By Rabbi Bruce Kadden, Temple Beth El
Earlier this month we celebrated Shavuot, the holiday of “matan Torah,” the “giving” or “gift” of Torah. It had special meaning for our family this year because our first grandchild, Matan Aviv Ballon, was born on May 5, which was not only Cinco de Mayo, but the fifth of Iyar, Israel Independence Day; I guess that means he is destined to be independent.
In any case, the Torah reading for the first day of Shavuot is Exodus 19-20, which includes the Ten Commandments. While most of us are familiar with this text, over the years I have discovered a variety of interesting facts about the Ten Commandments that are not as well known. So here are 10 things you might not know about the Ten Commandments:
• The Ten Commandments are not referred to in the Torah as the ten mitzvot, but most commonly “aseret had’varim,” literally “the ten words.” (Exodus 34:28, Deuteronomy 4:13, 10:4) They are also referred to in Jewish texts as “aseret hadibrot” which also means “the ten words” or “the ten sayings.” This understanding helps make sense of the fact that “I am the Eternal your God who led you out of the land of Egypt, the house of bondage,” which is a statement and not a commandment, is the first of the ten.
• The Ten Commandments were recited as part of the daily sacrificial ritual in the Temple but were omitted by the rabbis when they created the worship service. Brachot 12a tells us the Ten Commandments were recited in the Temple along with the three paragraphs of the Shema, the priestly blessing from Numbers, and other blessings. The text then says that the people wanted to do the same thing outside of the Temple, but were prevented from doing so due to the “minim.” These were sectarians (early Jewish-Christians according to some) who claimed that the Ten Commandments were the onlymitzvot incumbent upon the community. In response to this claim, the rabbis refused to allow the Ten Commandments to be recited as part of the daily prayers outside the Temple.
• The Ten Commandments are found not only in Exodus (chapter 20) and Deuteronomy (chapter 5) but also, according to the rabbis (Leviticus Rabbah 24:5), in Leviticus (chapter 19). The order of the commandments and their wording in Leviticus are different, and in a couple of instances the identification is a stretch. For example, “You shall not murder” is said to be reflected in the teaching “Do not stand by the blood of your neighbor” (Leviticus 19:16).
• While Judaism and Christianity agree there are ten commandments, they do not agree on what those commandments are. Judaism considers “I am the Eternal your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, the house of bondage,” to be the first commandment, but Christianity does not. So how does Christianity still end up with ten? The Catholic Church divides the commandment against coveting in two: one prohibiting coveting one’s neighbor’s wife and the other prohibiting coveting one’s neighbor’s goods. In the Protestant tradition, “You shall have no other gods beside me” is considered distinct from the prohibition against graven images that follows, whereas these are considered as one commandment in the Jewish and Catholic traditions.
• The word Torah in gematria (Jewish genealogy) has a value of 611; but the rabbis enumerated 613 commandments in the Torah. They accounted for this discrepancy by teaching that the first two of the Ten Commandments were directly spoken by God to the Jewish people, whereas the other 611 were transmitted through Moses. (Makkot 23b-24a)
• There are different ways to chant the Ten Commandments depending on whether one is studying them or reading them aloud during a worship service. When one chants the Ten Commandments during a worship service, the trope is arranged so each commandment is chanted as if it were a single verse (even though some are more than one verse). However, when one is studying this text, the trope treats each verse individually.
• Many synagogues have a representation of the Ten Commandments above the ark; this is a relatively recent innovation. Responsa both supporting and opposing the displaying of the Ten Commandments above the ark only began appearing with the rise of the practice among 19th-century Reform Judaism.
• The commandment to honor our parents is one of the few commandments in the Torah that promises a reward. “Honor your father and your mother, that you may long endure on the land that the Eternal your God is giving you” (Exodus 20:12). In Deuteronomy 5:16, a second promise, “and that you may fare well” is also included. For the rabbis, these rewards indicate the importance of this mitzvah. According to the Talmud, it is one of the mitzvot for which one is rewarded both in this world and in the world to come (Shabbat 127a).
• According to the rabbis, “You shall not steal” does not refer to the stealing of possessions but to kidnapping. The rabbis concluded that the prohibition against stealing found in Leviticus 19:11 refers to stealing property, whereas the prohibition against stealing in the Ten Commandments prohibits stealing a human being. They arrived at this conclusion because in the Ten Commandments, stealing is listed among murder and adultery, both of which are crimes against persons.
• The tenth commandment, which forbids coveting, on the surface seems to deal with a thought or a feeling rather than a behavior, which raised a concern for many rabbis. The rabbis taught that a desire for an object might lead to stealing the object and a desire for another man’s wife might lead to adultery or even murder. They also note that the text is specific, referring to one’s neighbor’s property and one’s neighbor’s wife, something that belongs to someone else.