10 Commandents

  

 

 

 

"10 Commandments"

  Forty days and forty nights are said to have passed before Moses descended from Mount Sinai. Moses finally returned to his people after having dared the desert journey of bearing witness to God, all mighty.

    (Just as the Israelites had wondered for 40 years, perhaps indicative of the average amount of time it requires a believer to maintain a confidence and firm enough belief to cognitively restructure the idea of God from an external source to an internal realization that an individual, alone is responsible for his actions and for his convictions-- I.e. to attain a more holistic level of spiritual and psychological maturity in life??)

    Upon Moses’ return he, much to his disappointment, found his very own brother, Aaron, to have bastardized his efforts and lured his people into the depths of pagan worship. In the traditional ritualistic sense, the Israelites were idol worshipping a bull-head statue and adorning it with gifts as though it took on a life of it’s own. Moses’ people prayed and engaged in senseless praise of Gods that were not conducive to the One in which they had sent him to travel and engage. Moses appalled at the scene, smashed the tablets at the foothill of the mountain. He was forced to return to the comforts of the true God to confess his anger and poor judgments.

    God historically forgive his child Moses, and used the frustrations as a teaching tool, to guide Moses into a better understanding of what he was commanded to do. Moses returned to the Israelites a second time.

     Again he palmed two tablets that, according to the Talmud, the compendium of traditional Rabbinic Jewish Law and interpretation of biblical verse, “The tablets were written on both their sides“. This mirror imaging was according to Rabbi Hanin ben Gamaliel, a sign that the tablets would establish a covenant when duplicated. The latter could be compared and supported by the diplomatic treaties of Ancient Egypt in which one copy of the agreement was made for each party involved.

      Moses tells us (for he is the accredited prophet and/or writer of the first 5 books of the Old Testament) in Exodus (20:1-17) and Deuteronomy (Septuagint 5:4-21) that:

I am thy Lord, thy God, Thou shall have no other Gods
No graven images or likenesses
Nor, take the Lord’s name in vain.
Remember the Sabbath day
1Honor thy Father and thy Mother
Thou shall not kill
Thou shall not commit adultery
Thou shall not steal
Thou shall not bear false witness
Thou shall not covet

       In the Talmudic sense these were labeled sayings or declarations that were entrusted to Moses from God himself. The Greek translated these statements at deka logous or “10 terms” of Moses. The Tyndale/ Coverdale traditions translated them “10 verses”, in which case the Geneva Bible, the Bishops Bible and the Authorized King James Version stated that they were actually “The Commandments” of God. Needless to say, agreeing upon much between people is quite a daunting task, but all parties involved have been willing to accept the importance of the simple fact that these in carved words concern only matters of fundamental importance:

The greatest obligation--to worship only God
The greatest injury to a person-- murder
The greatest injury to family bonds-- adultery
The greatest injury to commerce and law-- to bear false witness
The greatest intergenerational obligation-- to honor parents
The greatest obligation to community-- truthfulness
The greatest injury to movable property-- theft

     Although clearly similar to the Hittite and Mesopotamian law codes-- such as the code of Hammurabi inscribed in a stone stele-- they were not as explicit as detailed rules and regulations; rather they provided guiding principles that apply universally across changing circumstances. They do not specify punishments for their violation and their precise impact must be worked out in each specific situation.

    The concept of the one and only Absolute and Certainty in this Earth giving man a volition, thus leaving the slave individual responsible for the choice of deciding who and what he was, and what actions he would take, was unique and novel at this time to the Israelites.

     In a time of blind obedience Moses demanded that each practicing practitioner be personably accountable for his actions. Each individual, alone, would stand for the consequences of his decision, so he must chose wisely. The chosen people were finally free, free from the grasp of tyranny, free from external controls, free and on his own… but at what expense? What is the price of a free man, and how much must he pay to be cast out into the world of absolutes with his own volition consciousness?

     The days of certainty were now marked as done, and the Israelites would hold themselves to a higher more humanistic order of punishment based on situation and circumstance. The world was to be a different place, changed forever, when Moses descended from Mount Sinai. Life as humans knew it, would never be the same after the acceptance of these precepts became clear.

     In response to Moses’ epic victory against group servitude to an individual’s often harmful, and self-centered orders, the Leviticus priests quickly added 603 (totaling 613 all together) additional duties and ceremonies to be performed as per strict Jewish Law. In Judaic tradition, the 10 sayings are accompanied by the 603 mitzvot. These are outlined in the 7 Noahide Laws. Medieval Sefer ha Chinuch stated that the first 4 statements concerned the relationship between God and Humans and the next 6 statements where of concern between the relationships of people.

      In the era of the Sanhedrin, transgressing any one of 6 of the 10 Commandments theoretically carried the death penalty; exceptions being the honoring of Father and Mother, saying God’s name in vain and coveting; though it was rarely enforced due to a large number of stringent and evidentiary requirements imposed by the oral law.

      The construing and belittling enforcers who made the other 603 restrictions, attempted to construct a timeless standard of living, and once again rescind man to a smaller and more simplistic way of life; however, the damage was done. No amount of kashrut dietary laws or strict rituals would place man back into a box. Certainty had been released cast as “a ship adrift at sea” (Jaspers), mankind could no longer be bogged down and trapped by the comforts of being directly told what to do.

     Most of the rules pertained to lifestyle choices that should have been optional teaching guidelines for how to preserve everyday life in times of difficulty, but when turned stringent and oppressive, they became as cruelly imposed as the regime to which the Israelites had just been freed. Because the slave was now free, the former master and he were equals, and thus the result was the immediate awareness of the contingency of the here and now.

      Aware of newfound “rights", a sentient being was born; alone, scared, thrown into a confusing reality that would spiral into a new era of change. An epoch of altered view points, consciousness’ and perspectives would arise.

       The grueling and daunting isolation of being thrown into a world, faced with the undulating vicissitudes of life, and the lack of foreknowledge of a purpose began. Mankind had to depend on mankind, learning the experiences of his antiquity to help construct more of his own place in this world.

     God was starting to step back, and leave man to resolve his own issues. Slowly evolving, the mind of man had released itself from the restrictions and constrictions of man ruling as God ... thus final say on verdicts.

     Now, the individual believer was suddenly burdened by the complacency of the immediate. His faith in the one and only God, whom could not be directly experienced--neither seen, nor heard-- yet this almighty Deity was surrounding mankind and in contact with him daily, became a plague to storm the thoughts of the thinker, who did not Know his fate.

    Man was contrasted to a material world, constantly familiar with the ubiquitous stuff of life; and forced to construct an understanding of the reality of the unseen.

     The Inquisitor-- or newly developed volition-- propounded a plethora of questions to a world, a God, that would refuse to answer. Only indirect messages were sent via courageous prophets who sacrificed themselves in lieu of the possibility of angering an almighty force beyond his control. Something unforeseeable had began amongst the masses and Moses was part and parcel to it. Suddenly, Moses had become the advocate speaking the words of God, for God.

     For the Jews, the mishna records the practice of reciting the 10 statements everyday before the reading of shema, but practice now is much different. This ceremonial process was altered and abolished in Synagogue so’s not to give ammunition to the heretics who claimed that they were the only important part of Jewish Law. Today, the Big 10 are heard in Synagogue 2-3 times a year. During the festival of Shavuot, the worshipers rise to their feet for the reading, to highlight their spiritual significance.

    The, then Pagan, Christians… took the 10 Commandments more liberally then the Israelites. They limited themselves to only 10 and no more. They were free and would not be a peoples restricted again, or so they thought! (Fear and intolerance of difference would hold them captive later on, in superstitious feuds of vengeance and hate, but, anyhow…) Christians are only bound by 10 laws of God. In Roman Catholicism, Jesus freed the Christians from the Jewish obligation to keep the 603 mitzvot, but not from their obligation to keep the 10 Commandments; they are the moral order to what the Creation story is to the natural order.

    Protestantism uses the 10 Commandments for 2 purposes: (a) to outline Christian life to each person; and, (b) to make each person realize through their failure to live that life, that they lack the ability to enter heaven on their own. Thus--the 10 Commandments primarily serve to lead each Christian to the Grace of God.

    Jesus revealed the 1st and Great Commandment: “And, behold one came and said unto him, Good master, what good things shall I do that I may have eternal life? And he said unto him, ‘Why callest thou me good? There is none good but One, that is God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.’ He said unto him, ’which’? Jesus said, ’Thou shall not murder, Thou shall not commit adultery, Thou shall not steal, Thou shall not bear false witness, Honor thy Father and thy Mother; and, Thou shall love thy neighbor as thyself.’ Gospel of Matthew (19:16-19)