2 SETS OF 10 UTTERANCES
We are coming on the holiday of Shavuot. We read the first set of 10 commandments (which are utterances or sayings or things in Hebrew, not commandments). But there is, as we know, a second set that comes after Moses ascends Mt. Sinai again after the Golden Calf. And boy, are the two sets different.
Here’s a chart with common parts of the two tablets in bold. I’m following Friedman in terms of how he lists the 10 things in Chapter 20, about which there is dispute.
FIRST TABLETS (Chapter 20) SECOND TABLETS (Chapter 34)
No other Gods No other Gods
No molten Gods (Idols) No molten Gods (Idols)
Don’t take YHVH’s name in Vain Festival of Unleavened Bread (Pesach)
Remember Shabbat First birth of a womb belongs to YHVH
Honor Father and Mother Remember Shabbat
No Murder Festival of Weeks (Shavuot) & Festival of ingathering (Sukkot)
No Adultery Blood of sacrifice only on unleavened bread
No Steal Passover sacrifice eaten before next day
Don’t bear false witness Bring first fruits to house of YHVH
No covet Don’t cook kid in mother’s milk
If you read the text carefully, you could actually argue with me about how I have numbered the second set, especially because I don’t include the commandment to appear before YHVH three times a year (34:23). However you describe the second set, it is clear that there are only 3 things in common that I have bolded. Chapter 20 is often described as the ethical commandments because of the nature of commandments 5-10 and Chapter 34 is described as the ritual commandments because of the mandates that are ritual in nature.
Which set of ten would bring you closer to the divine? Why? The second set has two great merits. I think of the divine as something that has much more to do with ritual discourse than legal discourse. Ritual has the possibility of taking us out of our heads and into more direct experience and that is where we can experience the divine. Further, the second set is much more connected to the more than human world. Coveting, bearing false witness etc leave us in the exclusively human world. But the second set happens in the context of our interactions with the more than human world, particularly our agricultural connection.
Which set of ten would bring you closer to the divine? Why?
Ruth, because we often read the book of Ruth for Shavuot.