Everyone knows how important the Ten Commandments are. But few people realise that there is a link that binds the Big Ten in this week’s sidra with the other 603 mitzvot, many of which come in next week’s reading, Mishpatim.
The link is the Hebrew letter "vav", "and". The sages say that this "and" tells us that just as the Big Ten are from Sinai, so are the rest of the 613.
The Sefer HaChinuch works out that there are 53 mitzvot in Mishpatim. In exactly the same way as the Big Ten begin "I am the Lord your God", so in a sense "I am the Lord your God" is implied at the beginning of each of these 53. Not only do we have "I am the Lord your God: you shall not kill", but "I am the Lord your God: you shall treat your workers properly".
God's commands don't only deal with the weeks but the days, not only the hours but the minutes. When people say, "I’m not so religious, but I keep the Ten Commandments", I hope they’re not saying that the little acts of duty and kindness can be dispensed with. Both the big print and the small print are essential to being a good Jew.
STOLEN GENERATIONS
The law against stealing occurs more than once in the Torah. In the Ten Commandments it comes in a context of human relationships – respect for parents, respect for human life, respect for marital partners, etc. Because of that context, the rabbis said that "Thou shalt not steal" indicates a prohibition of stealing a person, i.e. kidnapping.
The Australian Aborigines were amongst the groups that suffered grievously from the transgression of this rule. Because children were often taken away from their parents and ancestral culture, there arose what is called the Stolen Generations. The fact that the perpetrators thought they were doing the children a favour is irrelevant. What they did was to deny children the right to be themselves and to live in their own comfort zone.
Of course Jewish life – especially at the time of the Holocaust – had its own Stolen Generations too, when children were retained by other religions after the war and not given back to the Jewish family. How many Jews were lost to their people because they were a Stolen Generation we shall never know.
SEEING WHAT ONE SHOULDN'T
The end of the sidra (Ex. 20:23) gives us an instruction not to go up to the altar by means of steps. The problem, as explained by Rashi, based on the Mechilta, is that someone who is at ground level can see the private parts of the person who is ascending the steps. From this we learn that even inadvertent gazing at things one should not see is forbidden by Jewish ethical law.
PRIESTS OR PROPHETS?
In the Bible there are two ways of being a religious leader. One can be a kohen, a priest concerned with rituals and practices, or a prophet who preaches the word of Hashem.
This week’s portion defines Israel as a people of priests – “mamlechet kohanim v’goy kadosh” – “a kingdom of kohanim, a holy people” (Ex. 19:6). We all minister to God in His sanctuary, not merely in the official house of worship but in the home (the “mikdash m’at”, the “miniature temple”), the factory, office, school and street. We have prayers to say, kashrut to maintain, Sabbaths and festivals to honour.
Every day of the year, every stage in life has its rituals to observe. That might be called the particularistic dimension of Jewish identity: we are Jews “far zich” – “amongst ourselves”.
From the example of Moses (Deut. 34:10) we also learn that we are a people of prophets with a universalistic mission amongst mankind. As prophets we belong to the world. Alenu, the great concluding prayer of every Jewish service, written by Rav in the 3rd century CE, sums up our two dimensions: particularism in the first paragraph, universalism in the second.
The prophetic role begins with Judaism but is capable of being shared by other peoples.