The highlight of parshat Yitro is Revelation at Sinai. The great receiving of the Torah.

In a parallel image of revelation, the Talmud (Niddah 30b) teaches that each of us learns the entirety of Torah while in the womb. There is a candle lit above our invetro-souls and in the drench of that lamp-light an angel teaches us Torah. At our destined hour of birth that self-same angel touches us above our lips, creating the gentle slope indention, known in anatomical parlance as the philtrum.

 With that touch we forget all that we have learned in our 9-month tutorial. Life sprawls out before us as an on-going uncovering of all we have forgotten. Each piece of Torah learned is thus imbued with a striking sense of deja vu, of resonance with a truth we have seemingly always known. Torah learning, according to the Talmud's model, is thus seen as more of a recovery, or dis-covery, than a revelation.

 The Talmud makes an implicit link between the external revelation at Mount Sinai and the more internal revelations of the womb. This link can be seen hinted at in a charming play on words – for the word for pregnancy, b'herion, is reminiscent of 'b'har' the phrase meaning 'on the mountain'. Mother's mountainous belly and Mount Sinai are thus parallel locals of highest revelation.

 And yet the Talmud's image of womb revelation evokes questions. Why do we forget the vast knowing locked away in our souls? Why is life predicated on forgetfulness? And, more importantly, how can we access the store-housed knowledge of our souls?

I am reminded of the story of the 'tainted grain' by Rebbe Nachman of Breslav. He tells of a king who is informed by his most trusted minister that all of the wheat in the kingdom has been infected by a certain type of growth that will induce madness in all who eat it. The king's quandary – to have his people die of starvation or to have them go mad with this tainted grain. The choice is obvious, insanity over death. But the next quandary is more complex – do the king and his minister also eat of the grain and join the people in their dementia or do they refrain from partaking and remain sane in the midst of an insane world. Their decision – to consume the grain and join their country-men in madness. With one condition. That they will both make a mark upon their foreheads. A mark to remind them of their insanity. Each time they see this marking on the other's face they will remember that they have forgotten.

 The indention below each of our noses can thus be seen in the same light. When we behold our fellow's face we can be reminded of the Sinai of the womb, of the Torah knowledge that each of us has carefully tucked away. The philtrum reminds us of our own insane amnesia of the truth that rests within. It spurs us to seek out that wisdom and sanity again through our quest of Torah learning.

 The following poem is a prayer of an embryo in the womb. It is a prayer that she will be able to recall the Sinai lamp-light teachings of the womb. And more than to just remember, but also to find the ways to relay that inherent knowing out into an insane world so out of touch with forgotten truth.

 A Sinai in the Womb -

The Prayer of an Unborn Child

Touch me lightly neath the nose
 That my lips may part in prose
 Let me not forget
 You though
 I fall into the world

Let luminescence last me still
 and still my heart
 With seraph quill
 If I fall too far to hear
 & memorize your notes

 Send a script
 a scrap of timber
 A stub of finger
 'quipped with pencil

May my new-born
 have utensils
 to inherit as she grows

And I will write what I have learned here
 In this hollow, warm and light-filled

 So touch me slight
 That I may
 Recite all that
 the angel quill
 inscribed upon my soul

 And from this amniotic Sinai
 I will find the voice to cry
 the truth
 though all the world
 would call it lies

 And though I fall
 insane, forgetful
 slap my lips and
 snuff my candle

yet I will remember well
 the angel
 that taught me all I know

and marked thus with
 indentation
 I will recall
 the revelation
 of this loom
 where God wove with love
 my soul

 For Sinai stands
 indelible
 above our lips
 to tell of all
 that we forget
 as sure as
 we are born

So let us thus pursue
 Your truths
 in deja vu
 wrap us well in
 what we knew
 there in the womb

And Sinai
 will be as a mother
 enfolding us to rediscover
 the radiance lost in the rubble
 of the shattered tablets
 of Your
 Truth