Before the Ten Commandments are given (Ex. 19), G-d explains to Moshe what he must do. The language that is used seems like it is repetitive – but with different words. What is the Torah trying to tell us?
Here is the text: (I bold and underline to show parallel constructions):
G-d called to [Moshe] from the mountain, saying, “Thus shall you say to the house of Jacob and declare to the children/sons of Israel: ‘You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, how I bore you on eagles’ wings …. Now then, if you will listen to my voice and guard My covenant, …. you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’
Notice how all of the above verses are actually parallel words and phrases!
So, for example, omer, “to say” is first used in the Torah as “G-d says (omer) ‘let there be light.’” It is a momentary action, a blink of the eye. So the “Say to the house of Jacob” might refer to the present moment.
It is paralleled by: “tell the children of Israel” which uses the word “Tagid.” This word is first used by Rivkah, telling her father of the arrival of Avraham’s servant. She is relating a past event, with hope and expectation for the future! Here we can summarize the different meanings: the present versus the past and future.
If so, then we can read the text of this entire episode as trying to encompass numerous dualities: present in the moment, versus connections with the past and future (timelessness); static Egypt versus dynamic Israel; and even physicality versus spirituality.
Looking at each word in the above sequence, this can be shown in a table:
| Initial | Parallel | |||||
| Initial | First (and defining) use of this word in the Torah | Symbolic Meaning | Parallel | First (and defining) use of this word in the Torah | Symbolic Meaning | |
| Say | God said, “Let there be light” | A momentary, static creation. | Tell | The maiden [Rivkah] ran and told all this to her mother’s household. (Gen. 24:28) | Connecting the past, with hope for the future. (This word is used twice in Genesis, and then not again until Sinai – explicitly linking the forefathers to Sinai.) | |
| House | [Sara] was taken into Pharaoh’s house. (Gen. 12:15) | It was temporary – Sara did not stay long | sons | The sons of the rulers saw that the daughters of man were fair and they took for themselves wives from whomever they chose. (Gen. 6:2) | The urge to mate and procreate – sons as dynamic life versus a static house. | |
| Jacob | Then his brother emerged, holding on to the heel of Esau; so they named him Jacob (Gen. 25:26) | Heel-grasper. Wrestling with the physical | Israel | Said he, “Your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with beings divine and human (Gen. 32:29) | Wrestling with the divine. | |
| What I did to Egypt | I will blot out from the earth all existence that I created.” (Gen. 7:4) | Both the Flood and Exodus are destructive, ending the old. | I bore you on eagles’ wings | I [Jacob] raised (bore) my eyes and saw in a dream (Gen. 31:10) | A vision of the future – the imagery is flying (movement in space) into the future (movement in time) | |
| Listen | “[Adam and Eve] heard the sound of G-d moving in the Garden. | Caught in the moment! | Guard | G-d settled the Human in the garden of Eden, to till it and guard it. (Gen. 2:15) | To make something grow – which takes time. | |
| To my voice | Sounds are literally in the moment | my covenant | But I [G-d] will establish My covenant with you [Noach]. Gen 6:18 | G-d’s covenant is across all generations from Noach into the far-distant future | ||
| Kingdom | [Nimrod] was a mighty hunter …
The mainstays of his kingdom … Gen. 10:9 |
Nimrod was a powerful hunter, not a farmer. Exemplified power in the moment, only for his lifetime. | Holy | And God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy (Gen. 2:3) | Shabbos is quintessentially “out of time.” Shabbos preserves the Jews for all time, across all generations. | |
| of Priests | And Melchizedek of Salem brought out bread and wine; he was a priest of God Most High (Gen. 14:18) | The first priest created no legacy – Malchi-Tzedek was a one-off. | Nation | From these [descendants of Yafeth] the maritime nations branched out, by their lands—each with its language—their clans and their nations. (Gen. 10:5) | Sustained, persistent cultures. Language, clans and nations. | |
As we can see from the above, G-d’s preamble to Sinai is really trying to capture the totality of the Jewish people – both in that moment, and for all time. It is a totality that includes our physical existence (house of Jacob) and our timeless intergenerational impact on the world (children of Israel). This is what the Torah is meant to be: a part of every moment of the present, as well as a link in the chain between our forefathers and our grandchildren.