Porkless Shavuot

Illustration: "Porkless Shavuot" depicting a star with a smiling face looking approvingly at 2 stone tablets

Calculating the time it took to go from Egypt to Mount Sinai, it is most likely that Moses was on Mount Sinai during the first Shavuot.

Tradition states that God gave Moses the Ten Commandments on Shavuot.

What a lot of people don’t know is how God chose the Jewish people to be recipients and sharers of the Ten Commandments. Below is the story of how it happened.

How the Jewish people ended up with Ten Commandments

God appeared to a nation and asked them if they would like His commandments.

They asked, “What are they?”

God replied, “Things such as, “You shall not commit adultery.”

They said, “Oh no, we can't have such words here.”

God went to a second nation and asked them if they would like His commandments.

They asked, “What are they?”

God replied, “Things such as, “You shall not bear false witness.”

They said, “Oh no, we would condemn our whole government.”

God went to a third nation and asked them if they would like His commandments.

They asked, “What are they?”

God replied, “Things such as, “You shall not covet.”

They said, “Oh no, our whole economy is based on that.”

Finally God came to the Jewish nation and asked us if we wanted His commandments.

We asked, “How much are they?”

He said they were free.

We said, “We will take ten of them.”

Thus, that is how the Jewish people ended up receiving the Ten Commandments to share with the world.

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