Komentarz do Powtórzonego Prawa 29:13

ולא אתכם לבדכם…כי את אשר ישנו פה ואת אשר איננו פה, "Not only with you alone, but both with those who are present here today as well as with those who are not here today." Why did Moses have to spell out "and not with you alone?" Would it not have sufficed to write "the ones who are here today, as well as the ones who are not, etc.?" This would have made it clear that the covenant was not made exclusively with the people present at that time! However, the whole intention of these verses is to obligate the people present at this time to commit their offspring to observe the Torah, forever. In order to make this plain the Torah had to write: "not with you alone, etc." Had the Torah written only the second half of the verse I would have known that future generations are obligated to observe the Torah; I would not have known, however, that those present were charged with seeing to it that their offspring kept the Torah. By writing the words: ולא אתכם לבדכם, the Torah makes it unmistakably clear that not only the obligation to keep the Torah applied to the generation present, but even the obligation to see to it that their children would also do so.

ולא אתכם לבדכם, “And not only with you, etc.” Moses means that although G’d concludes this covenant with the present generation of Jews as well as the oath warning against non-performance, seeing that you are standing here this day, the fact is that even future generations of Jews unable to stand here today are included in this covenant. The reason that Moses is able to make such a statement is that the trunk of the tree is viewed as the father, i.e. “the root ” of all subsequent branches. All the branches are only the offshoots of the original roots. Concerning how it s possible to include unborn generations in this covenant, i.e. reciprocal undertaking, our sages in Tanchuma Yitro 11 comment that all souls ever created since the days of the creation of the earth were present at this assembly. They are not all described as “standing,” as souls without bodies cannot “stand.” The words אשר איננו פה, “who are not here,” refer to the bodies of such souls. The words עמנו היום, refer to their souls, which are present even today. The word עמנו, “with us,” refers back to the word עומד, “standing,” in verse 14. It is as if the Torah had written: “and all those not standing here with us this day.” The reason Moses uses the word “standing,” is because the angels in Zecharyah 3,7 have been described as בין העומדים האלה, “among these who are standing.”
Our sages in Tanchuma Yitro 11 also claim that all the prophets who ever lived (after Moses) all received their prophetic powers when their souls were at the assembly at Sinai; however they were not allowed to make use of their prophetic powers until their respective generations when they were alive on earth. This is also the meaning of Malachi 1,1 משא דבר ה’ ביד מלאכי. It is significant that the wording is not על מלאכי, but ביד מלאכי. The present formulation means: ”A pronouncement: ‘the word of the Lord to Israel through Malachi,’” whereas the other formulation would have meant that the “message only now came to Malachi.” The present formulation describes only the point in time when this message, which the soul of the prophet had received at Mount Sinai, was released for publication. We find something similar in Isaiah 48,16 where the prophet writes: “from the beginning I did not speak in secret; from the time anything existed I was there. And now, the Lord G’d has sent me, endowed me with His spirit.” The meaning of the verse is that the soul of the prophet had received this communication from G’d already at Mount Sinai but it had only now been released for publication.

VV. 13 u. 14. ׳ולא אתכם לבדכם וגו. Wie unbeschränkt hinsichtlich der von der Bundeseidesverpflichtung betroffenen Personen, ebenso unbeschränkt hinsichtlich der Zeitdauer ist der hiermit geschlossene Gesetzesbund. Er umfasst alle zu Israel zählenden Menschen aller Zeiten, und ist jedem Wahn einer etwa nur zeitlichen Geltung der Verpflichtung zum Gesetze, sowie jeder Möglichkeit eines etwaigen Austritts aus dieser Verpflichtung, hiermit unzweideutig begegnet. והעלה על רוחכם, liess Gott Ezechiel den vor ihm mit der Frage nach der neuen Weisung für die neuen Zeitverhältnisse erschienenen Männern von den Ältesten Israels erwidern: והעלה על רוחכם היו לא תהיה אשר אתם אומרים נהיה כגוים כמשפחות הארצות לשרת עץ ואבן חי אני נאם אדני אלקי׳ אם לא ביד חזקה ובזרוע נטויה ובחמה שפוכה אמלוך עליכם, der in eurem Sinn aufsteigende Gedanke wird nimmer zur Wirklichkeit werden, die ihr saget, wir können nun wie die Völker sein, wie die Familien der Länder, Holz und Stein zu dienen. So wahr ich lebe, spricht Gott, mit fester Hand und mit gestrecktem Arm und mit ergossenem Unwillen bleibe ich euer König (Ezech. 20, 32 u. 33).