggling, is not polished parenting. It’s presence. Not flawless instruction. But a mountain that is steady enough to stay standing, even when the skies thunder.

The Aish Kodesh, writing from the horrors of the Warsaw Ghetto, noted that the greatness of Har Sinai was not that it lifted Torah to the heavens, but that it brought Heaven down to earth. That it could hold Divine truth without collapsing. That it stayed soft enough to hear a trembling people, and strong enough to carry them anyway.

This is what it means to parent a child who is hurting.

To hold Torah with gentleness.

To carry pain without panicking.

To stay steady, not because you have all the answers, but because you refuse to walk away.

Rav Shlomo Wolbe, in Alei Shur, reminds us that “true chinuch begins not with teaching, but with inner work.” If we want our children to feel safe receiving Torah, not just as a set of laws, but as a path of love, then we must become that path. And that means working through our own pain, our own fears, our own shame.

It means understanding that the louder we shout, the more distant the voice becomes.

It means realizing that what our children most need to hear is not “you must,” but “I see you.”

Because Torah, when given without relationship, can crush. But Torah, when offered from the humility of Har Sinai, can lift the broken toward wholeness.

This is the role of the parent.

To become not the judge on the mountain, but the mountain itself.

To become the steady place where a child can hear, maybe for the first time, that Torah is not against them.

That Torah was always meant for them.

That even now, especially now, the Voice is still calling, softly, tenderly, from the depths of love.

IV. The Trauma of Silence, And the Gift of Voice

The Torah tells us that when God spoke at Sinai, “the entire nation saw the voices” (Shemot 20:15). Not just heard, saw. The Midrash explains that the revelation was so profound that it broke through the limits of the senses. But there is another layer here as well: those who had lost their voice were finally able to see it outside themselves. Those who had never been able to speak, whether from fear, shame, or silence, could now behold a voice that had always been waiting for them.

Many of our children, especially those who suffer in silence, walk through the world like that. They are not angry. They are not rebellious. They are quiet. Withdrawn. Polite. And so often, they go unseen. They don’t scream for help. They whisper it, in the way they retreat, in the way they hesitate, in the way they lower their eyes and hope we’ll notice without having to ask.

Silence, especially in teens, is not always peace. Sometimes, it’s pain that has lost the strength to speak.

Sometimes, the child who doesn’t ask isn’t uninterested, they’re afraid. Afraid of saying the wrong thing. Afraid of being wrong. Afraid of being too much or not enough. They’ve learned, often through deep emotional injury, that asking invites judgment. That expressing invites correction. That vulnerability is unsafe.

And so they say nothing.

But Torah, in its eternal wisdom, does not leave them behind. The Haggadah commands us: “At p’tach lo”, You open the conversation for him. You don’t wait for him to come to you. You go to him. Gently. Respectfully. With love and without pressure. You create safety before speech.

The Tiferet Yisrael writes that the child who cannot ask is “trapped in an internal exile,” needing not answers, but invitation. And Rav Hirsch adds that “the most silent child may be the one most desperately in need of guidance, and most afraid to seek it.”

At Sinai, God didn’t wait for us to prepare eloquent questions. He didn’t demand perfection. He began with a Voice, one that shattered the silence of slavery, one that reached the deepest places of fear and called us into presence.

Our children need that voice, too.

Not the voice of pressure. Not the voice of critique. But the voice that says: “I see you.” “I want to hear you.” “I’ll wait as long as you need.”

This is not easy work. The trauma of silence doesn’t vanish with one kind word. It is healed slowly, through consistency, through softness, through showing up again and again without withdrawing when rejected.

Rabbi Yitzchak Hutner wrote that “the power of speech is not only to convey truth, but to awaken connection.” That is our task. To give our children back their voice by giving them back their worth.

Sometimes, the gift we offer is not what we say, but that we stay.

Sometimes, it’s not the answer that heals, it’s the fact that we ask the question first.

And when that happens, when the silent teen begins to speak, even in the smallest, halting way, it is nothing short of Revelation.

Because every soul that finds its voice is standing, once again, at Sinai.

V. Torah Is Not Just Law, It Is Light

The Zohar teaches that the word “Torah” shares its root with or, light. It is not merely a book of laws or a system of restrictions. It is a path of illumination, meant to shine into the darkest places of the human heart. When God gave us the Torah, He gave us a way not only to live, but to see, ourselves, each other, and the Divine.

But somewhere along the way, that light can get distorted. Especially for our struggling children, Torah can sometimes feel like a burden instead of a blessing. A rulebook instead of a relationship. A wall instead of a window. And when Torah is used without love, when it becomes a tool for guilt, fear, or coercion, its radiance dims. Not because the Torah has changed, but because we’ve failed to transmit it as it was meant to be given: as light.

Rebbe Nachman of Breslov taught that “a little bit of light dispels a lot of darkness.” And Rav Kook wrote that “Torah is not meant to crush the spirit, but to elevate it.” Yet too often, teens at risk experience Torah as heavy, not because it truly is, but because they have only encountered it through pressure, disappointment, or shame.

They haven’t been taught how Torah heals.

They haven’t seen how Torah can wrap itself around a hurting soul with gentleness and grace.

They’ve been handed commandments without context, expectations without empathy, and the result is not rebellion, but heartbreak.

If Torah is light, then we must not turn it into a spotlight of scrutiny. It must be a lantern, held low, steady, illuminating the path beside our children, not blinding them from ahead, but lighting the path of connection, of meaning, of hope.

As the Sfat Emet writes, “True Torah uplifts a person to their source. It reminds them of who they are, not what they lack.”

This is the Torah our children need.

Not a list of where they’ve gone wrong.

But a mirror of who they still are, and who they can become.

When a teen is spiraling, they don’t need to hear “You’re violating halacha.” They need to hear, “Your soul is holy, no matter what you’re doing right now.”

When a teen feels lost, they don’t need another lecture. They need a light that says: “There is still a way back. And I will walk it with you.”

Torah is not a pass/fail system. It is a soul-inheritance, a sacred offering meant to dignify, not disqualify.

And when we teach it that way, when we embody it that way, our homes become Har Sinai. Not places of fear, but places of illumination.

So much of parenting struggling teens is learning to hold that light gently.

To become a ner tamid, a steady flame, even when the winds of disappointment or fear try to blow it out.

Because when Torah becomes a source of safety rather than shame, when it becomes the warm glow of belonging instead of the harsh glare of expectation, our children stop running from it.

They begin, slowly, to walk toward it.

And that light, even flickering, even faint, becomes the beginning of redemption.

VI. Shavuot as the Call to Responsibility

When God gave the Torah at Sinai, He didn’t speak only to the leaders. He didn’t deliver it to a select few scholars or the spiritually elite. The Divine Voice rang out to everyone, men and women, elders and youth, even “the infants in their mothers’ arms” (Mechilta, Yitro). Every soul was called. Every soul responded. And every soul became bound in that covenant.

Shavuot is not just the anniversary of receiving Torah. It is the annual reawakening of a truth that we are often too weary or too distracted to remember: we are responsible for one another’s spiritual hearing.

In a world where Torah can be misused as a measure of worth or as a weapon of judgment, Shavuot reminds us of our sacred duty: to give Torah in a way that can be received. To become translators of revelation, for our children, for our students, for anyone who has come to believe that Torah is not for them.

It is tempting, especially with teens who reject what we hold dear, to respond with withdrawal or anger. To say, “If you’re not ready to receive, I won’t give.” But that’s not the Torah’s way. That’s not God’s way. The very essence of Shavuot is that God gave Torah to a people still healing from slavery, still fragile, still unsure, still prone to sin. And He gave it fully, without conditions.

The Baal HaTanya teaches that the Torah was given not to perfect souls, but to real ones, to elevate even the lowliest parts of human experience. To bring holiness not only into the beit midrash, but into the messiness of life.

This is our call.

To give Torah not only to the children who ask wise questions, but to the ones who storm out of the room. To the ones who laugh at davening, or roll their eyes at Shabbat. To the ones who stopped asking. Or never knew how.

Because they, too, stood at Sinai.

And the fact that they’ve drifted from it doesn’t erase their claim to it. It deepens our obligation to bring it closer to them, gently, authentically, patiently.

This is not about watering Torah down. It’s about lifting it up, by embodying it with compassion.

The Rambam in Hilchot Teshuvah writes that one who causes another to return to the path of Torah is greater than the one who follows it flawlessly. Not because influence is more important than obedience, but because bringing someone close requires more than knowledge, it requires heart.

And this is where Shavuot differs from Pesach or Sukkot.

Pesach calls us to open the door. Sukkot invites us to sit together. But Shavuot asks us to speak. To transmit something eternal in a way that the other can truly receive.

For parents, this is the hardest and holiest work. Not only to learn Torah, but to live it in such a way that it becomes an invitation.

To embody its light so that our struggling children stop seeing Torah as rejection, and start sensing it, perhaps for the first time, as love.

This is our responsibility. Not just to uphold the Torah. But to give it again. Every year. Every day.

In every word we speak. In every silence we honor. In every soul we refuse to give up on.

VII. Conclusion – Writing Torah on the Heart

Before giving the Torah at Sinai, the Midrash teaches, God offered it to the nations of the world. Each one asked, “What does it contain?”, and turned away when the answer felt too demanding. Only Am Yisrael responded without knowing the details: Naaseh v’nishma, “We will do, and we will hear.” It was a leap of trust so profound that the heavens trembled.

But for many of our children today, that trust feels out of reach.

They are not ready to say naaseh v’nishma. They’re not even ready to ask, “What is in it?”

And so we, as parents, teachers, and leaders, must take a different path. We must return to what came before the thunder. Not commands. But compassion. Not obedience. But openness. Not noise. But presence.

The prophet Yirmiyahu envisioned a future where Torah would not be etched in stone, but written gently on the human heart: “I will place My Torah within them, and on their hearts I will write it” (Jeremiah 31:32). A Torah not imposed from above, but absorbed from within. Not shouted, but whispered. Not enforced, but embraced.

This is the sacred task of every parent raising a child in pain: To stop asking, “Why won’t you accept Torah?”And start asking, “How can I show you that Torah accepts you?”

To stop insisting on compliance. And begin cultivating connection.

To become, in our own imperfect, holy way, the pen God once held at Sinai.

Because Torah is not a prize for the flawless. It is the inheritance of every Jew, including the doubting, the distant, the broken, and the quiet.

And our mission is not to gatekeep that inheritance. It is to guard the hearts of those who have forgotten they were ever worthy of it.

Because they were. They are. And they always will be.

Our children, all of them, stood at Sinai. They heard the Voice.

And though that memory may now lie buried beneath layers of silence, fear, or rejection, it still flickers, like an ember waiting to be fanned into light.

We do not reignite that flame with pressure. We tend it, gently. Faithfully. With love that does not flinch or flee.

So that when they are ready, they can hear the Voice again —Not in thunder. But in us.

And in that moment, Torah is given again.

Not through tablets of stone.But in a quiet kitchen on a Friday night.In a soft “I’m proud of you” after a long silence.In a parent who stays, even when pushed away.

That is Sinai, reborn.

That is Torah, not just taught, but lived.

And that is our mission, not just on Shavuot, but in every moment we choose love over fear, light over shame, presence over power.

May we merit to write Torah upon the hearts of our children.And may they, in time, write it back upon ours.

Yaakov Lazar,

Executive Director, Kol Haneshamot