Standing at Sinai?
Rabbi David E. Ostrich, Congregation Brit Shalom
Clergy Column for The Centre Daily Times
Published June 1, 2025
Who was standing at Mount Sinai? When God gave the Ten Commandments and Torah, who exactly was there? The answer may seem obvious. The people there were the Israelites who had been freed from slavery in Egypt, who had crossed the miraculously split Red Sea, and who had journeyed through the Sinai to enter into a covenant with God: “If you will obey me faithfully and keep My covenant, you shall be My treasured possession among all the peoples…a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” (Exodus 19.5-6).
However, a reminiscence (Deuteronomy 29) of this covenant ceremony adds a curious additional detail. “You are standing this day, all of you, before the Lord your God…to enter into the covenant of the Lord your God…I make this covenant…not with you alone, but both with those who are standing here with us this day before the Lord our God AND WITH THOSE WHO ARE NOT WITH US HERE THIS DAY.”
Who are the people “not here this day?” One figures that the original meaning referred to any Israelites who were back at camp—who were ill or nursing the ill or standing guard. Though not literally “at the mountain,” they were included in the covenantal community.
However, the Sages of Judaism saw this curious passage as an expander. An initial Rabbinic expansion taught that “those not here this day” refers to the future generations of Israel who, though not yet born, were spiritually standing there and entering the covenant. All of us Jews were standing at Sinai.
A second expansion went further: “those not here this day” also include future converts—Jewish souls born into non-Jewish families who work their way toward Judaism and ultimately convert. A prime example is Ruth. Born a Moabite, she joins her mother-in-law Naomi’s people and becomes Jewish. One of her great-grandchildren, by the way, is King David.
A third expansion grows the covenantal community much, more. In a Midrash (Mekhilta de Rabbi Ishmael), the question is asked: “Why did God give the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai and not at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem? The Temple Mount is certainly more holy. However, Jerusalem belongs to the Jews, and giving the Torah there would suggest that the Ten Commandments are only for the Jews—and not for the other nations of the world. God chose Mount Sinai, a place out in the middle of the desert—a place owned by no one and accessible to all, to make it clear that the Divine Law is available and applicable to all humans.” In other words, the “audience” at Mount Sinai was every one of every generation. It was a universal gift of wisdom and holiness.
Thus do our Sages teach that we are all children of God and that we have all been gifted with God’s wisdom. Some Sages even suggest that the Gentile nations have their own prophet, one with the same status as Moses. Balaam, a rather mysterious figure in the Book of Numbers, is cast as Moses’ parallel Prophet. God dispenses wisdom to the Jews through Moses and to the Gentiles through Balaam. Thus do we learn in the Talmud that “The righteous of all nations have a place in the World-to-Come.” God loves us all, and God hopes that we shall all live lives of righteousness and reverence.