Similarly every Jew is a branch of the tree which is the Jewish People. We are all bound by the acceptance of Torah because our potential to exist was already rooted in our forefathers. Thus, since our forefathers accepted the Torah, it is as though we accepted it ourselves. So, in reality, each individual was there as well. In other words, one might have thought that it is over the sea.
Man consists of two opposing elements, body and soul.
If we put our neshama, our soul, in charge of our body we can reach a level greater than the angels. If, on the other hand, we allow our body to dominate our spiritual side we become like animals. For just as an animal has no taste for wisdom and intellectual discernment, preferring hay, straw and the like, so too a person who centers himself on physicality finds things of the spirit without taste. Thus, man is an amalgam of two elements as disparate as heaven and earth. This is what the Torah is teaching us here.