[Avodah] Sinai - Rambam - heard all or nothing?

[david guttmann]

I worked on this a while back when I discussed the Sinai experience
according to rambam with our group. The Rambam's lashon is "Vehakol medaber
eilav Veanu shome'im Moshe, Moshe lech emor lahem kach vekach" . In MN 1:65
explaining Dibur, he refers to this as follows "O kinuy al ha'inyan hamuvan
me'et hashem bein shenoda bekol nivra ... Lo she'hu yta'aleh diber be'otot
vekol..." The medaber therefore means that they apprehended that Moshe was
telling them what he got from God not necessarily the thing that he told
them. The problem that we have is with the "kach vekach" and I believe it
refers to what they heard from Moshe. In other words when Moshe said to them
"Kach vekach" they understood that it was coming from hashem.

This is further supported by MN 1:33 where he says" vehu hakol asher hissig
moshe vechol ysrael mimenu anochi velo yehyeh lecha, ve'hishmiam Moshe et
zeh bemilim bechituch otyot hanishmaot" in other words they apprehended that
God told Moshe to tell them something but the content was given by Moshe.

I am using rav Kaffah's edition in my quotes from MN.


David Guttmann
 
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