Rabbi's Sermons

Shabbat Shalom!

The Declaration of Independence of Israel opens with the words: "In the Land of Israel the Jewish people arose, where its spiritual, religious and political character was shaped, where it lived a life of state-level community, where it created national and universal cultural assets and bequeathed to the entire world the eternal Book of Books" - the meaning is certainly the Book of the Bible.

A few years ago a survey was conducted in Mexico regarding the Book of the Books as a reading book, not from a religious perspective but from a literary perspective. The findings were quite interesting. A significant portion of the people had never opened a Bible, in the other hand, there were those who said that they would read at least one page from it every single day, whether it was following a prayer, or a psalm from a book of Psalms. One of the questions in the survey was: "What is the most important verse or story in the Bible?" The vast majority answered without hesitation, "The Ten Commandments" or, more precisely in Hebrew: "The Ten sayings or expressions". The term in Hebrew “Aseret Hadevarim” are mentioned three times in the Torah: once in Exodus 34 and twice later in Deuteronomy 4 and 10. "The Ten Commandments" is the familiar term in the literature of the Sages. And despite being part of the 613 commandments, in Judaism the text is not recognized as the "Ten Mitzvot - Commandments" as it appears in other cultures around the world.

There seems to be some kind of consensus among the nations of the world regarding the credibility and high moral value of the Ten Commandments, the ultimate and most basic constitution not only for the Jewish people, but for most of the inhabitants of the world: Christians and Muslims refer to the event at Mount Sinai and the Ten Commandments, as the greatest event that humanity had ever experienced in the presence of God. This was the greatest gift that the deity gave to all of mankind, a gift from heaven that we Jews proudly and meticulously preserve the original text in the Hebrew language, because apparently there are versions changed and adapted to the Islamic and Christian religions.

This week's Parashat Itro, describes the events that occurred about 3337 years ago, about a month and a half after the Israelites left Egypt. It is very difficult to deny such a powerful event. Skeptics can deny the prophets – who prophesied to a small audience, or the rest of the stories in the entire Bible, claiming that they may have been dreamed or imagined. Regarding the Mount Sinai event of Matan Torah - Giving of the Torah, which according to tradition took place at the foot of Mount Sinai in front of a huge crowd of more than 630,000 people, according to the number in Numbers, Chapter 1. How can you ignore an event of such magnitude?

I will share some interesting facts about the "Ten Commandments" that you may not have known:

• According to the Torah, the original text was engraved on two stone tablets on BOTH sides, each one. According to the text, it was the "Etzva Elohim – The finger of God" who engraved the two tablets (not Moses), hence their importance and holiness.

• Unfortunately, all this amazing and unique work was broken into pieces, a few days later by Moses himself, after the sin of the golden calf.

• Moses ascended Mount Sinai again on the 1^st of Elul, and the second tablets were given to Israel on Yom Kippur. New tablets engraved a second time again by God.

• According to tradition, the two tablets of the Covenant were 2 rectangular blocks. It can be assumed that the tablets were made of a type of rock, as it is written in the Bible "tablets of stone", and according to the approximate location of Mount Sinai, it can be assumed that it was granite, but the sages understood that the most sacred thing in the world had to be made of one of the most precious materials: sapphire, what's more, the bluish color of the sapphire stone is described soon after the giving of the Torah, when Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy elders of Israel ascended to the mountain: “And they saw the God of Israel, and under his feet as it were the work of a sapphire brick, and as the firmament of heaven for purity” ^{Exodus 24:10}

• The dimensions of the tablets are described in the Babylonian Talmud the volume Bava Batra 14a as follows: “length six, width six, depth three” referring to “palms” which was an ancient unit of measurement for length, equivalent to the width of four human fingers, between 3” and 4”. Thus, the dimensions of each tablet were minimum 18” x 18” x 9”. This means that the weight of each tablet was approximately 335 pounds! So the two tablets together formed a cube weighing about 670 pounds. If it was sapphire, the weight of the two tablets made of sapphire would have reached the 974 pounds! If the tablets were so heavy, why weren't the texts written on just one tablet? Tradition explains this according to the type of commandments in each tablet: in the First tablet were written, the commandments between man and God, the personal relationship with the Creator, and on the second tablet, the commandments between man and his fellow man, the social relationships.

• We read from the verses of the Parasha that Matan Tora was a supernatural event: earthquakes, deep and loud sounds similar to trumpets or Shofar, heavy clouds or fog around the mountain, an entire setting that today can only be recreated through Hollywood films.

• There are two versions of the Ten Commandments, the first version in this weeks’ Parashat Itro in Exodus 20, and the second version in Deuteronomy 5 – Parashat Vaethanan. There are slight differences between the two versions, especially in the fourth verse, “Remember the Sabbath day” and “Observe the Sabbath day”. The Babylonian Talmud, volume Rosh Hashanah 27a explains that both different expressions, were given at once by God: “’Zahor VeShamor - Remember and Keep’ were both spoken in one word’” This is the origin of the words we sing in Lecha Dodi: "Remember and keep with one word, let us hear the unique God".

• Why Ten Commandments and not Seven Commandments, eight or five? The exact division into ten is ambiguous. Only nine commandments can be clearly found, although the accepted interpretation in Judaism sees in the introduction "I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt" as the commandment to believe in God. Another reason may be found in Kabbalah: “the Ten Commandments are as the ten Sefirot of the Tree of Life”. Just as the Sefirot are the process of creating the physical world of the universe, the Ten Commandments constitute the process of creating the spiritual world of man. Each commandment is the basis for the next, first in the personal aspect between a person and God, second in the social aspect in the relationships between a person and his fellow man.

• The order of the commandments reminds us a child's development in the spiritual world, and his understanding of the essence of God: First, the child is explained about the concept of God, and later about the abstract and non-physical essence of the divinity. Later, it is explained that the issue requires serious consideration. These are the first three commandments. At a later age, the young child can be taught about the periods of time and the importance of the Sabbath as a day of rest or rest, one day a week given to the spiritual world in order to connect with the divine source within us. At this age, they are taught an abstract concept about honoring their parents. The value of life, and the meaning of death and murder come at a later stage as the second group of commandments regarding the "basic emotions". Towards the age of the mitzvot, children can understand in depth the meaning of adultery, theft and lying, and that every deed or action has a consequence. At this stage, they build a sense of responsibility.

• The last commandment is, in my opinion, the most difficult level of all: The tenth commandment is not prohibition to act, but a prohibition to think even feel, that requires control over negative emotions, with an emphasis on greed. This is the stage of self-control. The Ten Commandments are a process of personal development, step by step, from the most basic level to the highest spiritual and social levels.

In honor of this amazing text, I would ask everyone to stand, listen to the Ten Commandments and be witnesses again, to imagine that we were there at the foot of Mount Sinai, seeing the cloud of mist around it, and the fire, listening to the sounds of the shofar and the voice within us that says:

1. I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery:
2. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation, to hate them. And shows mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.
3. Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain:  for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that who takes his name in vain.
4. Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work. And the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God: in it you shall not do any work, you, your son, your daughter, your male servant, your female servant, your cattle, your stranger who is within your gates. For six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.
5. Honor thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land, which the Lord thy God giveth thee.
6. Thou shalt not murder,
7. Thou shalt not commit adultery,
8. Thou shalt not steal,
9. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.
10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house; Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is thy neighbor's.

These are the Ten Commandments. A solid foundation for our faith.

Shabat Shalom!

Rabbi David Laor

February 14^th, 2025