Lee Hebrew Lesson 3/24

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS FOR TODAY

Goal: To understand the biblical Ten Commandments in the context of our lives. To develop Ten Commandments for contemporary Jews

Text: The Mission Statement of our synagogue, which can be found on the RSNS website.

Background: Last week you analyzed the Ten Commandments as found in the Book of Exodus. I asked you to make sure you understood the meaning of each commandment, and to think about how they helped to establish the new and free society of the newly freed Israelites. I asked, too, to consider which commandments might have been most important to observe, and which commandments were the most difficult to obey.

Task: Everybody who is a part of any community must bound by rules. Name some rules that governs your school community or might be needed for a sports team or in an orchestra.

Even though we Jews are 3200 years away from slavery, we still need rules to be in community. Look again at the biblical Ten Commandments and determine which of them could be eliminated for our Jewish community. Now think of ten rules / commandments that might help us as a Jewish community today. You might decide to use some if not all of the original commandments.

Look at the synagogue’s Mission Statement, which can be found at this link. A Mission Statement is a declaration of values on which an institution is based. Are these values found in your version of the Ten Commandments? How could they be?

Please email your answers to Rabbi Lee at rabbilee@rsns.org

Extra Credit. We are living at a time when some of the rules under which we as children and parents operated just two weeks ago have had to change. With your family, write Ten Commandments to guide you as you venture forth into unexplored territory in the coming weeks.