"In the third month after the Exodus of the Jewish People from Egypt, on that very day, they came to the Desert of Sinai" (Shemot 19:1)
Jewish Tradition says that "that very day" refers to Rosh Chodesh Sivan. About that day it is written, "And the People of Israel encamped there, opposite the Mountain." The verb written in Hebrew for "encamped" is "vayichan," a singular, rather than plural, form. This is to indicate that the acceptance of the Torah by the Jewish People was as if with a single mind, and a single heart. This was necessary because the Torah was like a marriage contract between G-d and Israel and, as such, there was no room for any hesitation or disloyalty between the parties.
Read more: http://www.ou.org/chagim/roshchodesh/sivan/rchsivan.htm
by Rabbi Dr Raymond Apple
The first of the Ten Commandments doesn’t seem to be commanding anything. It is a statement, “I am the Lord your God”.
One explanation is that the Decalogue is – as the Hebrew aseret hadib’rot makes clear – ten statements or principles, not necessarily ten commands. If, however, the ten are counted as mitzvot there still is a way of understanding Number 1 as a command – “I am to be the Lord your God”.
The true significance of that interpretation is suggested by a Chassidic saying in the name of the Rabbi of Kovrin. He looks at the words of Moses in Deut. 5:5, “I stood between the Lord and you at that time”, referring to the people’s reluctance to hear the voice of God, and their clamour for Moses, not God, to speak to them.
Says the Rabbi of Kovrin, what often stands between God and us is the “I”, the anochi, the human ego. When we boast and say, “I am great, I am powerful, I am clever”, we are posing one “I” against another. We can’t both be “I”. The Decalogue says, “The Divine ‘I’ must be your God, not the human one…”
http://www.oztorah.com/2013/05/the-first-commandment/
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