Ten Commandments: Instruction from G-d

Rabbi David Shaw

Sandton Shul

Beth Hamedrash Hagadol 

These very words, which have had such an overwhelmingly positive impact on all of mankind, not just on the Jewish people, and have been accepted by almost all civilisations, past and present, are all concepts which I would argue, are ideas that we could and should have conceptualised and elected to practise, even if left to our own devices.

Don’t steal nor murder nor blaspheme nor bow to idols. They are all pretty obvious, don’t you think? A time out from the rat race, to rest up on a Shabbat and spend quality time with our loved ones around a grand dinner table with a scrumptious repast, seems obvious to me and in all likelihood to you as well.

How about honouring our parents and not coveting our neighbours’ stuff, even young children could intuit that this is unequivocally the correct way to go. Forgive me, I hope this is not too blasphemous but where’s the brilliance? What makes these formulations, these 10 proclamations so mind blowing and awesome?

Our Sages suggest that in fact what makes these 10 so exceptional is not their content alone. What makes them so incredibly special is that they are to be observed, not simply because they make good sense to us or seem so perfectly logical. We are meant to follow them because at the end of the day their source is Divine. They are, we believe, instructions for living from G-d Himself.

I do not just desist from stealing or from murdering because it makes good sense to me not to do it. We do some and don’t do others because our G-d has requested from us to do them or not to.

You see, if it were solely dependent on my subjective view alone, or yours, then we may well only subscribe to all these rules for as long as it suits us to do so; but as long as our performance is driven by our logic, by our subjective biases, then perhaps under certain circumstances we would elect not to follow them.

We would rationalise everything and do whatever we wanted. Can you even begin to imagine what such a world would be like? The Chiddush (radical new idea) of these Ten Commandments is that they all come from G-d himself and that it is that which binds us to their observance and for that matter, to one another, forever.

I wish each of you and your families a Shabbat Shalom and a really altogether meaningful Shavuot.