Friday, February 8, 2019

VBM The Book of the Covenant and the Continuation of the Assembly at Mount Sinai By Harav Yaakov Medan


And to Moshe He said: “Come up to the Lord – you, and Aharon, Nadav, and Avihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel; and worship you afar off; and Moshe alone shall come near to the Lord, but they shall not come near; neither shall the people go up with him.” And Moshe came and told the people all the words of the Lord and all the ordinances; and all the people answered with one voice and said: “All the words which the Lord has spoken will we do.” (Shemot 24:1-3) I. When Did This Story Take Place? In the midrashim and the Rishonim, we find two answers to the question of when the events described in this passage took place.[1] It is possible – as argued by Rashi and the Chizkuni – that what is described here took place before the revelation at Mount Sinai. According to this approach, this section completes the account of the assembly described before the Ten Commandments. Only after Israel said, "All that the Lord has spoken will we do and obey" (Shemot 24:7) did God descend upon the mountain and give them the Ten Commandments. According to this, the description of the assembly at Mount Sinai is split into two parts, and it is presented in the Torah as a frame for the sections recording the Ten Commandments and the ordinances (the parashot of Yitro and Mishpatim).[2]

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