I Don’t Want to Share the Ten Commandments
Rabbi Gary S. Creditor
January 18th, 2014
I would like to make
a controversial statement.
“I really don’t want to share the Aseret HaDibrot, the
Ten Commandments, with anybody. They are Jewish. They
are ours. Exclusively ours.”
I am sure that you
are wondering what has happened to me in these waning months that I should make
should a seemingly harsh statement, but I assure you that there is deep and
ample foundation and corresponding clear explanation for it. It has far
reaching consequences.
I grew up with the
small plaque of the Ten Commandments on the short wall in the hallway of our
home. While I couldn’t recite all ten, never mind in the correct order, I knew,
just by seeing it every day that this text was uniquely mine, ours. I change the
language from uniquely to exclusively. It is not
the details of each statement, not whether there are more or less ten
commandments, or whether the first statement is even a commandment at all. It
has nothing to do with sharing a moral code with the rest of the world. The
essence is in the purpose of the
totality of the text.
This text, embedded
in the Book of Exodus, is like a ketubah.
It is the marriage document of God –
YHVH - and Israel, from the moment
of Sinai until the end of time. If Israel would accept these terms of
marriage, then God would take Israel
to be His forever.
No other people can stand in that relationship.
While all people will be His children, Israel
and only Israel can be His “First
born.” If Israel had rejected the Ten Commandments, it would have meant
more than “rejecting God.” It would have meant that Israel refused to
stand in the marriage bond. When the bride walks around the groom either three
or seven times, she is declaring by those circles that the bond between he and
she is exclusive. Sinai, with its thunder and lightning encompassing Israel at
its foot created the same imagery of exclusivity between God and Israel. Just
like under chuppah, this is a two way street: YHVH is Israel’s only God; Israel
is YHVH’s only people. The Aseret HaDibrot, far from being “just a text” is the instrumentality
of this relationship. Just as when a couple “love each other”
creating a romantic bond, it isn’t legal without the license. The Aseret HaDibrot
is the license that creates the
exclusive bond of Israel and YHVH. That is why I don’t want to share the Ten
Commandments. I can’t, unless I want to dissolve the bond, the marriage,
the covenant with YHVH. And should I do that, I forfeit the right to be Israel, relinquish the
terms of the covenant, and surrender my essence and thus my existence.
Israel
would be over.
Several pieces
needed further amplification. I don’t use the generic term “God” but rather the
unpronounced but exclusive Hebrew name referred to by its four Hebrew letters
YHVH. Sometimes I wish that we could pronounce it because it would enable our
distinctiveness to stand out clearly. Islam uses Allah. Christianity says
Jesus. Jews say YHVH. And while behind the veil there is a mystery that we
cannot know about the divine thus counterbalancing these words with a sense of
humility, on this side there are
specific differences between that give meaning and purpose to each individual
faith. We are purposefully different.
Secondly, a belief
that I have often repeated, if I don’t have a purpose to my identity, if there
is no motivation for me to be different, if there is no understanding to my
difference, then I can easily relinquish it. Growing up I knew that I was
different. Others had Christmas trees; I had a simple menorah. I went to
Religious School and they went to learn their catechism. They went to CYO
dances on Friday night and I went to shul. Those differences were enforced by
my parents and by the society I lived in. They didn’t want me there as much as
my parents wouldn’t let me. But upon leaving home, embracing the autonomy of
adulthood, and as society changed, I needed core, motivating reasons to remain
a Jew. There comes a moment of decision for everyone. Being a member of the faith
community of Israel is to choose to embrace
the covenant and to stand in relationship to YHVH. We choose to link ourselves in this bond.
Thirdly, every faith
community makes its own claim of exclusive relationship with God. They must. Each
faith needs to validate its existence. This is normal and natural and
necessary. I respect all faiths to make such claims. As a Jew, I do too. I don’t seek to
supersede any other faith. Yet I won’t be superseded either. To exist, I must
stand firm and upright in believing in the correctness of my faith. Otherwise,
why not give it up?
Fourth and lastly,
in the essence of the marriage bond, our fidelity to YHVH was rewarded with His
protection and the promise of a small sliver of land called Canaan, Eretz
Yisrael, Palestine and Medinat Yisrael. From our birth, our home was, is
and forever will be in Eretz Yisrael. It is hard to write this piece without
sounding like a hawk, but I am neither a hawk nor a dove, even as I have
alternatively embraced both sides of the political spectrum.
One of the consequences of standing in the exclusive
bond with YHVH, one of the results of being Israel the people, is to have
Israel the land, is to have Israel the State. Israel is a Jewish
state because throughout our long history, Israel the people have remained
faithful to the covenant with YHVH and this was the place promised and given to
us. It is the only homeland.
Scratch the earth and you will find testimony to our
residence for thousands of years. Forcibly removed by the Romans and later
conquerors, it was and is our right to have returned under international law,
and to defend our lives, our faith, and our people.
The nascent state pledged to respect the rights of the
Arabs. If they had not invaded in 1948 they would have had their state. They
sought to annihilate us. They failed. They suffer the consequences and are not
rewarded.
In 1967, unprovoked except by our very existence, they
again sought to annihilate the state of Israel. This one I remember. They
failed. They don’t get rewarded.
If Arafat had agreed Barak’s offer they would have
already had a state with nearly all the West Bank, part of Jerusalem and the
Gaza Strip. Instead he unleashed the intifadas that murdered hundreds upon
hundreds of civilians. They failed. They don’t get rewarded.
To this very day, despite every reason to do
otherwise, Israel offers to negotiate a respectful peace. This week was perhaps
a turning point in that history. Abbas stridently rejected recognizing Israel
as a Jewish state and Arab foreign ministers joined in supporting him. They
again insisted on the right of return, a Trojan Horse to destroy the State of
Israel. They continue to refuse to understand us and our history back to Sinai.
After the Six Day War the Arab world at Khartoum issued their three “no’s” of
recognition and peace. Nothing has changed except the tactics. Vice President
Kerry should not be duped.
As a Jew I cannot divorce myself, we can eliminate our
bond to the land and State of Israel and specifically as a Jewish state any
more than I, we can divorce or separate myself, ourselves from the bond to YHVH
and remain Jewish. Through Israel’s acceptance of the Ten Commandments as
recorded in this week’s sedra our faith and our land are indelibly and
eternally are woven together. Long ago the Rabbis declared: The Land; The
People; and Torah are one.
These words are not intended to be strident, only
firm. The world is too dangerous a place for weakness and self-doubt. While far
from perfect, I am immensely proud that Israel is Jewish and democratic, where
a person of any faith, from any place can live. I am immensely proud that
separately our daughter Tzeira and her fiancée Arsen chose Israel to be their
home. My family, our families, separated from the Land for two thousand years
but keeping faith with YHVH has returned home. They will firmly reestablish our
roots in its soil.
And this Jewish state, in Helen’s words will live
forever and ever.
