The Ten Commandments
The Ten Commandments are rightly considered important by Christians, Muslims, and Jews alike, but they are more a succinct expression of organized monotheistic religions than a foundation of the American legal system. Examining the text more closely, from a Jewish perspective, can illustrate the distinction.
Most striking is that the Hebrew does not refer to ten commandments, but rather to ten devarim, ten utterances. According to Jewish tradition, there are 613 commandments in the Torah and the ones enumerated here are no more and no less important than the others. From the perspective of the Torah, it is the event of transmission that makes this passage special. It was at this moment that a group of disparate tribes accepted God’s sovereignty, thus becoming a single people. They swore allegiance to God, not to each other, to the land of Israel, or to the laws of Torah. Those last three things derived from the covenant, but were not its core. This is in direct contradistinction to oaths of citizenship and of office sworn in the United States where loyalty is sworn to the country and God help is requested in order to fulfill those oaths.
The nature of the covenantal relationship between the Jewish people and God is based not on individual rights, but rather on obligations of service. While this meant freedom from the tyranny of man, it demanded acceptance of God as the new master. The text of the Ten Commandments delineates demands that seem far more onerous than anything ever required by a human ruler comprising not only restrictions on action and speech, but also on belief and desire.
Many people argue that it is precisely all these rules that drive them away from organized religion. These rules, they say, get in the way of their experience of the Divine. Yet it is precisely this all-encompassing nature of the text that represents religion at its best. Religion is not simply about being aware of God, nor is it merely an early expression of morality. Religion is about transformation. The strictures prescribed provide the discipline required to effect that comprehensive change. It is not easy daily to be aware God’s awesome nature, it takes self-discipline to control our speech and our actions, and it is incredibly difficult to channel our desires and thoughts appropriately. The promise of organized religion, though, is that when we, as a community, work at all three, we can create something more than a civil society, we can create a holy one.
While a noble goal for the United States, in practice on a large-scale it can lead to discord and danger. Already there are disagreements about how, exactly, to enumerate the Ten Commandments. Is “I, the Lord, am your God”, the first commandment or simply a preamble? Does the prohibition against idol worship include the provision to have no other gods or are those two separate commandments? Should the statement about coveting be understood as one commandment or two? Jews, Protestants, and Catholics already disagree on these minor points, how much more so over the meaning of keeping and honouring the Sabbath, or the meaning of worshipping false Gods? Are we really going to prosecute capitalists, fervent patriots, or sports fanatics? How are we to know whether someone is truly coveting something? Adherence to these rules was meant to be judged by one who is all-knowing, not by flawed human beings. So let’s promote the Ten Commandments in our churches and synagogues and find other, more appropriate, symbols for our courtrooms.
Most striking is that the Hebrew does not refer to ten commandments, but rather to ten devarim, ten utterances. According to Jewish tradition, there are 613 commandments in the Torah and the ones enumerated here are no more and no less important than the others. From the perspective of the Torah, it is the event of transmission that makes this passage special. It was at this moment that a group of disparate tribes accepted God’s sovereignty, thus becoming a single people. They swore allegiance to God, not to each other, to the land of Israel, or to the laws of Torah. Those last three things derived from the covenant, but were not its core. This is in direct contradistinction to oaths of citizenship and of office sworn in the United States where loyalty is sworn to the country and God help is requested in order to fulfill those oaths.
The nature of the covenantal relationship between the Jewish people and God is based not on individual rights, but rather on obligations of service. While this meant freedom from the tyranny of man, it demanded acceptance of God as the new master. The text of the Ten Commandments delineates demands that seem far more onerous than anything ever required by a human ruler comprising not only restrictions on action and speech, but also on belief and desire.
Many people argue that it is precisely all these rules that drive them away from organized religion. These rules, they say, get in the way of their experience of the Divine. Yet it is precisely this all-encompassing nature of the text that represents religion at its best. Religion is not simply about being aware of God, nor is it merely an early expression of morality. Religion is about transformation. The strictures prescribed provide the discipline required to effect that comprehensive change. It is not easy daily to be aware God’s awesome nature, it takes self-discipline to control our speech and our actions, and it is incredibly difficult to channel our desires and thoughts appropriately. The promise of organized religion, though, is that when we, as a community, work at all three, we can create something more than a civil society, we can create a holy one.
While a noble goal for the United States, in practice on a large-scale it can lead to discord and danger. Already there are disagreements about how, exactly, to enumerate the Ten Commandments. Is “I, the Lord, am your God”, the first commandment or simply a preamble? Does the prohibition against idol worship include the provision to have no other gods or are those two separate commandments? Should the statement about coveting be understood as one commandment or two? Jews, Protestants, and Catholics already disagree on these minor points, how much more so over the meaning of keeping and honouring the Sabbath, or the meaning of worshipping false Gods? Are we really going to prosecute capitalists, fervent patriots, or sports fanatics? How are we to know whether someone is truly coveting something? Adherence to these rules was meant to be judged by one who is all-knowing, not by flawed human beings. So let’s promote the Ten Commandments in our churches and synagogues and find other, more appropriate, symbols for our courtrooms.