I Don’t Want to Share the Ten Commandments

I Don’t Want to Share the Ten Commandments

Rabbi Gary S. Creditor

January 18^th, 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.