A Voice from On High: Yitro

Our sages disagree on the number of commandments that our ancestors heard at Sinai. Maimonides, for example, says that Israel only heard God directly speak the first two commandments. Others believe that the Jewish people heard all Ten Commandments as they were spoken by God. Which is correct? According to the famous medieval Rabbi and Torah Scholar Rashi, both! In Exodus 20:1 we read that “God spoke all these statements.” The phrase “all these statements” seems to be entirely unnecessary if God only spoke …