Moses got all the credit. The real story was happening below.

There are two common phrases for what happened at Sinai, and the difference between them matters more than we might think.

The rabbis called Shavuot zman matan Torateinu,  “the time of the giving of our Torah.” This describes Moses at the top of Mount Sinai. But when the rabbis spoke of the people standing below at Sinai, they reached for something different: Ma’amad Har Sinai,  “the standing at Mount Sinai.

Look at who is standing where. God calls Moses up,  but the revelation is aimed down. The commandments are not given to Moses for Moses. He is the conduit. The whole architecture of the moment is oriented toward the people waiting at the base of the mountain. One man ascends. A nation stands below and becomes, in that standing, something it was not before.

They were standing for something. For Torah, not merely as text but as a way of being in the world. For the values it carries: justice, dignity, responsibility, holiness. For the covenant it........

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