Va'etchanan – the top ten

Akiva Tor

Akiva Tor is Consul General of Israel in San Francisco

Are the Ten Commandments more important than the rest of the Torah? In this week's portion, Va'etchanan, the Ten Commandments appear for the second time in Moses' recounting of the Sinai revelation. But there are 613 commandments, many of them equally basic and fundamental. Are charity, circumcision, and the commandment to love our neighbor less important than the prohibition coveting or taking God's name in vain? Are we right to put the Decalogue on a pedestal in the way that we do?
At first glance, one can understand the tendency to regard the Decalogue as special. The Ten Commandments are those words which Israel heard directly from the Almighty, all the rest were relayed through the mediation of Moses because the nation could not bear the immensity of the revelation event. But the Sinai description, by its internal logic, beckons us in another direction. If Israel would have managed to remain standing at Sinai, they would have heard many hundreds of Biblical commands directly from the mouth of the God, so to speak. Ipso facto, the Ten Commandments are unique by the circumstances of their transmission, but they are not special in and of themselves.

Similarly, if the Ten Commandments are foundational in some very central way, then they ought to be of equal, or near equal, stature. But can we equate "thou shalt not steal" (VIII) with 'thou shalt nor murder" (VI), or the actual act of adultery (VII) with the emotion of coveting a friend's spouse (X)? Is taking the Lord's name in vain (III) on par with idol worship (II)? Some of the commandments do not seem as essentially basic as others. How then can we put uneven ideas on a single pedestal?

This is one of the reasons that the Rabbis restricted several of the commandments to a more narrow meaning. Theft was understood as an act of human theft, the crime of kidnap. Swearing falsely was interpreted as false testimony in a capital crime which would convict an innocent to death. However, even so, the Rabbis were not complacent with the special place accorded to the Ten Commandments and challenged there supremacy in issues of Halakhic practice. For example, does one stand when the Ten Commandments are read, if one does not generally stand for Torah reading? There is an opinion that one must not stand for the Decalogue, in order not to elevate them above the rest of the Torah. Likewise, according to Tractate Brachot 12a, the practice of reciting the Decalogue as part of the daily prayers was discontinued in order that people not attribute to them greater veracity than the rest of Torah. In Biblical parlance as well, we do not call the Decalogue the "Ten Commandments", but rather the "ten things" or "ten statements"(Deuteronomy 4:12), a less imposing title.

And yet, after all is said and done, it is an almost universal tradition to adorn the Aron Kodesh in the synagogue with a depiction of the Tablets and the Decalogue upon them. And indeed, it was these commandments alone which were inscribed on the Tablets of the Covenant, written miraculously from both sides by the finger of God. It would appear that tradition is conflicted about the proper place to be accorded the Ten Commandments - they are special but they are not, they are foundational and yet should not be so regarded, some of them are spectacular moral bedrock, but not all of them.

One might say that the Ten Commandments – aside from their content and the words from which they are comprised – are singled out because of the vital symbol they represent in Judaism. They symbolize the supremacy of values, and that a moral value lays at the heart of every commandment.

The Ten Commandments are split evenly between requirements to God and requirements to fellow man, but each one of them rests clearly on a moral premise quite literally "written in stone". The Bible scholar Moshe Weinfeld suggests that the Ten Commandments are Judaism's early conception of Immanuel Kant's "categorical imperative" – the idea that values are immanent in the creation and are not artificially manufactured by society. Therefore these Ten Statements are attributed to the mouth of God, and are inscribed in the most elemental matter, rock. This is also why no sanctions are mentioned in the Ten Commandments. If one worships idols or violates the Sabbath or covets the goods of another, the individual's punishment is not at issue – the crime is against the fabric of creation, the harm done is against the cosmos.

The Rabbis noted that there were Ten Statements at Sinai, and likewise they noted that "by ten statements the world was created" (Tractate Avot 5:1). The Ten Commandments are not foundational in and of themselves, but they represent the modernist idea that morality is bedrock, that values are inherent and lasting, and that they are immanent in the creation.

In other's words:

"The 169 words of the Ten Commandments are, even today, the basis of the entire Western civilization. And the social vision of Amos and the political vision of Isaiah are the compass of our path. Yes, I believe in enlightening the world, in raising light for both people and nations. We recall that the first sentence in Genesis was, 'Let there be light'."
President Shimon Peres, in his Inaugural Address to the Knesset, 15 July 2007

On a lighter note:

Despite how you may have personally felt about the issue, there was a
good logical reason for removing the Ten Commandments monument from the Alabama Supreme Court building.

You cannot post things like "Thou Shalt Not Steal," "Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery and "Thou Shall Not Lie" in a building full of lawyers, judges and politicians. It creates a hostile work environment.