Va’etchanan, this week’s Torah portion, is primarily a recap of key events and laws from the perspective of Moshe, who is at the end of his life at this time. There we read:

א֣וֹ ׀ הֲנִסָּ֣ה אֱלֹהִ֗ים לָ֠ב֠וֹא לָקַ֨חַת ל֣וֹ גוֹי֮ מִקֶּ֣רֶב גּוֹי֒ בְּמַסֹּת֩ בְּאֹתֹ֨ת וּבְמוֹפְתִ֜ים וּבְמִלְחָמָ֗ה וּבְיָ֤ד חֲזָקָה֙ וּבִזְר֣וֹעַ נְטוּיָ֔ה וּבְמוֹרָאִ֖ים גְּדֹלִ֑ים כְּ֠כֹ֠ל אֲשֶׁר־עָשָׂ֨ה לָכֶ֜ם דַ’ אֱלֹהֵיכֶ֛ם בְּמִצְרַ֖יִם לְעֵינֶֽיךָ׃

Or has any deity ventured to go and take one nation from the midst of another by prodigious acts, by signs and portents, by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm and awesome power, as your God did for you in Egypt before your very eyes (Deuteronomy 4:34)

It was a miracle that God redeemed the Jewish people in Egypt. With all of these signs Jewish people were created in the crucible of Egypt. Many know this sentence because it is the platform upon which we discuss the miracles during the Passover Seder.

Only in looking at this outside of the context of the Seder to I reflect on the abundance of signs that this was an act of God. Most notably when it says, “בְּאֹתֹ֨ת-by signs”, what does this mean? And אוֹת –Ot is sign or signal. It is a distinguishing mark, banner, remembrance, omen, or warning.

This idea of making sense of this אוֹת – Ot– signal amidst the maelstrom of the universe is the core of the human enterprise. We are meaning makers.

In Nate Silvers’ book The Signal And The Noise he explains why so many predictions end up being wrong, and how statisticians, politicians and meteorologists fall prey to masses of data, when finding important signals is mostly a matter of being cautious, diligent and, most importantly, human. It is easy to mistake something we think is a sign, but in actuality it is just noise.

Another alternative of the meaning of this אוֹת –Ot is that related that this sentence is unique because it is a pangram. What is a pangram you ask? A pangram is a sentence that uses every letter of the alphabet at least once. The most well-known example is “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog”. Pangrams are often used to display typefaces, test equipment, or practice handwriting. 

This is the only pangram in the Torah. Zephaniah 3:8 in the other one in the Bible and the only verse in the Hebrew Bible that contains all medial forms of the letters plus all final forms.

Knowing that this sentence in Deuteronomy is a pangram resonates with Silver’s idea of the signal and the noise. It is also meaningful that אוֹת Ot– a signal is spelled with the first א- and last letter ת  in the Hebrew Alphabet. In “The Signal and the Noise” Silver wrote, “The signal is the truth. The noise is what distracts us from the truth.” The אוֹת Ot is אמת Emet, but the rest of the alphabet (Aleph-Bet) is a distraction. It is easy to confuse the אוֹת Ot for the letters א through ת. In many ways this gets to the essence of the celebration of Passover as a true signal amidst the noise.