Rabbi Roodyn

The entire Torah is leading to this point, the creation of heaven and earth, ten generations until the flood and another ten until Avraham. The forefathers and mothers, the tribes, the sale of Yosef, the subsequent slavery in and redemption from Egypt. All of this was so that the Bnei Yisrael would accept the Torah.

Through the process of Matan Torah,  Hashem’s will becomes revealed into the world. By accepting the mantle of responsibility with naaseh ve nishma, the Jewish people’s destiny becomes tied up with Kiddush Hashem. We become the ‘kingdom of priests and holy nation’ who will be the ones who will teach the world universal values of truth and ethical monotheism.  Indeed, this is the climax of maaseh Bereishis.

And it is at the point where heaven and earth stand still, where the heavens open and Hashem reveals Himself to the nation in  a never to be repeated experience that He utters the immortal words. אנכי ה’ אלקיך, I am Hashem your G-d.

Rav Hirsch notes the difference between אני and אנכי. אני indicates the speaker rather in contrast to the one he is addressing, he is the one from whom אנה speech emanates. אנכי however proclaims the speaker as that person who is intimately near to the one who is being addressed, who comprehends and bears and keeps him, through whose personality the one addressed really gets his personal existence and standing.

It really is quite incredible to think that how in the midst of all the commotion, and out of the turmoil of the universe shaking to its very foundations , Hashem proclaims Himself as the אנכי of the universe, through Whom all other existence receives the possibility and actuality of existing and then turns to each and every one of us and says ‘I am your אנכי’  ‘I am Hashem your G-d’.

It is at this point that Hashem reveals to us that each and every one of us can have, and is enjoined to develop a personal relationship with Him. Right at the time when He is revealing Himself to mankind in the broadest of terms, does He call to us and tell us at that He is ready and waiting for us to develop our own individual relationships with him. He is אלקיך , your G-d, our G-d, a personal G-d who never loses sight of or care for the individual.

And if Hashem cares for the individual, we who must follow in His ways, ought to do so too.

Good Shabbos.