As echoed by the name of the Jewish dating site, “Saw you at Sinai”, we learn in Parashat Yitro that we as an entire Jewish people stood together at the foot of Mount Sinai to receive the Torah. And, according to the Midrash Tanchuma, the souls of all future members of Klal Yisrael, the Jewish people, were also present in some way. (Nitzavim 3:1).
That experience is arguably the most formative moment in our nation’s collective consciousness.
In 19:3 God calls Moses saying: “Thus shall you say to the House of Jacob and declare to the Children of Israel”. Rashi explains that this double structure emphasises the entire community: the House of Jacob refers to the women and the Children of Israel refers to the men.
There is a custom for all to stand during the aliyah in which the Ten Commandments are read. Standing together as a community to recreate ma’amad Har Sinai (“standing at Mount Sinai”) is such an important reminder of the power of the entire Jewish people and inclusion is a critical feature of that experience.
For the great Jewish thinkers of the Middle Ages, the significance of all being present was primarily testimonial: it created certainty and removed doubt. It enabled us to transmit the experience to future generations. However, there was also a political significance: the collective experience was critical in the development of the nation and their transition into a permanent covenantal relationship with God.
In order to become “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (19:6), all needed to be present – to stand up and to be counted. This is what characterises the third and final covenant: after the universal covenant of Noah and the familial covenant with Abraham, the receiving of the Torah played a central role in the very emergence of the Jewish people as a nation.
At Sinai, the children of Israel, all the people, ceased to be a group of individuals.
Rabbi Sacks explains: “Only in Judaism was God’s self-disclosure not to an individual (a prophet) or a group (the elders) but to an entire nation, young and old, men, women and children, the righteous and not yet righteous alike. At Sinai the Jewish people, until then a mere aggregate of individuals, linked by family, memory and the experience of exodus, became a body politic with the Torah as its written constitution."
The importance of Jewish peoplehood has come into sharp focus since October 7. We must ensure that all our communal experiences recreate that sense of collective consciousness. Despite our differences, and reaching across both political and gender lines, the presence of each one of us was and continues to be fundamental to the experience of the collective.
Image: The giving of the Ten Commandments (Phillip Medhurst Collection/Wikimedia Commons)
To get more from judaism, click here to sign up for our free daily newsletter.