Davar Thought
The Ten Commandments were given on two tablets of stone. One would imagine, however, that God, with all his talents, could have fitted ten short commandments onto a single tablet. The rabbis explain that the two tablets represent two fundamental aspects of Judaism. On the first tablet are the commandments between man and God, whilst the second tablet are between man and man. I have two short ideas to talk about on this topic, today, rather than one longer one. Please look at it as two for the price of one!
The fourth commandment is the Sabbath. That puts it on the first tablet – the commandments between man and God. But how is the Sabbath between man and God? I understand that it is a great idea – very helpful to take a day off to relax and rejuvenate. But what’s that got to do with God? Well, on deeper reflection, it’s got a lot to do with God. People think, simplistically, that the Sabbath is simply a day not to work, a day to sleep late and catch up on some gardening. If so, I would agree that it doesn’t have a lot to do with God. However, when you look at the Torah’s prohibitions on Shabbat, a different picture emerges – don’t cook, no mobile phones, no computers, no switching on lights, no writing or gardening. These disparate laws have a common purpose to help us stop thinking that we are in control of our world – to remind us, so to speak, that we are not God. We refrain from intelligent human control over nature for a whole day so that we remember who it is that really controls nature – climate change included. So, the Jewish Sabbath is very much about us and God; a return to the true state of the world, where God does everything and we just sit and bask in his generosity. Then we are ready for another six days of humbly taking responsibility for his world – which will require another reminder, for us, at the end of them. And the cycle continues.
My other point is as to why the commandments between man and God come before the commandments between man and man. I don’t believe it is because they are a higher priority because the two tablets were seen as of equal value and importance. So why this order? The answer to me is quite simple. There are no commandments between human beings without God. For at least two reasons. Firstly, no God means no absolutes. The most fundamental ‘law’ of nature, as it relates to life, becomes survival of the fittest – there is no higher ‘truth’ to which we humans are beholden. A society can force its members to live a certain way, but it cannot claim a moral imperative. Only God can do that. But, in addition to this, if there is no God, there is no godliness – and we human beings are animals like all others, not godly souls. If so, human life is inherently no more ‘precious’ than animal life – or plant life, or rocks and stones. It is because human beings are godly that we do not take from them when we need what is theirs or kill them when it suits us to do so. If they were simply protons, neutrons and electrons, in sophisticated form, there would be no basis for behaving differently towards them than we do to the ground that we walk upon.
Shabbat Shalom,
Shaul
Parsha in a Nutshell
Moses’ father-in-law, Jethro, joins the Jewish people in the desert, advises Moses on the best way to serve and judge the people – by appointing a hierarchy of intermediaries – and then returns home to Midian. Moses is humble enough to listen to his father in law and the Jewish People benefit greatly from his sound advice.
The main theme, however, of this Torah portion is the Ten Commandments. Whilst most depictions of the tablets show them with rounded tops, the Talmud says that they were actually cubical with the words running right through, from one side to the other, so you could see the words on both sides. This requires two very specific miracles in order to work. I’ll leave it for the scientists among you to figure out what they were.
