Yisro - be to Me the most beloved treasure

Poetic language in Yisro: 

19:4 You have seen what I did unto Egypt, and I have borne you on the wings of eagles and brought you to me.
19:5 And now if you listen well to My Voice and observe my covenant you shall be to Me the most beloved treasure segulah of all peoples, for Mine is the entire world.
19:9 Indeed I come to you in the thickness of the cloud so that the people will hear as I speak with you.

19:12 You shall set a boundary for the people around the mountain, saying: Guard yourself from ascending onto the mountain or touching its edge anyone who touches the mountain shall surely die.

19:23 Bound the mountain and sanctify it.

The mountain of myrrh, the hill of frankincense, on fire, in smoke, beckoning to be touched, bound and sanctified, drawing to itself, restrained by the covenant, beaming with light, singing with divinity, roaring with thunder. Through the thickness of the cloud I struggled to come to the mountain, consumed by fire, to hear the voice.  Listen well and observe the covenant and become the segulah, the most beloved treasure, beloved by God.  Can you even imagine what this means, to be beloved and treasured by God, out of all people in the world?  Can you treat yourself as the one chosen in love, respect and guard your own soul as the beloved treasure of the Holy One? 

19:16 And it happened on the third day when it was morning, there was thunder and lightning and a cloud that was heavy upon the mountain, and the sound of the shofar was powerful exceedingly, and tremble did the entire people that was in the camp.

19:18 And Mount Sinai was all asmoke as a result of that He came down upon it in the fire and ascend did its smoke like the smoke of the furnace, and tremble did the entire mountain exceedingly.

19:21-19:24 God tells Moshe repeatedly to come down and remind people not to touch the mountain.  Moshe does not understand why to repeat the warning, ‘you already warned us’, God repeats and Moshe complies.  In his holiness Moshe does not understand why people should be warned again, why they would not get it the first time, but Hashem knows better the man’s heart, no matter how often warned, the desire to touch the mountain does now diminish and people will forget the warning once they see the fire, like the fireflies. 

Artsroll commentary

Unity

19:2 And encamp there did Israel The verb is in singular to teach that the huge multitude of people encamped like a single person with a single desire (Rashi). When all Jews are united each one becomes even more precious.  Every Jew should feel responsible to alleviate the distress of all others; just as God will not countenance the loss of even a single person, so must we be concerned with the spiritual and material needs of all our brethren (R’Aharon Kotler).

Freedom

19:5 And now, if you listen well The full acceptance of the yoke of Heaven requires that one not be subservient to any other person or force (Shem MiShmuel).  Talmud Yerushalmi (Berachot 3:3) states that slaves are exempt from reciting Kriat Shema.  Since we declare Hashem is the One and Only, only a person who has but one Master can make that declaration.  Similarly regarding spiritual freedom, the Midrash states that the wicked are under the control of their lusts (Bereishit Rabbah 34) and thus they do not have the freedom to properly recite Kriat Shema. 

Only when Jews were freed of the subjugation and contamination of Egypt were they able to freely accept the yoke of Heaven.

Spirituality

19:20-25 God repeated the warning for people not to come close to the holy mountain.

If the purpose of life is to elevate oneself to a higher spiritual existence, then one could be ready to give his life to achieve such a goal.  But God does not want this.  He wants human beings to remain alive and bring holiness into their earthly existence.  (Tur, Or HaChaim).

Intensity

20 After the first two commandments, the nation pleaded with Moses that they could not tolerate the intense holiness of this direct communication with God, and asked Moses to teach them the rest.  (Deut. 5:22-24).  They could hear only the sound of the Divine voice, and could not understand the words He was saying, the people heard the sound of words, did not hear the words themselves (Deut 4:12).  Moses however heard and understood and then taught the commandments in Israel, because only he understood what God was saying.

Punishment

20:5 In relation to idol worship, Hashem repeats “I am your God who is jealous, who visits the sin of fathers upon children, the third and the fourth generation for My enemies”.   The Sages explain that children are punished only if they carry on the sinful legacy of their parents, or if it was in their power to protest but they acquiesced to the lifestyle that was shown them, thus ratifying the deeds of their parents and adopting them as their own (Sanhedrin 27b).  Thus the children who adopt the ways of their parents are, in a sense, committing more virulent sins than they would be if they acted only on their own.  God refers to such people as My enemies.

In line with the Talmudic dictum that a kidnapped child, raised by non-Jews, is not responsible for sins that he never knew were wrong, a Jew educated in an assimilationist manner would also not fall under the category of this verse.

Nevertheless derived from what was said previously, for the child to follow the non-observant lifestyle of parents not only does not constitute the mitzvah of honouring one’s parents, on the contrary, it perpetuates the sin of denying the existence of God and idol worshipping (in a case when parents claim that Marx superseded Moses).  Yes, Torah observance creates physical discomfort and inconvenience for the non-observant families, but the third and the fourth generations are well worth it.

You shall not kill

20:13 Lo tirzah you shall not kill.  The Sages describe many things as tantamount to murder, although their perpetrators are not liable to the death penalty.  Among them are: causing someone significant embarrassment, failing to provide food and safety for travellers, causing someone to lose his livelihood, ruling on halachic matters for which one is not qualified, and refusing to rule when one’s wisdom is needed. 

People in position of authority are often subjected to public criticism and embarrassment, in this regard taking a public office would be equivalent to going to war where one is always risking his life, therefore Torah considers leadership a primarily man’s task, where men subject themselves to public scrutiny and criticism, shielding the women.