The Ten Commandments Are Ours

Rabbi Gary S. Creditor
June 29, 2001

 

In 1958 or 1959 I went to the Adams Theatre on Branford Place in Newark, New Jersey to see the Cecil B. DeMille move The Ten Commandments. I was spellbound. It was mind-boggling. I was religiously enthralled. Of course I really didn't understand how badly he had misused the Biblical text. I was only ten years old and a novice in religious school. All who have ever watched the movie – it is shown every year around Passover/Easter – are enraptured by many of DeMille's depictions, but specifically, the "finger of God" – "etzbah Elohim," in creating the two tablets of the Aseret HaDibrot. That is the proper Hebrew name, which really means "The Ten Statements." The difference in names is another sermon. There is another name, which truly reflects their importance and role in Judaism. They are called: Shnei Luchot HaBrit – the Two Tablets of the Covenant. These are not just any two stones. And these are not just any ten commandments from the 613 contained in the Torah. And it does not matter that the stones are lost because their words live beyond the stones. Artistic replicas of these two stones are properly installed here above our bemah because these stones create the grounds for the existence of the Jewish people. They are our religious bedrock. Without the Shnei Luchot HaBrit, there would be no Israel. I will elaborate on that in a moment.

Of all the symbols of the Jewish people, only three represent our essence and are of great antiquity. Others, even the most popular, are more recent and are more political than religious. Besides the Shnei Luchot HaBrit, which are our fundamental symbols, long and often used?

There is the menorah from the Tabernacle and Temple, pictured on the Arch of Titus in Rome.

There is the Second Temple, the remake by Herod, pictured on coins from Eretz Yisrael for several hundred years.

And there are the Two Tablets of the Aseret HaDibrot, which currently are the symbols for the Jewish chaplains of the United States Armed Forces.

The Magen David, Shield of David, I'm sorry to say, was not used by David. Indeed many different peoples in history used it. They stopped using it as a geometric sign, and we were the only ones who continued. The rest is the story for another sermon. The talit was never used as a Jewish symbol. The Zionist movement uniting the two as its symbol was a political design and not a religious one.

I am speaking tonight about Shnei Luchot HaBrit, which contain the Aseret HaDibrot because I wouldn't be surprised that some day in the not too distant future someone is going to propose to put replicas of the "Ten Commandments" on the front lawn of the State Capitol, or of public schools, or even hang them in classrooms. This is not a far stretch of my imagination, because a lawsuit, which began in Elkhart, Indiana, wound its way up to the Supreme Court. In a ruling that only covers the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, the court recently refused to consider a lower court ruling that the monument can't remain on the grounds of the town hall. This will not stop anybody from trying to keep them there. Already there are proposals to privatize that piece of land or add other markers to the site. The Supreme Court vote was 6 to 3. If it had been 5 to 4, they would have accepted the appeal, and then, with this court, who knows. We should not be fooled nor lulled to sleep. Alabama, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina and Texas all backed the suit by Elkhart, Indiana.

How did the monument get there? In the 1950's, a Minnesota judge, E.J. Ruegemer, eager to provide moral guidance to the young, joined effort with DeMille who was promoting his 1956 film. This was a match "made in heaven." And so monuments around the country were bankrolled, the film was publicized, "and the rest is history." Only because the hedges around the monument in Elkhart were pruned did two atheists take notice and sued for its removal. An excellent web site for lots of detail about lawsuits around the country and more detail is ReligiousTolerance.org.

If this would come before our state, what should we say?

Should we say that this piece of Torah, I cited it that way specifically, should be displayed in every nook and cranny of the state?

Furthermore, what is inscribed on these two tablets?

Is it appropriate to be placed in every location?

I suggest that if this would become an issue here in the state, we should fight it with all our might.

Not because I don't want to raise our morality quotient.

Not because I am not proud of our Torah.

Precisely because it is a piece of our Torah it is a unique, special and definitive part of our Judaism, which no other religion can claim.

In the Torah these words are the terms of the agreement, they are the contract between the Children of Israel and God. Judaism, and only Judaism, begins here. This is our God because He took us out of Egypt. Whatever relationship there was with the patriarchs, our peoplehood, our nationhood with God begins with Egypt. That relationship is an exclusive relationship, which we maintain is unbroken and fully in effect, from Sinai to now, and forever. The Shnei Luchot – the two tablets – are the document of the covenant.

These words contain the revolution of Judaism to the world, then and now, that God is never portrayed in physical terms. Search all these windows in tomorrow's daylight. No place will you find God made manifest in a physical way. Judaism taught the world that humans are not divine. That teaching paved the way for democracy.

The Ten Commandments clearly indicates that the Sabbath is Saturday and not Sunday. That could be a problem. In the Deuteronomy the Shabbat is also linked to the Exodus, which is our foundational story. Other religions have their stories. Only for Judaism are these words the core raisone d'etre of our existence.

Therefore I feel that it would be inappropriate, to say the least, that our personal contract with God would be erected in the Capitol and in public schools. While the last words are certainly of universal application, its context is personal and even the private possession of the Jewish people.

Where does it belong?

It belongs in shul, like we have it up there.

It belongs on the front lawn of our synagogue or of our religious school. (That's not a proposal.)

It belongs in our religious school classrooms, as we teach about the special relationship with God that makes us the Jewish people, descendants of those who stood at Sinai.

It belongs in one other place. My mother once was chairperson of the synagogue gift shop, a job she did for many years. Somewhere she bought a laminated, English language rendition of the Ten Commandments. My father hung it in the hallway where we passed it by every day of our lives, multiple times. That's where it belongs, in our homes, so that we can passionately and diligently instill the love of God and our devotion to the covenant to ourselves and then in our children.