F9: Shavuot

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The Ten Utterances

Famous as they are, the Ten
Commandments are actually referred to in the Torah as
the Ten Utterances. They can be summarised as follows:

1. I am Your God, I saved you.
2. Do not have any other Gods besides Me
3. Do not taking my name in vain
4. Keep Shabbat
5. Honour your parents
6. Do not murder
7. Do not commit adultery
8. Do not steal
9. Do not testify falsely against another person
10. Do not crave what is not yours

There are many ways of analysing these. For instance: 1 to 5 are laws between you and God, while 6 to 10 are between you and other people. You could ask: Why these ten? Why not others? One approach is to say that these ten contain fundamental Jewish ideas:

1. Know God. Realise that God is always there and that God cares for you personally.

2. Reject false values & ideas. Always beware not to turn things into mini-gods.

3. Take language seriously. Respect what God stands for. Always be aware of what you are about to say.

4. Time is precious. Every seventh day take a rest and see what you've achieved so far.

5. Know your origins. You are not an island and you haven't arrived from know where. Everyone is part of a natural context i.e. family.

6. Value life. All humanity was created in the image of God so don't destroy that.

7. Care about relationships. Don't cheat on those you love and who love you.

8. Respect property. Don't use or abuse what is not yours. Be responsible for what you own.

9. Be truthful. Lies are addictive and destructive, they can make you lose touch with reality.

10. Appreciate what you have. Constant desire for more with always leave you unsatisfied.

Sinai specifics

For thousands of years Jews have analysed and discussed what specifically the people heard and how much they really understood at Sinai. To get an idea of the debate, we'll briefly look at the approach of three traditional Rabbinic commentators concerning the quantity and quality of the Revelation at Sinai:

(i) RASHI - Solomon ben Isaac (1040-1105)

Based on ancient midrashim, Rashi states that the people actually only heard the first two commandments directly from God. At this point they had complained to Moses that Revelation was too much for them. So, under God's instruction, Moses himself pronounced the last eight commandments. Also, Rashi notes that the entire event was miraculous in nature: deafness and dumbness were briefly suspended so that all the people could hear and respond to God; sounds could actually be seen, an effect which is normally impossible; angels escorted the frightened people; and the voice of Moses could be heard by all, despite the terrifying clamour emanating from the mount.

(ii) MAIMONIDES - Moses ben Maimon (1135-1204)

"It is clear to me that at the Mt. Sinai gathering, not everything that reached Moses also reached all Israel." writes Maimonides. He agrees that the people only heard the first two commandments but goes further. He remarks that since all of the Ten Commandments address the second person singular, it must be that the Revelation was entirely directed towards Moses, with the people only listening in. This means that, even for the first two commandments, there was a difference in the level of comprehension between Moses and the people. Moses heard and fully understood everything while they only "heard the great voice, but not the articulations of speech..."

(iii) HIRSCH - Samson Raphael Hirsch (1808-1888)

According to Hirsch all the people heard and wholly understood all of the Ten Commandments: "What they had to do was to hear... and indeed to hear with full clear consciousness that the Word was objective, that it came to them from without, not from within themselves..." This full comprehension was despite all the miraculous things that were going on around them: "The whole of Nature roared, thunder rolled, lightening flashed, mountains quaked... but Israel had ears only for the talk between God and Moses."

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