Have A Great Shabbos

It's been a shock to the system, this post vacation week of school. A poem I wrote a few years ago returns to mind.

I Want To Write

out my mind

from a real place

with my breath

breathe to grace

with fingers

no pen

unclose my heart

release the broken

back to sleep

bed whole before Him

let thoughts go

return within

I searched but I guess not diligently enough because I did not find. I was looking for a previous post about a published novelist who says that she's made a conscious decision to let her house be messy because her writing is more important. I struggle with this idea. My apartment could use some organizing, there are dear people to contact, and I should be on a bus to Teaneck. It feels like a long time since I wrote an in the moment Erev Shabbos post, like a lifetime ago, because it was.

I have some old posts on Yitro, but don't believe I've written about the Aseret HaDibrot before.

Aseret HaDibrot

I want to write a longer, proper version of this. For now here is the skeleton of Aseret HaDibrot thoughts. First of all they are not ten commandments. The Latin word Decalogue is a better translation than the English, meaning ten statements. The Hebrew is a twist on what they are called in the Torah Aseret HaDevarim. Why and when it changed seems to be anyone's guess. They are listed at the end of Shacharit. There was once a movement to have them recited as part of our prayers, but it didn't happen to avoid confusion via those who don't "get" it. This is discussed in Brachot and Tamid.

I once presented on teaching about the Dibrot to students on the weaker academic end of the spectrum. I started by saying I'd ask the students where in their lives they've seen these listed. The next question was, "Can you list the Aseret HaDibrot?" Some who attended my presentation felt that it was too elementary. I prepared it in conjunction with a special ed expert and stand by it to this day.

Can you name the "Ten Commandments?" At the end of The End Burt Reynolds is drowning deep in the ocean and begs G-d to save him, and says if he lives he'll start keeping the Ten Commandments. He starts to list them off and realizes that he doesn't know them. So he says, "G-d, I'll learn them - and then I'll keep every one of them."

One of the issues is that if you try to count them you will most likely get more than ten. There may be ten statements, one way or another, but there certainly seem to be more than ten commandments here. The Sefer HaChinuch counts fourteen mitzvot here. A Catholic colleague tells me that they count what Jews and Protestants call the first two ("I am G-d," and "Don't have other gods" as one. They divide "Don't covet" into two, one regarding a wife, the other regarding what they call "goods."

There are so many questions. What was stated? This is a question because there are two versions in the Torah. What did the people hear? The text seems to say they heard all ten statements from G-d, and the Ramban and Ebn Ezra (based on an opinion in the medrash) go with this. The Rashi that many of us merited learning as children says they heard the first two from G-d and the last eight from Moshe.

Time is running short till Shabbos. Here's the thought which I most wanted to share. The first two statements have to do with thought, the third related to speech. Numbers four and five are about action. That covers the between man and G-d side. On the other side - between man and man the first three statements focus on action. Number four is about speech and number five is about thought. Each side contains these three elements of human behavior, but in reverse orders or each other. When you you look at all ten you see a chiastic structure: ABC - CBA.

My thinking is that when it comes to G-d belief is the easy part, but we have to move from belief, over the bridge of speech, to action. In the realm of social interactions we say someone is a good person if they're "nice" and don't hurt anyone else. The test is to move from the realm of simple action to being a truly good and pure person who doesn't even think badly about a fellow human created in G-d's image.