The Ten Commandments - ShulCloud

Sat 8+15 June 2019 ? 5+12 Sivan 5779

B"H

Dr Maurice M. Mizrahi

Discussions for Tikkun Lel Shavuot + Lunch and Learn

The Ten Commandments

1-I am the Lord. 2-No idolatry. 3-No blaspheming. 4-Shabbat. 5-Honor father and mother.

6-No murder. 7-No adultery. 8-No stealing. 9-No bearing false witness. 10-No coveting.

Exodus 20:1-14

God spoke all these words, saying:

1-I the LORD am your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, the house of bondage:

2-You shall have no other gods besides Me. You shall not make for yourself a sculptured image, or any likeness of what is in the heavens above, or on the earth below, or in the waters under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them. For I the LORD your God am an impassioned God, visiting the guilt of the parents upon the children, upon the third and upon the fourth generations of those who reject Me, but showing kindness to the thousandth generation of those who love Me and keep My commandments.

( ) 3-You shall not swear falsely by the name of the LORD your God; for the LORD will not clear one who swears falsely by His name.

1

 4-Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of the LORD your God: you shall not do any work--you, your son or daughter, your male or female slave, or your cattle, or the stranger who is within your settlements. ( ) For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth and sea, and all that is in them, and He rested on the seventh day; therefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day and hallowed it.

( ) 5-Honor your father and your mother, that you may long endure on the land that the LORD your God is assigning to you.

( )( )( )( ) 6-7-8-9-You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

( ) 10-You shall not covet your neighbor's house: you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his male or female slave, or his ox or his ass, or anything that is your neighbor's.

2

About the Ten Commandments

-Commandments 1-5 mention God: 1-4: humans to God. 5: Bridge.

Commandments 6-10 do not mention God: Humans to humans.

-Correlation between the five commandments opposite each other on each of the two tablets:

-Everyone is created in the image of God, so murder is an affront to God; -Idolatry is faithlessness to God, adultery is faithlessness to spouse; -Stealing leads to a false oath; -The Shabbat violator testifies falsely that God did not create the world in six days and rest on the seventh, -The man who covets his fellow's wife will father a child who honors the wrong father or curses his real father. [Mekhilta, Yitro 8]

-The Midrash asks why the Ten Commandments (aseret ha-dibrot) are not at the beginning of the Torah:

Why were the Ten Commandments not said at the beginning of the Torah? The Rabbis gave a parable. To what may this be compared? To the following: A king who entered a province said to the people, "May I be your king?" But the people said to him, "Have you done anything good to us that you should rule over us?" What did he do then? He built the city wall for them, he brought in the water supply for them, and he fought their battles. Then when he said to them "May I be your king?" they said "Yes". Likewise, God. He brought the Israelites out of Egypt, divided the sea for them, sent down the manna for them, brought up the well for them, brought the quails for them, fought for them the battle with Amalek. Then He said to them, "I am to be your king". And they said to him, "Yes, yes".

[Mechilta de-Rabbi Ishmael, Exodus 20:2]

In other words, do something for me first before issuing commandments! (Same as in courting.)

-Why are the Ten Commandments not in the liturgy? They were, up until ~3rd century, then were removed because some said that's all that matters in the Torah. Talmud:

Rav Matana and Rabbi Shmuel bar Nahman said: It would be proper to read the Ten Commandments every day. And why don't we? Because of

3

the zeal of the heretics, lest they say: These alone were given to Moses at Sinai. [Berakhot Y 1:3c] [The recitation of the Ten Commandments] was already abolished because of the murmuring of the heretics. [Berakhot 12a]

"Heretics" may have been Christians, Gnostics, Samaritans, Hellenizers (like Philo), etc. Maimonides said:

[Some] think that the Torah contains different levels, and some parts are better than others, and this is very bad....

Many attempts to restore them failed. [Berakhot 12a] Rabbi Moses Isserles (16th-century Poland): An individual may recite them, but not in public. -They are read publicly only three times a year: Twice in the weekly Torah reading (portions Yitro and Va'etchanan), and once on the first day of Shavuot. -Moses received two tablets of "stone" from God inscribed with the Ten Commandments. Jewish tradition is that the "stone" in question was sapphire. [Midrash Tanchuma 3:9:29; Leviticus Rabbah 32:2]

-Only 3 of the 10 commandments are enforced by law in the US:

-You may not murder, steal, or bear false witness. -You may be an atheist, a blasphemer, an idolater, a workaholic, an adulterer, ignore your parents and covet whatever you want.

4

I am the Lord Your God

On Shavuot, the Torah was revealed on Mount Sinai, and God gave Moses two tablets of stone with the Ten Commandments inscribed on them. In the Jewish tradition, the first of these commandments is:

I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, the house of bondage. [Exodus 20:2]

How is this statement a "commandment"? What, exactly, is being commanded here? This question has puzzled commentators. Let us speculate on possible answers.

It seems to command the belief that God exists. But Judaism does not mandate belief, only action. The Rambam, from 12th-century Egypt, believed it did, and so did the Ramban, from 13th-century Catalonia, but other luminaries disagreed. In the Midrash, we read:

It is written [in Jeremiah:] "They have forsaken Me and have not kept My law" [Jer. 16:11]. [This means that God said:] I wish they had forsaken Me but still kept My law, because by occupying themselves with it, the light which it contains would have led them back to the right path. [Lam. R.,

Prologue II; see also Chagigah Y 1:7]

This means: Do the action commandments now and don't worry about belief. Belief will come later of its own accord.

It is No. 1 in the Rambam's list of 613 commandments, which is the list most often used [Rambam, Sefer Hamitzvot (Ketab el Fara'id)]. But there are other lists. Talmud does not specify WHAT the 613 commandments are. So no "list" can have any practical consequences.

The list compiled by the Bahag, of 8th-century Babylonia, a Gaon, does not contain it. Others who did not accept belief as a commandment are Hasdai Crescas, of 14th-century Catalonia; the Tashbetz, Isaac Abravanel and Joseph Albo, all of 15th-century Spain.

The fact is that you can't make yourself believe.

5

 ................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download