Orthodox Jewish Humanism = all people are created in the image of God, with their essence being God's breath/spirit, and God expects you to treat people accordingly.

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To some extent, the ten commandments are an expression of this, as follows.

Reading between the lines or in this case, to 'read between the columns'.... 

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Tradition (see Mechilta below) points out parallels between the commandments on the two tablets (ie 1 & 6, 2 & 7, 3 & 8, 4 & 9, 5 & 10) and I have adapted these as follows [for the video version see the link below, and see the comments I made re the mistake in the video]:

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 1 & 6: Their parallelity teaches us that to keep #1 (I am the Lord your God) you have to keep #6 (thou shalt not commit murder), since according to Genesis all humans are created in the image of God and their essence is God's spirit ('ruach'), so murdering a human is to violate a 'repository' of God's spirit.

This made it clear that to worship God, to get close to God, to be religious/spiritual etc, one has to treat people well, create a just society etc. 

My unbderstanding of the inner message of the midrash pointing out parallelities is that when the Jewish People at Sinai heard all this from God directly (via Moshe Rabenu/Moses) they understood the message of the parallelity that these human-interaction laws are not homilies, and they are not natural principles or laws of the land, but rather that these rules (that one cannot murder, steal, lie, envy etc) are what God demands from us, and are the way to be 'holy' - holiness is not just in keeping the human-to-God commandments.

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2& 7: In many Biblical passages, rejecting God or "going after other 'gods'" is compared to infidelity, and indeed Tradition teaches that God's spirit rests between a husband and wife who are together, and so the parallelity of these two commandments teaches us that just as God wants us to not follow other Gods, so too we are not to be disloyal to our spouse. And betraying the connection to another human being is betraying a being 'created in the image of God'.

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3 & 8: Theft & falsely using God's name: the Rabbis point out the following relationship between these: according to Jewish Law, when one steals & is caught/accused, one will have to swear in court that one did not do so, using God's name to make the oath, and false testimony using God's name is a cardinal sin, #3, and so committing theft can bring one to the point where one must violate this cardinal commandment – for someone who wants to avoid violating #3, it would be better to avoid theft altogether. And so the two commandments are juxtaposed.

And I would add: Stealing from a human is stealing from God's image and so one needs to invoke the name of God as part of the court proceedings, and it is not a trivialization of God's name, since theft from even the societally-lowliest human being, and even by the mightiest one, is theft from a being who is the repository of God's breath/spirit.

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4 & 9:  Shabbat and false witness: Keeping shabbat is considered by the Torah as being a witness to the fact that God created the universe, and so NOT keeping it is tantamount to bearing FALSE witness. This is the relationship between these two commandments.

Furthermore: We are created in the image of God as part of the process of creation, and by keeping shabbat and giving witness to the truth of the creation we also ratify the truth of the fact of all humanity being created in the image of God. Also: as God 'rested' on Shabbat, so do we, beings created in 'the image' of the Creator.

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5 & 10: the last pair: "Honor thy father and mother [kibud av va-em]"& "do not covet(lo tachmod)":

Their commonality or relationship is:

a) according to traditional teachings "jealousy takes you out of the world", and the Torah teaches that honoring parents gives long life, ie 'kibud av' keeps you in the world; thus, observing ‘lo tachmod’ do not coveting (jealousy etc/kinah) gives long life, as does honoring one's parents.

b)  Generally people can be jealous of what someone else has, which is why we are told ‘lo tachmod’/'thou shalt not covet'. However there is a supreme example of the lack of such jealousy/coveting, and that is parents towards their children. 

Indeed with parents it is quite the opposite, they not only are not jealous of their childrens' success and possessions they actually WANT their children to have more than they did, and even more-so they will work hard all their lives to ensure their children have more than they had! 

The parallel teaches us to see them in this way, which itself is part of the fulfilment of the commanment to honor them, and furthermore that what we should do in recognition of their being this way is to fulfil the active aspects of the commandment.

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May we be blessed that wherever we see the two tablets portrayed, we remember to read between the columns – in other words to realize our potential for spiritual growth, given our fundamental nature, and to understand that the path to holiness, to spirituality and to closeness to God is by treating our fellow human being as the image of God, a container of the the divine spirit.

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Some more related to this theme:

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Why two tablets? Wouldn’t it be more convenient to write it on one? Moses had to climb down the mountain with a tablet in each hand!? Even if there was need for two separate sections, one of human-to-God interaction and the other human-to-human interaction, they could be written one under the other, or even in two columns - one does not need two separate tablets!

Tradition points out parallels between the commandments on the two tablets - perhaps this provides the reason for making them two separate tablets, ie had there been two columns on one tablet one might have thought it was simply a formatting choice, two consecutive lists or like two lists formatted on one "landscape" page, but by having Moses hold them side by side makes it evident that there are two separate sections, and if the tablets were held side by side it would make it clear that the 'commandments' are to be seen in parallel, and it is not just a formatting choice. 

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[Note: the Torah uses the term "the ten utterances" not "the ten commandments".]

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A) The tablets are in two sections, #1-4 are human-to-God interaction, and the others - starting from #5 honor thy parents" are human-to-human interaction.

If the tablets had 5 on each, and the first had honor thy parents, then it is not strictly true that the first tablet is fully human-to-God, at least not in the literal surface sense. 

B) Traditionally the ten were all heard across the world. The prohibition of idolatry or #1 re monotheism or the identity of God, applies to all humans - all are after all created in the divine image - but the degree of monotheism commanded applies to other nations in different ways.

C) Of all the commandments, only Shabbat is generally considered for the Jewish People only, rather than being applicable to all humanity, though Traditionally the ten were all heard across the world, so perhaps all humanity heard some version of this commandment as well. 

Video version:https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IRmlcQWqTVe9MCPJ0nr3PGcE0B14W5_7  

Note, at the beginning I mistakenly mixed several of points A-C, I mention shabat but meant "honor thy parents", that it is in the first column, and it is between people, not people and God".

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See the site for other teachings about the 10 "utterances".

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For the Traditional teachings about the parallels, in Hebrew, from the "mechilta", see the website: https://sites.google.com/nyu.edu/biblethemes/yisro.

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My adaptation above of the Mechilta's teaching consisted of:

• inverting it to make it all about humanity rather than divine-centered, eg for the 2nd I say that whoever cheats on a spouse is like cheating on God, and whoever gives false witness on a human being it is like violating shabbos, ie false witness re God;

• the midrash bases the parallel between the two aspects for #1 is based on us being tzelem elokim, ruach, etc; 

• the part re ego-lowering to get close to God, ie the ben adam lechavero is the way to get close to the makom etc;

• the last part: re parents as the ones who are the opposite of coveting. 

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Mechilta: מכילתא דרבי ישמעאל : יתרו – מסכתא דבחדש יתרו פרשה ח

https://www.mayim.org.il/?parasha=%D7%A2%D7%A9%D7%A8%D7%AA-%D7%94%D7%93%D7%91%D7%A8%D7%95%D7%AA-%D7%97%D7%9E%D7%A9-%D7%9B%D7%A0%D7%92%D7%93-%D7%97%D7%9E%D7%A91#gsc.tab=0 

כיצד נתנו עשרת הדברות: ה' על לוח זה וה' על לוח זה. – כתיב "אנכי יי' אלהיך" וכנגדו "לא תרצח", מגיד הכתוב שכל מי ששופך דם, מעלה עליו הכתוב כאלו ממעט בדמות המלך. משל למלך בשר ודם שנכנס למדינה והעמיד לו איקונות ועשה לו צלמים וטבעו לו מטבעות. לאחר זמן כפו לו איקונותיו שברו לו צלמיו ובטלו לו מטבעותיו ומיעטו בדמותו של מלך. כך כל מי שהוא שופך דמים, מעלה עליו הכתוב כאלו ממעט בדמות המלך, שנאמר: "שופך דם האדם באדם דמו יישפך, כי בצלם אלהים עשה את האדם" (בראשית ט ו).1

– כתיב "לא יהיה לך" וכתיב כנגדו "לא תנאף", מגיד הכתוב שכל מי שעובד עבודה זרה מעלה עליו הכתוב כאלו מנאף אחר המקום … – כתיב לא תשא את שם ה' אלהיך לשוא וכנגדו כתיב לא תגנוב, מגיד הכתוב שכל מי שהוא גונב, לסוף בא לידי שבועת שוא … – כתיב זכור את יום השבת לקדשו וכנגדו כתיב לא תענה, מגיד הכתוב שכל מי שמחלל את השבת מעיד לפני מי שאמר והיה העולם, שלא ברא עולמו לששה ימים ולא נח בשביעי, וכל מי שמשמר את השבת מעיד לפני מי שאמר והיה העולם, שברא עולמו לששה ימים ונח בשביעי … – כתיב כבד את אביך ואת אמך וכנגדו כתיב לא תחמוד, מגיד הכתוב שכל מי שהוא חומד, סוף מוליד בן שהוא מקלל את אביו ואת אמו ומכבד למי שאינו אביו. לכך נתנו עשרת הדברות חמישה על לוח זה וחמישה על לוח זה, דברי ר' חנינא בן גמליאל.2

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An analysis of  utterances #1, 2 & 4:

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#1 is "I am the Lord Your God". Is this a command? First of all, the Torah presents these - several times - as "the ten utterances" not "the ten commandments". And to discuss this issue, we need to differentiate between the experience of Sinai, of hearing words uttered by God, in contrast to the experience of reading the description of those experience and utterances.

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Indeed this first "utterance" is considered a commandment according to most Jewish Traditional sources, and one can perhaps better understand why this is so by seeing this "command/utterance" in the context of these related Traditional ideas:

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*All the Jewish souls of today were present at Sinai;

* At Sinai all those present had a very high level of 'prophetic connection' to God;

* The souls of those at Sinai escaped their bodies as they heard these first words due to the humanly-unbearable level of revelation;

* After hearing the first words. "I am the Lord your God", the Jewish People begged God to speak via Moses so that they would not die;

* The revelation at Sinai was meant to 'last' for all time, ie to leave a lasting impression on all the souls present.

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The actual experiences of the jewish People at Sinai vs reading about them as told in the Torah:

For the people there at the time, and therefore for the souls of all the Jewish People even today (including those who later converted and therefore whose souls were there as well), what was experienced when hearing these words directly from God was far beyond what our human brains can grasp as we read them.

The first utterance was a direct "introduction intrusion" by God, into the souls of all present, all the Jewish People today and the past and future, and was meant to leave a lasting impression; it was a communication which was a bonding, and constitutes a commitment on both sides to a relationship that is eternal, and with that, also a commitment to 'contractual' aspects, and thus to obligations.

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In these senses one can understand the first utterance"I am the Lord your God.." as being far more than what it seems to someone simply reading the words...whether or not the term "commandment" as commonly understood is a useful or correct term to use, one can understand the traditional attitude to these words as definitely not of lesser status than the other 'utterances' (quite the reverse!), nor as being merely some type of prologue - instead it is considered as a mutual commitment of a binding nature (and therefore also a "commandment-utterance").

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.#2: "Seeing sound"?!

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Moses says repeatedly that the people should not create images of God, and that "at Sinai you did not see anything, there were only sounds" , but this can be a references to the synesthesic experience of the Jewish People at Sinai, where it says "the whole nation saw the sounds" (there were shofar sounds etc, though there was no-one blowing a shofar, and they saw these and other sounds).

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In other words, God's 2nd commandment and the warning words of Moses are meant to remind/teach the people that since what they saw were sounds, not visual images of actual entities, the people should realize that it is impossible to make a visual image representing God, and that whenever they 'saw' something celestial, as is enigmatically (shockingly!) related in connection with the 'throne' etc), it was not an entity they were visually capturing, but a sound or other aspect which was transformed into a visual image, according to the limit of their spiritual/prophetic capacity.

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When the nation was at Sinai and heard God speak to them, and heard God's utterance "I am the Lord your God" they also saw accompanying sounds - ie experienced a visual impression of the sounds - so it was important at that point for the 2nd utterance to be about not crafting visual images to represent the divine..

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#4: "To do Shabbat":

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The very end of the creation account tells of shabbat, and the very last words of that are "which God created to do": where "to do" = La'asot": "And God blessed the seventh day, and hallowed it; because in it God rested from all God's work, which God created to do", with that last phrase being a rather strange wording which led to translations like: "which God in creating had made".

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However in this week's portion, we have God including in the Torah the words of Moses repeating the 10 commandments with variations from the record of its occurrence - we are told "keep shabbat....remember that you were a slave in Egypt and God took you out... and therefore God commanded you to do ("la'asot") the day of the shabbat".

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Why the reference to the exodus from Egypt in this re-telling of the 10 commandments?

Why did Moses say this and why when God wrote the Torah via Moses did God tell Moses that these words should be included? And why "to do"? [And God uses this phrase via Moses in the last passage of the week's portion, Deut 7:11]

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God's inclusion in the Torah of these words about the Exodus, is perhaps meant to help us understand the reference in Genesis: There, God rests but does NOT command humanity to rest (check it out!), however those last words in the creation account "which God created TO DO [la'asot']"can be a reference to the divine intention at that time of creation regarding a later point in history - at Sinai, after the Exodus - when there would be a command 'TO DO the shabbat'.

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Thus in Genesis we are told that God creates the shabbat and blesses it as a day of resting, "which God created to do" in other words with the intent to later command that it be so kept, & 'done', by the Jewish People, after they accepted this covenant at Sinai after exiting Egypt and slavery.

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May we be blessed to feel the shabbat energy every week!

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The Content and Order of the Ten Commandments:

A Modern Rephrasing of the Ten Commandments, interpreting the first column in light of the second, as an additional intention to the pshat level:

1. The first commandment underlies the rest: there is an absolute morality, a good and evil, and a  moral imperative to follow the good: in Biblical terms, there is a God, and God commands to obey these rules (In the two version of the 10 commandments, God is creator of all and that is the surce of Divine authority, and God is the one who gave freedom to those receiving the commands, and these commandments are their minimal obligation.

2. The second commandment: no other moral code than the one presented here is acceptable: don't set up political and national systems which turn ito religions:  in Biblical terms, there is only one God, you should have no other gods.

3. The third commandment: don't set up your own priorities and false values as though they are divine, and don't use religion in ways which counter the intent of these commandments. in Biblical terms, don;t take the name of God in vain.

4. The fourth commandment: maintain awareness of the order of priorities in life, have time to reflect on why the universe exists and why you exist; allow everyone some time off from worldly pursuits so that all can reflect; divide your time periods into 7-day cycles (a Biblical innovation) with one day off for workers, bosses, everyone: in Biblical terms, keep the Sabbath.

Commandments 1-4 involve Humanity's relationship with itself, societal obligations etc. The fifth commandment involves family, and the rest involve the individual obligation to other individuals.

5. The fifth commandment: creating and maintaning a good relationship with your parents is a key to a life worth living; have respect for an authority which truly cares about you: in Biblical terms: honor thy father and mother ['in order to lengthen your days'].

The rest of the commandments, 6-10,  involve the individual's obligation to other individuals, starting with the most severe to the lesser severe:

from actions:

6. The totally non-reversible and completely final act of murder;

7. Acts of personal (sexual) violation (especially adultery);

8. theft

9. through words: false witness

10. to thought (don't covet) [which could be the prelude to (intention to) commit a criminal act].

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Add notes to the 10 commandments video:

• the first slide with ancient hebrew: note re paleo Hebrew and 'arami" etc

• add re mechilta

• add what differences I made from mechilta (see email to rafi shochat)

• did I make a mistake, saying first tablet is not ben odom lamako  because it has... shabbos? or did I say correctly 'bec it has kabed es'?

• if edit, I can add slide of kruvim (I have on desktop?)

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see https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?zx=ltrugk7nggn4#advanced-search/from=air1%40nyu.edu&subject=terumah&subset=all&within=1d&sizeoperator=s_sl&sizeunit=s_smb&query=from%3A(air1%40nyu.edu)+subject%3Aterumah/QgrcJHrnvDqPbJsRPklgfJQPsSlkVQtlMFQ

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1420456141410458/permalink/3466474463475272/ 

see comments to the FB post in photo in this email.

Why two tablets?

Underlying the reason for two tablets, is the parallelity between them, ie since it is not one tablet with each commandment written under the other, rather one can see that 1 & 6, 2 & 7... 5 & 10 are paralelel to each other:

1 & 6: Their parallelity teaches us that to keep #1 (I am the Lord your God) you have to keep #6 (thou shalt not commit murder), since according to Genesis all humans are created in the image of God and their essence is God's 'ruach'.

To worship God, to get close to God, to be religious/spiritual etc, one has to treat people well, society, justice etc. The people at Saini heard all this and knew it and heard from H' directly (via M"R) that one cannot murder, steal, lie, envy etc, these are not homilies, and they are not natural priciples or laws of the land, they are what God demands from us, and are the way to be holy. 

2& 7: In many Biblical passages, rejecting God, going after other "gods" is compared to infidelity, and indeed God's spirit rests between a husband and wife who are together, and so the parallelity of these two teaches us that just as God wants us to not follow other Gods, so too we are not to be disloyal to our spouse. 

3 & 8: Theft & falsely using God's name: the Rabbis point out that the parallelity is an indication that when one steals, one will have to swear in court that one did not do so, using God's name to make the oath,  and false testimony using God's name is a cardinal sin, #3, and so committing theft can bring one to the ppoint where one must violate this cardinal commandment, better to avoid theft altogether.  

4& 9:  Shabbat and false witness: Keeping shabbat is considered by the Torah as being a witness to the fact that God created the universe, and so NOT keeping it is tantamount to bearing FALSE witness.

5 & 10: "Honor thy father and mother"& "do not covet" (lo tachmod/kabed ess): the last pair::  their commonality is that coveting (jealousy etc/kinah) according to traditional teachings "jealousy takes you out of the world", and the Torah teaches that honoring parents gives long life, ie kibud av keeps you in the world; thus, observing ‘lo tachmod’ gives long life, as does kibud av.

 Generally people can be jealous of what someone else has, which is why we are told ‘lo tachmod’. The supreme example of the lack of such jealousy is parents towards their children, indeed it is the opposte, parents want their children to have more than they did, and will work hard all their lives to ensure this is so! What we owe them in return is ‘ca-bed ess’.

In this sense  "Honor thy parents", is in the God part (1st luach) because parents are to us as God is to all existence, ie God wants only to give, for our benefit, and embodied this in parental love.

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Commandments 1,2 &4:

#1: Experiences vs reading about them: Is "I am the Lord Your God" a command?

First of all, the Torah presents these - several times - as "the ten utterances" not "the ten commandments". And to discuss this issue, we need to differentiate between the experience of Sinai, of hearing words uttered by God, in contrast to the experience of reading the description of those experience and utterances.

Indeed this first "utterance" is considered a commandment according to most Jewish Traditional sources, and one can perhaps better understand why this is so by seeing this "command/utterance" in the context of these related Traditional ideas:

*All the Jewish souls of today were present at Sinai;

* At Sinai all those present had a very high level of 'prophetic connection' to God;

* The souls of those at Sinai escaped their bodies as they heard these first words due to the humanly-unbearable level of revelation;

* After hearing the first words. "I am the Lord your God", the Jewish People begged God to speak via Moses so that they would not die;

* The revelation at Sinai was meant to 'last' for all time, ie to leave a lasting impression on all the souls present.

In other words, for the people there at the time, and therefore for the souls of all the Jewish People even today (including those who later converted and therefore whose souls were there as well), what was experienced when hearing these words directly from God was far beyond what our human brains can grasp as we read them.

The first utterance was a direct "introduction intrusion" by God, into the souls of all present, all the Jewish People today and the past and future, and was meant to leave a lasting impression; it was a communication which was a bonding, and constitutes a committment on both sides to a relationship that is eternal, and with that, also a committment to 'contractual' aspects, and thus to obligations.

In these senses one can undersand the first utterance"I am the Lord your God.." as being far more than what it seems to someone simply reading the words...whether or not the term "commandment" as commonly understood is a useful or correct term to use, one can understand the traditional attitude to these words as definitely not of lesser status than the other 'utterences' (quite the reverse), nor as being merely some type of prologue - instead it is considered as a mutual committment of a binding nature (and therefore also a "commandment-utterance").

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#2: "Seeing sound"?!

Moses says repeatedly that the people should not create images of God, and that "at Sinai you did not see anything, there were only sounds" , but this can be a refences to the synesthesic experience of the Jewish People at Sinai, where it says "the whole nation saw the sounds" (there were shofar sounds etc, though there was no-one blowing a shofar, and they saw these and other sounds).

In other words, God's 2nd commandment and the warning words of Moses are meant to remind/teach the people that since what they saw were sounds, not visual images of actual entities, the people should realize that it is impossible to make a visual image representing God, and that whenever they 'saw' something celestial, it was not an entity they were visually capturing, but a sound or other aspect which was transformed into a visual image.

Since when the nation was at Sinai and heard God speak to them, and heard God's utterance "I am the Lord your God" they also saw accompanying sounds - ie experienced a visual impression of the sounds - it was important at that point for the 2nd utterance to be about not crafting visual images to represent the divine.

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From my site page re va'eschanan

#4: When was Shabbat?

Although I did not realize it at my first and even 100th reading of the creation account, there's something crucial seemingly missing from the story of shabbat at the very end of the creation account.  God rests, but does NOT command humanity to rest; the Torah there does NOT at all mention the notion that the shabbat which was created on the 7th day was a recurring event - happening every 7 days throughout history - nor that there is any concept of it being a recurring day to be 'observed' in any way by humanity as opposed to by God.

The contrast to the ten commandments is striking. 

Of course there are several contextual aspects which can explain this. Firstly, at that point in the Torah, when we are told that God 'rested', only Adam & Eve had been created and they would not have to 'work' in Eden - in some sense every day would be shabbat; alternately, though they were expelled before shabbat, there had been no work-week yet, whose conclusion would be marked by "a day of rest", and the commandment regarding shabbat specifically includes this notion:" Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work, but the seventh day is a sabbath unto the LORD thy God, in it thou shalt not do any manner of work". So shabbat in this sense could NOT have been observed yet in any case.

Secondly: the written Torah, with the its opening account of the creation and of the creation of shabbat, was given to the Jewish People as part of a 'Book' after leaving Egypt. This written "Book" was not given to Adam, nor to Abraham, nor to the Jewish People when they were slaves not as they exited Egypt.  Presumeably the Jewish People received the Ten Commandments and the prophetic experience at Sinai BEFORE ever reading the creation account in the Book. 

In fact,  the 4th commandment - regarding keeping shabbat and its context as connected to God's creation in 6 days and resting on the seventh - is a sort of creation-shabbat account on its own, as would befit a command given to a People who had NOT ever read the creation & shabbat account!  

ז  זָכוֹר אֶת-יוֹם הַשַּׁבָּת, לְקַדְּשׁוֹ.

7 Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.

ח  שֵׁשֶׁת יָמִים תַּעֲבֹד, וְעָשִׂיתָ כָּל-מְלַאכְתֶּךָ.

8 Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work;

ט  וְיוֹם, הַשְּׁבִיעִי--שַׁבָּת, לַה אֱלֹהֶיךָ:  לֹא-תַעֲשֶׂה כָל-מְלָאכָה אַתָּה וּבִנְךָ וּבִתֶּךָ, עַבְדְּךָ וַאֲמָתְךָ וּבְהֶמְתֶּךָ, וְגֵרְךָ, אֲשֶׁר בִּשְׁעָרֶיךָ.

9 but the seventh day is a sabbath unto the LORD thy God, in it thou shalt not do any manner of work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates;

י  כִּי שֵׁשֶׁת-יָמִים עָשָׂה ה אֶת-הַשָּׁמַיִם וְאֶת-הָאָרֶץ, אֶת-הַיָּם וְאֶת-כָּל-אֲשֶׁר-בָּם, וַיָּנַח, בַּיּוֹם הַשְּׁבִיעִי; עַל-כֵּן, בֵּרַךְ ה אֶת-יוֹם הַשַּׁבָּת--וַיְקַדְּשֵׁהוּ.  {ס}

10 for in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested on the seventh day; wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it. {S}

In summary: It is crucial to undestand that chronologically this 4th commandment with its brief creation & shabbat account was given to the Jewish People BEFORE they received the creation account which WE usually encounter first, when we open the Book (ie long before we read about the 10 commandments). 

So  when THEY first "opened the book" and read of the story of creation and of shabbat, it was in the context of already knowing of the creation in 6 days and the commandment to keep the shabbat. And so it was not necessary to include in that story the notion of it being a recurring day, and a day not just for God but also observed by the Jewish People. 

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From va'eschanan: #4: "Doing shabbat"

The differences between the version of the 4th commandment in Yisro and here are of course striiking: notice that there is NO mention at all of the creation in 6 days! "

יא  שָׁמוֹר אֶת-יוֹם הַשַּׁבָּת, לְקַדְּשׁוֹ, כַּאֲשֶׁר צִוְּךָ, ה אֱלֹקַיךָ.

11 Observe the sabbath day, to keep it holy, as the LORD thy God commanded thee.

יב  שֵׁשֶׁת יָמִים תַּעֲבֹד, וְעָשִׂיתָ כָּל-מְלַאכְתֶּךָ.

12 Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work;

יג  וְיוֹם, הַשְּׁבִיעִי--שַׁבָּת, לַה אֱלֹקַיךָ:  לֹא תַעֲשֶׂה כָל-מְלָאכָה אַתָּה וּבִנְךָ-וּבִתֶּךָ וְעַבְדְּךָ-וַאֲמָתֶךָ וְשׁוֹרְךָ וַחֲמֹרְךָ וְכָל-בְּהֶמְתֶּךָ, וְגֵרְךָ אֲשֶׁר בִּשְׁעָרֶיךָ--לְמַעַן יָנוּחַ עַבְדְּךָ וַאֲמָתְךָ, כָּמוֹךָ.

13 but the seventh day is a sabbath unto the LORD thy God, in it thou shalt not do any manner of work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thine ox, nor thine ass, nor any of thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates; that thy man-servant and thy maid-servant may rest as well as thou.

יד  וְזָכַרְתָּ, כִּי עֶבֶד הָיִיתָ בְּאֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם, וַיֹּצִאֲךָ ה אֱלֹקַיךָ מִשָּׁם, בְּיָד חֲזָקָה וּבִזְרֹעַ נְטוּיָה; עַל-כֵּן, צִוְּךָ ה אֱלֹקַיךָ, לַעֲשׂוֹת, אֶת-יוֹם הַשַּׁבָּת.  {ס"

However, there is an indirect reference: The very end of the creation account tells of shabbat, and the very last words of that are "which God created to do": where "to do" = La'asot": "And God blessed the seventh day, and hallowed it; because in it God rested from all God's work, which God created to do", with that last phrase being a rather strange wording which led to translations like: "which God in creating had made".

However in this week's portion, we have God including in the Torah the words of Moses repeating the 10 commandments (with variations from the record of its occurrence), and we are told "keep shabbat....remember that you were a slave in Egypt and God took you out... and therefore God commanded you to do ("la'asot") the day of the shabbat".

So God's inclusion of these words  in the Torah is perhaps meant to both refer to the creation account, and to help us understand the obscurity of that reference in Genesis: There, God rests but does NOT command humanity to rest, however those last words can be a reference to the divine intention at that time regarding a later point in history (at Sinai) when there would be a command 'to do the shabbat'. Thus in Genesis we are told that God creates the shabbat as a day of resting, "which God created to do" ie with the intent to later command that it be so kept, & 'done', namely by the Jewish People after exiting Egypt and slavery. 

..

Another point: That it was given later enables the creation and shabbat account in Genesis to 'stand on its own' without the 'anachronistic' reference to the Jewish People and their mitzvah of  keeping of shabbat.  

However there is also raised the question of when God actually created the cyclical nature of time which brings that 7th day around again EVERY 7th day. And when God's plan to have humans 'observe' the 7th day originated.

The holidays - ie an annual recurrence of the spiritual energy which originated at a particular point in history - are also possible only due to the cyclical nature of the spiritual energy God infused in time, and that perhaps wa sonly possibel when God created shabbat as a recurring energy, and hence shabbat is termed "rishon hu lemikraei kodesh" "it is the first of the holy days", opening the Torah's listing of the holy-days.   

Thus we could understand why shabbat is a fundamental creation in itself, it is the tying of time to spiritual energy and granting it a cyclical nature tied to our physical schedule as set by the sun - as God says in the creation acount regarding the sun and moon and stars, that they are 'clocks' to determine the special times "יְהִי מְאֹרֹת בִּרְקִיעַ הַשָּׁמַיִם, לְהַבְדִּיל, בֵּין הַיּוֹם וּבֵין הַלָּיְלָה; וְהָיוּ לְאֹתֹת וּלְמוֹעֲדִים, וּלְיָמִים וְשָׁנִים. ".  'Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons [in Hebrew: "mo'adim" which is also the special times, holidays], and for days and years".

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THIS IS for va'eschanan, the other mention of the 10 commandments:

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Speculation: At Sinai the people heard #1 and #6 together, three syllables of each: 

Since there is a paralell betwen the two luchos, so anochi is lo tirzach, so like zachor veshamor bedibur echod, so too they heard three sylables + 3 others, together: a-no-chi + lo tir-tzach , and this gave them the understanding that humans are tzelm elokim and so violating lo tirtzach is a violation of anochi.

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Seeing (what you're hearing) is believing: two questions which answer each other

1. The first commandment “I am the Lord Your God” should obviously exclude idolatry, so why was the second commandment right after it about idolatry?

2. At the time that the Jewish People were standing at Sinai and heard this commandment, there was lightening and thunder and the sound of the shofar blasting (from heaven), and it says that the Jewish People “saw the sounds”! Why did God have the people experience this strange sensation of synesthesia?

Answer:

As a result of all the mighty and mysterious sounds at the time of the giving of the first commandment, there may have been the possibility that people would confuse the sights and sounds for God, and try afterwards to recreate the experience of God via tangible objects or art, and so the second commandment was: “Thou shalt not have any other gods before me... don’t make any statues or pictures of anything in the heavens… etc ....”  

And the fact that the people were able to see the sounds ensured that they’d understand that their senses alone could never recreate the experience of God; furthermore they could never accept a picture or statue etc, which would of course not on its own give rise to synestesia, as a representation of God.

vayir'u et elokei yisrael..vayochlu vayishtu.

A very weird response to a high spiritual occurence!

Answer:

a) ro'im et hakolot teaches us that "vayir'u" is not to be understood in usual way. 

b) Vayir'u = feared

c) An earlier in parsha says 'bring it to elohim' meaning dayanim/court, so this indicates that elokei yisrael is not to be understood simply (and same in earleir parshiyot, god tells Moshe R "atah tihyeh elohim lepharo ve aharon achicha yihye neviecha", so the menaing of "elokey yisrael" is ambiguious. 

d) "vayochlu vayishtu": all physical-emotional longing is actually that of the soul. The great atmosphere at shabbos meal shows it is not about eating, food, but rather eating/food is actually an expression of the soul's longing to be closer to god etc ("le'i"ta"), so this was the reason for the 

The Content and Order of the Ten Commandments

We will draw parallels between the order and content of the ten commandments and the history of existence/humanity/the Jewish People from the creation to the receiving of the Torah at Sinai:

• The beginning of history is: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the Earth”: this introduces God as creator and all-powerful: as a result we have the first commandment: “I am the Lord Your God” 

• The creation account relates that God made the sun, moon and stars: these were later to become the focus of the earliest idolatry (worship of the sun, moon and stars) and therefore we have the second commandment: Thou shalt have no other gods”

• The exile from Eden was the next event of major significance: it resulted from a chain of events beginning with the snake’s misquoting God’s purpose in forbidding the Tree of Knowledge (“Even though God said ....”), thereby tricking Eve, and then Eve’s misquoting God’s command (“God said we can’t eat or touch it...”: she may have been misled by Adam, who told her that it was not only forbidden to eat of the Tree but even to touch it): using God’s name in this way brought disaster, and so we have the third commandment: “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord your God in vain”.

• The next event of significance was the onset of Sabbath: and so the fourth commandment is: “Remember the Sabbath to keep it holy”.

Note that the events prior to the expulsion are parallel to the four commandments which involve the relationship between Humanity and God, while the next six commandments correspond to events after the exile from Eden, when Humanity began its normal physical existence, and so relate to the relationship of people to other people.

• The next event of significance: Adam and Eve give birth: the existence of children brings with it the need for the fifth commandment: “Honor thy Father and Mother”.

• The next significant event: the onset of sibling rivalry, and violence:  unfortunately, the first child to be born murders the second, and so the next commandment is: “Thou shalt not commit Murder”.

• In Genesis (6:2) we are told of the degeneration leading to the Flood; the next major event is: the powerful princes and others taking women “whoever they desired” (Rashi: even married women): and so the next commandment is: “Though shalt not commit adultery”.

• In Genesis (6:11) we are told that the reason for the flood was that in the time of Noah the Earth had become corrupted (Rashi: immorality) and was full of ‘chamas’ (Rashi: theft): and so the next commandment is: “Thou shalt not steal”

• The commandments were given immediately after the Exodus from Egypt: the exile in Egypt began with the sale of Joseph: Joseph bore slanderous news of his brothers to his father, and they coveted his special position in the eyes of his father, as exemplified by Jacob’s giving him the coat of many colors: and thus the next two commandments are: “Thou shalt not bear false witness” and “Thou shalt not covet”.