The People Shook
שמות כ ,טו : וַּיַּרְ א ה ע ם וַּי נֻעוּ וַּיַּ עַּמְדוּ מֵר חֹק
The Baal haTurim says that this verse is the source for our swaying (shoklen) when we study Torah, as the Torah was given in an atmosphere of awe, trembling, and sweating. (see Yoma 4b)
The story is told of the Chasam Sofer telling one of his senior students to approach a younger student who was quite diligent in his Torah studies and tell him that the Chasam Sofer requested that he leave the Yeshiva. The senior student was quite surprised and asked why this was being done. The Chasam Sofer said that the student was not Jewish. The senior student was very surprised, but did the Chasam Sofer's bidding. When he pressed the young student about this, he admitted that he was not Jewish. At a later time the senior student asked the Chasam Sofer why he allowed him into the Yeshiva in the first place. The Chasam Sofer responded that he had assumed that the young man was Jewish, but after noticing for a while that he sat still as a block of wood while learning Torah, not even swaying slightly, he realized that the student was not Jewish. Anyone whose soul was present at Mount Sinai at the time of the giving of the Torah swayed, and this remains in our blood even today.
Interestingly the Holy Baal Shem Tov interprets: "If you sway mightily to and fro so that everyone can see that you do a mitzvah with much emotion, "va'yaar ha'om va'yonu'u," this is an indication that you are very distanced from HaShem, "va'yaamdu meirochoke."
The Holy Admor of Kotzk interprets: "Even if you sway mightily to and fro and delude yourself into thinking that you have reached a high spiritual level, remember that you are still quite distanced from HaShem, "va'yaamdu meirochoke."
