Moishie was very frustrated when he couldn’t find his hat on his way out of shul on Friday night. It appeared that someone might have taken his hat, perhaps by mistake. On his way out, he noticed the pouring rain and decided to take someone else’s rain hat instead.
On שבת morning, Moishie listened carefully to the rabbi’s דרשה, which, as it happened, was about the עשרת הדברות, the 10 commandments. By the end of services, Moishie ran to the coat room to return the hat he had stolen. After davening, he approached the rabbi. “Rabbi, because of your דרשה, I returned the hat I took from the coat room last night!”
“Because of the commandment not to steal?” asked the rabbi.
“No,” said Moishie, “when you talked about the adultery one, I was reminded where I left my hat!”
I want to speak about the עשרת הדברות this morning, even though we read them yesterday, because I don’t think I would have made much sense after staying up all night on Tuesday night but they constitute a central part of שבועות’s observance. The עשרת הדברות are read three times a year, once during פרשת יתרו, once in פרשת ואתחנן, and once on the first שבועות morning.
Although we have the practice to read the 10 commandments with special טראפ each of the three times, some have the custom only to do so on שבועות. While halachic literature has developed practices to ensure no one thinks the 10 commandments are more authoritative than the rest of the Torah, we tend to be more willing to recognize the uniqueness of the Decalogue today.
So the question is, why are the 10 Commandments such a big deal? This is a particularly resonant question here in the United States, where the 10 Commandments have had an outsized public role relative to the rest of the Western world. Federal and state courts around the country are decorated with pictures and sculptures of the tablets containing the דברות.
In 1897, Senator John Taylor Morgan of Alabama even proposed that knowledge of the 10 Commandments be a prerequisite to becoming a citizen of the United States. He argued that such a requirement is not a religious test, which would be unconstitutional, because:
It is a test that goes to the constitution of society; it is a test which relates to that organism which pervades all Christendom, and it is a test which no nation in this world and no people in this world would dispense with or can afford to dispense with without invoking upon themselves the destruction of the Almighty.
In fact, the structure of the 10 commandments was used by American leaders as diverse as Thomas Jefferson and Martin Luther King Jr., Jefferson with “10 Rules for Living” and MLK with “10 Commandments for Cultural Change,” as a mnemonic device for how to live.
Within Judaism, the עשרת הדברות have obviously played an important role as well. During much of the Second Temple period, the עשרת הדברות were recited together with קריאת שמע as an essential part of the daily service. That practice was only retired at around the beginning of Christianity because of heretical claims that only the עשרת הדברות are commanded directly from Hashem. The very fact that they are repeated almost word for word by משה in his review of the Torah underscores their centrality.
Moreover, the עשרת הדברות, originally written on two stone tablets, were not only the first Torah text delivered to the Jewish People at Mt. Sinai but they were placed in the ארון הקודש, the Ark, which itself was placed in the most sacred room of the משכן and later the בית המקדש.
As the רמב״ן explained, this was to allow for the Jewish People to take the Sinai experience with them throughout the desert and place it permanently in their midst in ירושלים. Given all of this, the obvious question becomes: Why these specific 10 commandments? If all 613 מצוות have equal status as commandments directly from G-d, then why weren’t all 613 on the לוחות, the two tablets? What value is there in setting aside certain commandments over others?
In Christian theology, most of the commandments of the Torah were supposedly rejected with the coming of Jesus. Only the 10 commandments, as repeated at the Sermon on the Mount, are still in force in some way, with emphasis placed on the interpersonal precepts.
Saadia Gaon, the 9th Century philosopher and Talmudist, suggests in his ספר אזהרות, that the עשרת הדברות can serve as a summary of the principles underlying all 613 מצוות. Like many medieval Jewish Talmudists, he lists the 613 commandments by affiliating each with one section of the Decalogue. If so, the 10 commandments are not commandments at all – they are a statement of values, of the fundamental undergirding of Judaism. This not only explains why these commandments play such a central role in Judaism, but it also explains another problem: The first commandment, אנכי ה׳ אלקיך, doesn’t even contain any imperative or prohibition! It’s just a statement of Hashem’s role in our history. Saadia Gaon’s approach clearly accounts for this issue.
The רמב״ם takes a different approach. He understands even אנכי ה׳ אלקיך to be a commandment, one obligating everyone to pursue a greater understanding and knowledge of G-d. The 10 commandments are not principles, but they are מצוות that Hashem chose to highlight first because they include some of the most basic concepts of Judaism, such as the Oneness of G-d, שבת, and the value of human life. Because he thought they were still just 10 of 613 רמב״ם ,מצוות ruled that one should not stand during the recitation of the עשרת הדברות during תפילה, lest anyone mistakenly think they are more important than any of the other מצוות.
According to both Saadia Gaon and רמב״ם, however, the Decalogue is a fundamentally Jewish text, presenting laws that apply uniquely to a chosen people with a specific history. They are inextricably connected to the rest of the commandments, either as underlying principles of the 613 or as a diverse presentation of only some of the most fundamental concepts of the Torah.
Rav Soloveitchik, in contrast, notes that the introduction to the עשרת הדברות begins with something we would never have expected. After emphasizing the unique relationship between Hashem and the Jewish People and discussing G-d’s carrying of the Jewish People like a baby eagle on its mother’s wings, after highlighting Israel’s status as a ממלכת כהנים וגוי קדוש, a kingdom of priests and a holy nation, the Decalogue begins:
וידבר אלקים את כל הדברים האלה לאמר
And G-d spoke all of these words, to say
There are numerous problems with this verse. But perhaps the most important one is, why does the verse use the name אלקים, the generic name for G-d, rather than י-ק-ו-ק, G-d’s proper name, i.e. Hashem? We would have expected G-d to use His name of mercy, the name He only revealed to משה and the Jewish People, not even to our earlier ancestors. Why use אלקים, a name more closely associated with harsh judgment, with the exactness of nature, with an impersonal, powerful, and primordial G-d of creation?
Rav Soloveitchik submits that perhaps this indicates a fundamental distinction between the עשרת הדברות and other commandments. The עשרת הדברות are not the ten principles that underlie the other מצוות but rather the ten principles that “constitute the foundation for civilized existence and are placed on the same level as the laws governing nature.” As opposed to the other מצוות, which affect “transcendental man,” which affect just the metaphysical personality, violation of the עשרת הדברות is a violation of more basic concepts of what it means to be human, to exist.
The author David Hazony wrote on entire book with a similar premise, entitled The Ten Commandments: How Our Most Ancient Moral Text Can Renew Modern Life. He argues that each of the commandments teaches a primary value of Western society. For example, אנכי ה׳ teaches us about Redemption. Not having other gods teaches us about the danger that our loneliness can lead us to worship beauty, power, or ourselves. שבת trains us to self-redeem. The prohibition on murder highlights the value of life. The prohibition against adultery brings into focus the distinction between love and ecstasy Not stealing teaches us to make room for others, etc.
Within this view, the עשרת הדברות are not just the fundamental ideas of the Torah – they are fundamental principles that should guide all human behavior We can now understand the famous מדרש that G-d previously offered to give the Torah to Esau and Ishmael, starting with the same 10 commandments. The 10 commandments, or more accurately, the 10 utterances, represent important contributions to human society in general
Personally, this second idea resonates with me because it explains why Hashem introduces the Decalogue by defining us as a model nation, as a גוי קדוש. We are only models to the extent that we at least maintain this standard of principles and take them to heart. And in an American society in which more than half of us don’t know that honoring our parents is one of the ten commandments, we’ve never needed this role modeling more.
For many Jews around the world, יזכור is a time when people make an extra effort to come to shul. In my mind, that is not just because of nostalgia for the people we’ve lost in our lives. There are many ways to memorialize those who’ve left us. The people we are about to memorialize in יזכור, those of us who are remembering lost parents, grandparents, siblings, contributed to each of our Jewish identities, somehow strengthened our need to memorialize them in a specifically Jewish way, with תפילה, prayer, and Torah. Whether they knew it or not, they ensured that all of us would continue to identify as a ממלכת כהנים וגוי קדוש, as a nation that models for the world these basic truths, the עשרת הדברות. May their memories spur us to continue to learn, to daven, and to model the moral principles of the Torah, for many years to come.
דורש לנפשי 