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Comments on Why was Shabbat given in a roundabout way?
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Why was Shabbat given in a roundabout way?
Someone at my seder asked about the ordering in Dayeinu, specifically that "had God not given us Shabbat..." comes before "had God not give us the Torah..." -- but wasn't Shabbat given at Sinai, as part of the revelation? We then checked to confirm our memories, and yes, Shabbat is introduced as a side-effect of the giving of the manna, which begins "on the fifteenth day of the second month after the exodus" (Exodus 16:1), which I think means Iyyar not Sivan. That raised a new question that we couldn't find any commentaries on:
The double portion of manna, and why the extra doesn't rot, is explained in Exodus 16:23: tomorrow is a holy Shabbat. They haven't actually been commanded in Shabbat yet; this seems to be new information, and it feels like it's "oh, by the way...". That seems odd for a commandment that will be central to Judaism and called out at Sinai as such. For other commandments they've already received, such as observing Pesach every year and dedicating the firstborn to God, the command is direct. Here, it's not.
Why does God give the commandment for Shabbat in such a roundabout way? Or was there an earlier command that was forgotten, and so the people should have known that Shabbat is special already and this was more of a reminder?
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Shabbat was given Shemot 15:25. See rashi there that is sourced from Sanhedrin 56b.
Which is before the mana (ch 16) and the giving of the torah (ch 20).
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