June 14th: Shavuot and the Ten Commandments
THIS WEEK IN THE TORAH
Rabbi David E. Ostrich
When I was a child, my mother would occasionally use the expression, “a lick and a promise.” It was in reference to a dirty child (me!) when time did not allow a proper bath. She would get a wet washcloth and run it over my face and neck—and that was all we had time for. The promise was the bath I would certainly get later.
What do you do when the proper or full treatment is not possible? What is the minimum requirement?
This question comes up in Halachah in regard to Birkat Hamazon, the long blessing after a meal. When a child is too young to learn the whole thing—or when an adult eater is in a big rush, what is the minimum necessary to properly thank God for the food? The answer, according to the Talmud (Berachot 40b), is: .בְּרִיךְ רַחֲמָנָא מַלְכָּא דְעָלְמָא מָרֵי דְהַאִי פִּתָה.
“B’rich Rachama, Malkah d’alma, Maray d’hai pita”—which is Aramaic for “Blessed is the Compassionate One, Ruler of the World, Who owns this bread.” A proper appreciation to God is much longer, but this minimal version will at least fulfill the basic requirement to “eat, find satisfaction, and thank the Lord.” (Deuteronomy 8.10).
There is, in us, a kind of reductionist tendency. Well aware of the complexities of the world, sometimes we just want “the basics.” This dynamic is certainly at play in the famous story of the Convert who approaches both Shammai and Hillel with an extremely reductionist request: “I will convert if you teach me the whole Torah while I stand on one foot.” Shammai regards the question as absurd and insulting. Torah is something one learns over an entire lifetime. This guy is obviously not serious about Judaism, so “Shammai pushed him away with the builder’s cubit in his hand.” Hillel, on the other hand, ignores the insult and figures out a way to hook the prospective convert and get him into Judaism. “Hillel converted him and said, ‘What is hateful to you do not do to another; that is the entire Torah; the rest is commentary. Now go and study!’” (Talmud Shabbat 31a) Clearly, Hillel’s answer is almost as absurd as the question, and yet his summary is both instructive and inspiring. Sometimes, it is nice to boil things down to an essential truth or two.
The problem—as both Hillel and Shammai certainly knew—is that sometimes our reductionist tendencies can be too much so and cheat us of the wide swath of our greater knowledge or culture. It is hard to overstate, for example, the importance of the Ten Commandments—the revelation of which we celebrate on Shavuot. But there is a lot more to Judaism than just those ten. In fact, Tradition is a little hazy—or expansive—about the encounter at Mount Sinai and calls it much more than just the Ten Commandments. It is called Matan Torah, the Giving of the entire Torah. While the Ten Commandments are certainly of extreme value, they are only the beginning and perhaps most dramatic of the 613 Commandments which Tradition insists that God gave us.
Admittedly, many of those 613 involve obsolete and unobserved rituals from the days of the Temple. And many of them are only applicable if we live in the Land of Israel. And many of them involve sexist or other archaic attitudes that we no longer agree are holy or what God really wants. However, there is a lot more than ten things that God enjoins us to do. For instance, there are those gems of morality from Leviticus 19:
“You shall be holy for I the Lord your God am holy.
When you harvest the produce of your field or vineyard, leave some for the poor!
The wages of a laborer shall not remain with you until morning.
You shall not insult the deaf, or put a stumbling block before the blind.
When judging, do not favor the poor or show deference to the rich. Judge people fairly!
You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
And let us not forget all the injunctions in Exodus about “telling your child about the Exodus from Egypt,” so that we can properly appreciate our freedom.
And there is the elevating challenge of Deuteronomy: “And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might.”
As with most reductions or summaries, the Ten Commandments come to us on two levels. First, they are the main instructions that God gives us—and the glory and drama of the presentation reverberates still in the Jewish heart.
“I am the Lord your God Who brought you up from the Land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage; you shall have no other gods beside Me.
You shall make no idols or images and worship them.
You shall not take the Name of the Lord Your God in vain.
You shall remember and observe the Sabbath Day.
You shall honor your father and your mother.
You shall not murder.
You shall not commit adultery.
You shall not steal.
You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
You shall not covet.” (Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5)
Second, however, they are symbolic of the greater wisdom and tradition—the communal holiness—that they begin/began. The story of the Revelation at Mount Sinai represents the possibility of an interface between Infinity and mortality. Though very limited creatures, we have the ability to channel the values and aspirations of God into the world. We have this power, and the Ten Commandments symbolize all the ways that God can be present in our lives—and that we can manifest God in the world.
.נִהְיֶה אֲנַֽחְנוּ יָדֶיךָ בָּעוֹלָם לְהָבִיא בְּרָכוֹת־הַשָּׁמַֽיִם לְכָל־הָאָרֶץ
Nihiyeh anachnu Yadecha ba’olam, l’havi b’rachot-hashamayim lechol-ha’aretz.
May we be Your Hands in the world, bringing the blessings of Heaven to all the earth.