2.14.25 ~ Top to Bottom or Side to Side?

Good afternoon!

This week's Torah portion is Yitro (Ex. 18-20). It's most commonly known for the 10 words/dabar given on the two tablets of stone. One of the intriguing things about the "Ten Commandments" is that they were engraved on two separate tablets. Was God short of granite that He needed to use two tablets? Why could He not carve the commandments onto a single stone?

When we look at the two tablets they can be read vertically or from Tablet to tablet; side to side.

The simplest way of reading the "Ten Commandments" is, of course, from top to bottom:

On the first stone:
1) I am the Lord your God who has taken you out of Egypt...
2) You shall have no other gods...
3) You shall not swear in God's name in vain...
4) Remember the Sabbath...
5) Honor your father and your mother...

And the five commandments engraved on the second tablet:
6) You shall not murder.
7) You shall not commit adultery.
8) You shall not steal.
9) You shall not bear false witness against your fellow.
10) You shall not covet your fellow’s house; you shall not covet your fellow’s wife … nor anything that belongs to your fellow.

The second way of reading is horizontally from side to side; commandment No. 1 directly to No. 6; from No. 2 to No. 7; 3 -- 8; 4 -- 9; 5 -- 10. This version of the Ten Commandments would then read like this:
1) I am the Lord your God/You shall not murder.
2) You shall have no other gods/You shall not commit adultery; and so forth with the rest of the commandments...Why is it necessary to read the Ten Commandments horizontally? What insight can we gain from this alternative reading of the commandments?

In years past we've made a connection between (1) 1-6, (2) 2-7, (3) 3-8, (4) 4-9 & (5) 5-10 and then simplifying the groupings 1-5, 2-4, & 3 into the common themes of 'respect'.

Today, I just want to take us on a journey of 1-6 :-)

"I am the Lord your God/You shall not murder."

What is at stake in this juxtaposition is nothing less than the future of human civilization...just look at our current landscape of society across the world and you'll see what I mean!

Two groups (Philosophers and Thinkers) have made an attempt to divorce commandment no. 1 from commandment no. 6 - to sever the idea of a Creator, who conceived the world for a moral purpose, from the imperative to honor the life of another human being. Fortunately, they didn't succeed...or did they?

The two reasoned that religion was not necessary to ensure moral behavior; reason alone, without God, would guide humanity into an age of liberty and to the achievement of moral greatness. While religion embodied the vision of man standing in a continuous relationship with God, the essence of the Thinkers represented the vision of man without God. It was a vision already introduced during the first days of creation near the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, by the most sophisticated animal of the time, the serpent. "You shall be like God," it promised Adam's honey bunny (Gen. 3:1-4); emphasizing that man could and should replace God. Left to his own (de)vices, the thinking inferred that the human being will achieve greatness without God.

Child trafficking, brutal wars, family violence, testify that thought process didn't work out too well.

Without God, we cannot objectively define any behavior as good or evil. As difficult as it is to entertain, no one can objectively claim that the modern holocaust or the Germans holocaust is any different than removing the squirrels from my storage closet at the cottage. The validity and effectiveness of "You shall not murder" can be sustained only if it is predicated on the foundation of faith in a universal moral creator who gave humanity an absolute and unwavering definition of what constitutes good vs. evil.

It is why so many on the radical left are so confused about morality, as to even defend Hitler and Hamas. What God is telling us in this week's Torah portion is, either we climb to a place beyond ourselves, or we are likely to fall to a place below ourselves.  When the vision of the sacred dies in the soul of a person, he or she is capable of becoming a servant of the devil.

And, as bad as this 'thinking without God' perspective is, various religions over the ages abandoned no. 6 in favor of no. 1. Theirs has been the atrocious belief that as long as you believe in the Lord, or in Allah, you can kill and maim whomever you brand an "infidel." Whether it is a business executive in New York, or a teenager eating a slice of pizza in Jerusalem, or a child on the first day of school in Beslan, or a commuter in Madrid, or a tourist in Bali, or a newly married couple in Mumbai; if the person is not a member of your faith, God wants him or her to die. For the religious fundamentalist, "I am the Lord your God" has nothing to do with "You shall not murder." Add gossip and slander to the mix and we've got some major issues!

If you delete "You shall not murder" from religion, you have detached yourself from "I am the Lord your God." To believe in God means to honor the life of every person created in the image of God. What the juxtaposition of the two commandments is telling us is that you can’t believe in God and murder; which includes hatred in your heart (Lev. 19:17).

As we head into this beautiful Shabbat weekend, may each of the "10 commandment" pairings, and individual status, be evident in our words and actions (1 Jn. 3:16-18).

Shabbat shalom!

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