Yitro: What Moses Brought Down from the Skyscraper

The Israelites made it out of Egypt, they crossed the Sea of Reeds, and now it is time to start morphing from a ragtag band of slaves into a nation. Needless to say, this is no small task. But one major tool that will help them along is a foundational document; a text that solidifies who they are, what they’re about, where they come from, where they’re going, and what they stand for. Enter... The Ten Commandments. These are, of course, a big deal; given here in this week’s Torah portion, and then reiterated towards the end of the Torah, in the Book of Deuteronomy. One thing I emphatically want to stress for you, dear reader, is not actually the specifics of WHAT these stone tablets say, but a hidden feature that is essential for making these edicts applicable in our lives today.

I want to focus on one of the commandments in particular, to illustrate my point, but just to quickly run through them all (even though different religious traditions actually enumerate them differently... but that’ll be the topic of a future post), we’ve got: Acknowledge that God took us out of Egypt; Do not worship idols; Do not swear falsely using God’s name; Remember Shabbat; Honor your parents; Don’t murder; Don’t commit adultery; Don’t steal; Don’t testify falsely; Don’t be jealous of someone else’s “stuff.” At first glance, they seem straightforward and crystal-clear. But let me ask you; what is the practical action that is required in order to “Acknowledge” that God redeemed us from slavery? Or how, precisely, should you “Remember” Shabbat? What is the Torah actually mandating with these statements? The hidden feature I mentioned earlier is, in fact, the vagueness of the commandments. And yes, I know that sounds strange.

So the mitzvah I want to focus on for another minute is “Honor your father and your mother.” Similar to my points in the last paragraph, what does “Honor” really mean? It's really quite vague on its own, but then the ancient rabbis complicate things further, by asking a challenging question: “What if your parent asks you to steal or testify falsely??” If we're supposed to (perhaps) “obey our parents,” what happens if that parent instructs me to break one of the other Top Ten!?! In the rabbinic mind, that is precisely why the Torah does *not* command us to obey them, but instead leaves us with the opaque term, To Honor. It is not, say our Teachers, honorable to commit a crime, just because your parent told you to. The precept against illegal activity wins out. When we pull back and look at our relationship with Torah, over the course of millennia, we actually see that the space left for interpreting, questioning, and challenging the text is absolutely FUNDAMENTAL. Furthermore, values will change over the course of time. A rigid, uncompromising law will not age well, while one that has grown, shifted, and been reinterpreted and unpacked generation after generation will much more easily evolve along with us, its intended adherents.

And yet, my original assertion still remains true: To become a people, our ancestors needed a foundational set of laws. Those tablets formed the solid base upon which to grow a religion. But much like engineering has discovered about skyscrapers, bridges, and many other structures, the ability to sway and bend is *critical* for survival. Earthquakes will shake buildings into oblivion, unless they can move WITH the natural forces, but in a controlled way. Believe it or not, the Torah works this way too. An ability to sway and shift is actually built into the process of law-making and meaning-making. But it can be tricky. A little too rigid, and religion may beat people up and demand blind adherence! A little too “bendy,” and the laws may be seen as saying whatever the heck we want them to! It is, indeed, a balancing act. When we read about Moses ascending Mount Sinai, we may think he’s bringing back cold, hard, immutable edicts; literally carved in stone! But the internal structure is actually much more ingenious and intricate than that. Hidden in the words, the sentences, and even the very material itself, is something much more fluid and adaptable. And THAT fluidity is actually the key to why we’re still here to this very day. 

CC images in this blog post, courtesy of:
1. Geograph
2. qimono on pixabay
3. pixy
4. Claudio Núñez on Wikimedia Commons