There are very few texts, if any, that have the stature of what is commonly referred to as the Ten Commandments. Considered by many to be the backbone of both Judaism and Christianity, the Ten Commandments form part of the basic warp and woof of Western society as we know it.
As several writers have recently pointed out,52See R. Yoel bin Nun, “Aseret haDibrot, Shneim Asar Lavin,” http://www.ybn.co.il/about-8.html; and more recently, Leon Kass, “The Ten Commandments: Why the Decalogue Matters,” Mosaic, June 1, 2013, http://mosaicmagazine.com/essay/2013/06/the-ten-commandments/; and David Hazony, The Ten Commandments (New York: Scribner, 2010), pp. 3–4. our familiarity with the Ten Commandments often prevents us from truly analyzing the text as a whole, and from really understanding its contours and its various messages. But more than our familiarity with the text, it is our familiarity with the norms the Ten Commandments have created that is the real obstacle. Because they feel so familiar, many of us think of them as bromides only little children need to learn. The rest of us take them for granted as obvious and intuitive.
But a closer reading of the Ten Statements – as they should more correctly be called in English – shows that they are actually meant to elicit a much more specific and profound response than that to which we are accustomed. To understand this, it is first necessary to look at them as one unit. Even if we wanted to explore them one at a time, they find their place here in the book of Devarim as a single document. Here, in the context of Moshe’s review of the most important events the children of Israel experienced during their long trek from Egypt to the Land of Israel, they are presented as the totality of what the Jewish people heard from God when they stood at Mount Sinai.
Ma’amad Har Sinai: Standing at the Mountain
Before we look at the text of the Ten Statements, it is essential that we first examine its context. In contrast to other passages in the Tanach, the Ten Statements are more about how they were said than what they said. In other words, the main point of the giving of the Ten Statements was not because of their content, much of which was already known either via the universal Noachide moral code or through other prophecies predating Sinai. In fact, tradition has it that most of the commandments were not only known but even already observed by the children of Israel. According to at least one source (Sanhedrin 56b), even the commandment most outside of the universal rubric – the observance of Shabbat – is said to have been commanded between the time the Israelites left Egypt and when they reached Mount Sinai.
A good place to start, then, is with an interesting observation made by Rashi. He points out that at Mount Sinai, God is suddenly referred to as Elokim, a name traditionally associated with His strict judgment and ideal truth.53Rashi on Shemot 20:1. This means, inter alia, that retribution for wrongdoing and sins is instantaneous. According to Jewish tradition, this name represents an approach that God generally does not implement, knowing that people cannot survive it on any sustained basis. But obviously it would never have been mentioned in the Torah had there not been times it did need to be expressed. Following Rashi’s observation, the giving of the Ten Statements appears to be one of those times. At Mount Sinai, the Jews were confronted with absolute expectations which were not even minimally tempered by God’s usual trait of mercy.
The absolute nature of this aspect of God is especially noticeable in the second half of the statements, starting with the commandment not to kill. R. Yoel bin Nun mentions the completely unnuanced tone of these five statements. He explains that as opposed to other negative commandments in the Torah, where we often find some explanation and/or historical context, here there are just commands.54See R. Yoel bin Nun, op. cit. See also Nahum Sarna, Exploring Exodus: The Roots of Biblical Israel (New York: Schocken, 1996), p. 142. Moreover, most of them contain just two words, for in front of the God of truth and justice anything more would be superfluous.
The harsh, demanding tone of the last five statements is not completely absent from the first five either. From the very beginning we are reminded that it is our God involved here, the God Who took us out of slavery and destruction in Egypt. What this means – and is almost explicitly stated (Shemot 20:2; Devarim 5:6) – is that the Jewish people owe God an existential debt which justifies the demand for their absolute allegiance.
Yet as informative as the tone of the Ten Statements may be, it is the setting for their transmission that informs us of their true place in the Torah. The recounting of a dramatic encounter with God – surrounded, literally, by thunder and fire – was meant to give more than a lasting impression. It was to be a gripping experience that would once and for all cement the Jews’ awareness of God’s power – over them and over all of mankind. Indeed, the rabbis (Shabbat 88b) tell us that after God’s very first statement, the Jews all died from fright and needed to be resuscitated in order to hear the rest. Whether the rabbis meant this to be taken literally or not, it certainly illustrates the type of terror they must have felt.
No doubt this sense of awe and fear was even more central to the experience than the actual words those standing at Mount Sinai heard. Rambam understands that the words of the first two statements – which according to the dominant tradition (Horayot 8a) are the only ones heard by the Jewish people, as well as Moshe55According to Ramban, however, what is meant is that while all ten were heard, only the first two were understood without the mediation of Moshe. – are only a concretization of that which was never actually articulated, but rather simply understood by the experience itself (Guide for the Perplexed 2:33).
When we look at Ma’amad Har Sinai as a whole, we see a carefully designed and orchestrated production to compel unswerving loyalty to God. Both the content of the Ten Statements and their delivery make the basic message clear to anyone reading them: The Jews owe their existence to God, and therefore they must submit to His yoke. To make this perfectly clear, a few main points regarding what this entails are immediately enumerated.
Many writers familiar with the Ancient Near East have pointed out the resemblance between the Ten Statements and a suzerain’s treaty with his vassals.56See Exploring Exodus, pp. 134 –148; R. Moshe Shamah, Recalling the Covenant (Jersey City: Ktav, 2011), pp. 356–360, 886–889; Joshua Berman, “God’s Alliance with Man,” in Azure (Summer 2006), pp. 79–104. The suzerain would begin with why he deserves their obedience, follow it up with his demand for absolute obedience – predicated on the inadmissibility of loyalty to any other sovereign – and then enumerate some of the main demands he requires his vassals to fulfill.
The idea of a Divine show of power and ultimatum is precisely how the rabbis understand the revelation at Mount Sinai. They make several statements regarding this, the most famous being found in Shabbat 88a. There, God is depicted as suspending Mount Sinai in the air and telling the Jews that they have the choice to either accept His commandments or have the mountain dropped on their heads. Here also, we do not need to take the story literally in order to understand that it, and other stories like it, clearly and accurately reflect the tone and substance that the Torah is trying to convey.
Why These Ten?
Now that we have a better sense of the context of the Ten Statements, we are in a better position to understand its content as well. We will begin with a key question: Why these particular statements? Why were they chosen and not others? While the centrality of most of the Ten Statements is intuitive, the reason for the inclusion of some of them (e.g., don’t bear false witness, don’t covet) over others (e.g., love God, love your neighbor) is not. Understanding why specifically these ten were chosen will take us a long way toward understanding the essence of this venerable text.
One answer given is that all of the Torah’s commandments are subsumed in these ten.57See Bemidbar Rabba 13:16. See also Rashi on Shemot 24:12, who also cites R. Saadia Gaon’s Azharot, 882–942. This is a clever and perhaps even plausible approach to the issue, but it lacks a strong basis in the text. Without being extremely imaginative, one would be at loss to find any indication that these ten are just a summary of a larger number. (The rabbis in Shabbat 31a also do not make any assertion such as that of Hillel about what is known as the golden rule, that the rest is commentary.) Moreover, in spite of R. Saadia Gaon’s impressive ability to find so many straightforward connections between the Ten Commandments and their derivatives, the plausibility of this approach still stretches our credulity on more than one occasion. For example, to understand the penalties paid for damages caused by an ox under the category of Do Not Kill is far from obvious. Likewise, placing the commandment to cover the blood after slaughtering an animal under the category of Do Not Covet is difficult to understand.
Trying to fit all of the commandments into the ten, however, is not the only possible approach. If we assume the Ten Statements do not include every central precept we would expect to be included, two possibilities still remain: either we readjust our understanding of what is central in line with what is included, or we develop an alternative explanation for the inclusion of certain seemingly minor precepts instead of (perhaps, even at the expense of58Since there seems to be a premium for certain round or otherwise significant numbers such as ten. After all, “The Eleven Commandments” just doesn’t have the same ring!) others that appear to be more important.
Many commentators have taken the first road, and we will not attempt to outdo the much greater minds that have traveled it.59Perhaps the greatest of these is that of Ramban. See Ramban on Shemot 20:2–13. Instead, we will explore the second strategy and try to explain why this great document – presented with such drama and emphasis – deliberately skipped over some of the Torah’s most central precepts on the one hand, and included some of lesser ultimate import on the other. First, however, an alternative explanation for the Decalogue’s mixed content, and why it might be incomplete, is in order.
One area of Jewish thought and practice commonly associated with Ma’amad Har Sinai is connecting Kabbalat haTorah, the receiving of the Torah, with the notion of a mass conversion to Judaism.60See, for example, Feivel Meltzer’s commentary to the book of Ruth in Da’at Mikra (Jerusalem: Mossad HaRav Kook, 1973), p. 20. I have yet to find a significant reference to this in the classical literature. What comes closest is a discussion in tractate Keritot 9a, which derives certain aspects of conversion from the Jews’ experience in the desert on their way out of Egypt. Still, even there, one finds, no mention of Mount Sinai per se. More than one contemporary Jewish writer has written on this theme. (Kabbalat haTorah here refers to the hearing of the Decalogue at Mount Sinai and, through that, creating a covenant with God for the acceptance of all the laws of the Torah.) Indeed, this is the reason frequently given for the reading of the book of Ruth on Shavuot, the holiday associated with Ma’amad Har Sinai.61See previous note. Ruth is viewed as the paradigmatic convert to Judaism, and reading about her reminds us that we also once went through something very much akin to her experience.
Exploring Ma’amad Har Sinai from this perspective reminds us of one of the laws of conversion: that the potential convert should be exposed to a sample set of laws that include both stringent (more central) laws as well as more lenient (less central) ones (Yevamot 47a).62See Ramban on Shemot 25:1, who makes a similar comparison between the sampling of laws given to potential converts and the early laws given to the Jews, of which the Ten Statements were a subset. See also Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Isurei Biah 14:2, which seems to independently assert that among the information presented to the convert are ideas with a strong affinity to the Decalogue’s first two statements. The most likely rationale for this is that the potential convert get a representative sample of that which he is taking on. If he would hear only the stringent laws, he would be misled into thinking all of Jewish practice is harsh and difficult. Knowing that some laws are less central and come with lesser penalties allows him to realize that Judaism is a doable system for the average person.63See Bach on Tur, Yoreh De’ah 268. In line with this, we could say that the sampling given at Mount Sinai allowed the children of Israel to better appreciate the Torah’s contours. Like the convert, the Israelites were made to understand that not every law has to come with a death penalty, nor must every law have to be about the underpinnings of civilization.
The above approach has its merits, although it is difficult to completely accept. For one, the vast majority of the Ten Statements do seem to be among the main tenets of the Jewish religion. And the others are not exactly what we would call “kalot ” (“light,” or more lenient laws).
Hence I suggest a hybrid approach whereby the Jews were in fact presented with a sampling of laws, but it consisted only of ones that were central to Judaism. There were, in fact, other essential laws that God chose not to give at this time. Although intuitive, this approach still does not completely explain the Decalogue’s composition. For even if God had reasons to limit Himself to the number ten, or simply to a compact subset of central laws — as well as some that were not so central — we would still expect those presented on this auspicious occasion to somehow be the most important according to at least one set of criteria.64See Chapter Two, note 8 in the printed edition. We are assuming that it is possible to differentiate between the levels of importance of various precepts, an assumption generally accepted by the rabbis even if there are some statements in the Talmud and later commentaries that can be understood otherwise. See, for example, Abarbanel, Rosh Amanah 23, where he attacks Rambam’s articulation of the Thirteen Principles of Faith. According to Abarbanel, there is ultimately no such thing as a principle, a precept or a religious position which can be elevated above any other. His position notwithstanding, normative Jewish law constantly prioritizes one law over another, thereby making a judgment as to its relative importance. But now we are back to our original quandary. We promised to leave such an approach to others, and for good reason – it seems a well-nigh impossible task.
Perhaps the best answer is to remind ourselves that there is much more to this text than its content. The Torah’s primary function at Ma’amad Har Sinai was to create an experiential initiation of absolute loyalty to God. Part of that ceremony involved a certain text, in the same way as a national hymn might accompany a similar ceremony upon induction into a nation’s army. But such a text plays only one part in such a ceremony, and not necessarily the most important part.
In the context of an induction into God’s service, certain commandments would be more to the point than others, even if they are not so central outside of this context. One possibility is that God would want to specifically enumerate the commandments most difficult to commit to (though not necessarily the most difficult, as we will illustrate). As this induction represents a ceremony of loyalty, God would want to hear that the Jews will not later seek to escape those things that – for a variety of reasons – might make them feel uncomfortable
The selection of the laws in the Decalogue, then, was determined by its context. Had they not been presented at this critical juncture in the relationship when the Jews couldn’t say “no,” God could not have secured acceptance of certain laws that might otherwise have been sticking points. True, the Jews would transgress these laws in the future, but that wasn’t the point. The point was to give the children of Israel absolute clarity of the nature of their servitude to God. To effect this, the Torah needed to present them with those laws and concepts which people would most want to rationalize away with the “yes buts” so familiar to parents and teachers.
To be sure, the degree of difficulty in committing to the Ten Commandments is measured differently for each one. For example, the Talmud articulates the constant tension involved in honoring one’s parents. It points out the massive challenge created by the need to completely fulfill what is required when the amount or nature of a parent’s needs inevitably exceed the child’s time or inclination.
Another example: Although refraining from murder is fairly routine for most people, the difficulty here is not in the required discipline. It is in the acceptance of the complete sanctity of the other that comes with this demand. The Torah wants to make clear that the prohibition against murder is not just a good idea in the Hobbesian sense of political self-interest. Rather, the power over life and death is something the individual must completely and totally relinquish to God.
Of course, it is possible to challenge this theory as well. What about the difficulty of the laws of physical separation between husband and wife? What about the laws of the sabbatical year, which because of their difficulty the Torah goes out of its way to encourage fulfilling? One answer is that the Torah is looking only at precepts that are constantly germane, or in modern parlance, applicable 24/7. The rabbinic understanding of the precept to remember the Shabbat as applying to all seven days of the week, as well as their formulation of honoring parents even after they are dead, bolsters such a distinction.
Questions as to why these specific commandments were the ones included in the Decalogue will always remain, but putting them in the context of a document of allegiance at least partially mitigates the issue. The bottom line is not what is most central to the Jewish religion but rather what best exemplifies the Jewish people’s total subordination to God.
Two Tablets
We have so far presented God’s voice in the Ten Statements as that of a strict and unyielding sovereign. Yet the Ten Statements also reveal a completely different, less obvious side of God. This is partially hinted at by the very existence of two tablets containing the Decalogue. Indeed, the fact that Moshe was given two tablets by the One and universal God should not be overlooked.
For the purposes of this discussion, we will divide the Ten Statements as they are commonly divided, following the more popular rabbinic opinion that each tablet contained five statements (Mekhilta d'Rabbi Yishmael on Shemot 20:13; Shemot Rabba 47:6). The other traditional approach is that all the statements were written on each of the tablets, so as to create two copies of the same document – a practice quite common in business and other agreements up until today. (While not considered as a third approach, the breaks [parashiyot] in the Masoretic text give us another possible demarcation, wherein the first half is separated from the second by a full break after the third statement, that of not taking God’s name in vain, in Shemot 20:7.)
According to the most traditional approach, then, the last statement of the first tablet is to honor one’s parents. From here on, we encounter a very terse list of “don’ts.” The clear-cut, unnuanced nature of the last five commandments is only one of the differences between the two halves of the Decalogue that should strike us. Among others is the well-known distinction made by many commentators65See, for example, Ramban on Bemidbar 20:12. that the first set has to do with commandments between man and God and the second set focuses on those between man and man.66Honoring parents is associated with the former, even though there is room to understand this commandment as part of the latter. Nevertheless, stylistically it certainly belongs to the first half, and hence almost all commentators feel motivated to interpret it in that light regardless. Ramban points out that it is also the first of the commandments between man and man, even though it is ultimately related to the honor of God and, therefore, rightfully finds its place on the first tablet.
The opinion that the tablets were divided into two sections of five each beautifully embodies the conceptual split just mentioned, but it is quite visually dissonant. The obvious lack of symmetry in terms of the number of words on each tablet – with the first being far more wordy than the second – requires explanation. We know that symmetry is part of the natural world and can often be found in the Tanach as well.67We only need to examine the design of the Tabernacle and priestly garments to see the balance that exists in most of their components. Moreover, the Masoretic division mentioned above parenthetically does break down the two sections in this manner, dividing the fourteen verses of the Decalogue quite neatly both mathematically and visually, with seven in the first section and seven in the second. Hence, there has to be a very good reason – which we believe to be the case here – to push such an important stylistic tool aside.
Five Plus Five Equal One
Perhaps even more significant than the differences between the two sections of the Ten Statements is what they have in common. First and foremost is the fact that each set of commandments, i.e., those between man and God and those that focus on interpersonal relationships, is given its own tablet. By doing so, the Torah is going out of its way to give equal weight to these two sections. Moreover, as R. Yoel bin Nun points out, each set contains exactly six negative commandments, reinforcing our sense that the Torah is trying to create some sort of organizational symmetry out of these two otherwise disparate units.
Consequently, half of the document we are examining – conceptually speaking – is given over to how God expects man to treat his fellow man. Even if this represents the second set of five commandments, we see no gradation between the two – of a larger and a smaller tablet, for instance, or anything of that type. Rather, the Torah just calls them the – seemingly parallel – “Two Tablets of the Covenant.”68See Shemot Rabba 41:6 and especially the commentary of Rabbi Shmuel Yaffe Ashkenazi, Yefat Toar.
This equality is particularly striking in light of the Decalogue’s being given as an expression of Divine power mentioned earlier. As we suggested, the giving of the Ten Statements was a type of swearing-of-loyalty ceremony, parallel to that undergone by ancient vassals toward their suzerains. In that situation the clear focus was on loyalty to the suzerain. Here, however, the Ten Statements want to provide symmetry between loyalties to the ultimate Suzerain on the one hand and basic morality toward one’s fellow man on the other. This is as significant as it is unusual.
It is not only in relation to ancient political documents that this balance is striking. After all, a human king making a covenant with his subjects serves as but a pale metaphor for the relationship between God and human beings. One would think that God would demand much more attention to His own service than would a human king. Contemplating the true greatness of God leads one to imagine that there is actually only one truly meaningful relationship in our lives – the one with Him.69See Francis Nataf, Redeeming Relevance in the Book of Genesis (Jerusalem: Urim Publications, 2006), Chapter Four. Hence, had we humans constructed the Ten Statements we might well have left the entire “second tablet” for a different occasion.
With the two tablets, God has made an almost startling statement about interpersonal morality. To be able to make more sense of it, it helps to remember that although there are two tablets, they are first and foremost one entity of legislation between man and God. This means that ultimately all Ten Statements are related to the service of God. Yet this only strengthens the question: In what way is interpersonal morality so central to the obedience to God?
In Jewish tradition, God is often compared to a human father. Continuing the metaphor, stealing from another human being would be an affront to his or her “Father in heaven” in the same way as stealing from a child is really stealing from that child’s father. The metaphor is particularly apt here, for not only is a child loved and cherished by his parents, he is legally within his parents’ financial domain. He is also created by them in their own image. Indeed, an attack on one’s child is often experienced by the parent more harshly than an attack on the parent himself.
Accordingly, God resembles a father at least as much as He resembles a king. For what flesh and blood sovereign would really care as much about how his subjects treat each other as he does about how they treat him? But a father does care as much about how his son is treated as he cares about how he himself is treated.
It is not only that God differentiates Himself from human leaders, as much as it is that He clearly establishes the general contours of what He expects from His subjects. The notion of God’s preeminent interest in how people treat each other, implanted as it is in the Ten Statements, leads the rabbis to make other, somewhat shocking statements with regard to the centrality of interpersonal commandments, even in comparison with commandments toward God. For example, when Avraham is speaking with God, the rabbis (Shevuot 35b) understand that he appropriately interrupted his interview in order to tend to his ostensibly human guests. They likewise read a hint in the words of the prophet Yirmiyahu that suggests God allows His own honor to take second place to the carrying out of His commandments.70Eichah Rabba, Introduction:2 on Yirmiyahu 16:11.
In the midst of the austere and fearful drama that was Ma’amad Har Sinai, God makes sure to introduce a new way of looking at obedience to the ultimate King and ruler. Obedience means not only how one should treat Him, but equally, how one should treat His children.
* * *
We have seen that the Ten Statements are actually much more complex than often thought and include some important aspects we might not have considered before. Among them is that more important than the text of the Ten Commandments is its context, which is a ceremony designed to bring appreciation for the absolute nature of the loyalty that Jews are expected to show to God. Once that is understood, the choice of commandments contained follows more readily, as we described.
But even more significant is our understanding of why they are divided into two equal tablets, the first containing laws of obedience to God and the second containing interpersonal laws. Given its lack of visual symmetry, we discovered that a major statement is being made – that God cares as much about how we treat each other as how we treat Him. While the central place of interpersonal ethics in Judaism is already well known, that it is actually rooted in Ma’amad Har Sinai gives it an even more fundamental place still.
This is not without practical ramifications. As religious people, it is imperative that we remember the apparently surprising orientation that God Himself provides us in the Ten Statements. On the one hand, He expects our absolute fealty and dedication. On the other hand, precisely because of that fealty He expects us to treat others as His own children. Failing to do so is not only an ethical failing; it is an act of total insubordination toward the same God Who demands and expects our absolute allegiance.