Breadcrumb: It only works once

Deut. 5:1-5 reminds the Israelites that God made his covenant with them, the living people Moses addresses, and not with their forefathers. This is meant to bring immediacy to the laws: they are not archaic and outdated but present and meaningful. Of course, this only applies to the people present during Moses' speech. For the rest of us, three thousand years later, it is archaic and outdated. This is one of the reasons Jews at Passover are supposed to speak about the Exodus as though they themselves went through it, not their forefathers.