Yitro - what we leave out

One of the first things I ever learned in the Talmud was that 2000 years ago, when the Temple was still standing, the priests would recite daily prayers very similar to the prayers we still say today. In an unbroken line, our daily prayers still include the Shema and the Amidah. However, the priests had another part of their daily prayer, and that part was the Ten Commandments.  They would say the Shema, the Amidah and the Ten Commandments.  This makes a lot of sense as the Ten Commandments are the high point in our history at Sinai and they are an excellent executive summary. They are short, pithy and sensible.

However it was decided to take them out of the daily prayers because of Tar Omet Haminim. This translates as the grievances of the heretics. 

Their grievance was that only the Ten Commandments came directly from God and the rest came through Moses. So as not to show any favouritism to one section of the Torah over the other, they were left out of the daily prayers.

Unsurprisingly, the people didn’t like this decision. The Talmud (b.Berakhot 12a) reports many generations of people asking their rabbis (at this stage, not priests any more) to put back the Ten Commandments into the daily prayers. In Israel and later in Babylon, this request was turned down because of Tar Omet Haminim.

But the story doesn’t end there. One thousand years later, people have accepted that it isn’t in their daily prayers anymore, but they still feel there’s something special about the Ten Commandments.

So when they are read as part of the Torah reading, like yesterday in Parasha Yitro, people would stand up. (They did yesterday as well in HaKol Olin where I gave this dvar torah) People would read responsively and often the Ten Commandments would be included in the shul decoration.

We know that people would stand 1000 years ago because rabbis’ told them not to.  Maimonides writes that people should not give any status to the reading of the Ten Commandments such as standing when that portion is read in shul on Shabbat, He states that the custom found in some communities to stand during this part of the Torah reading should be discontinued (Teshuvot Ha Rambam 46)

To this day there is no clear and agreed halakha on the subject.  In Rabbinic Judaism, we can’t even agree on which part of the oral/written law was directly given by God to the people.  Was it the entire Oral/Written Torah? Was it just the Ten Commandments? Was it just the first sound of the Ten Commandments that the people heard?

In b.Makkot 23b and quoted by Maimonides in the Guide to the Perplexed, the part that was directly experienced was only the first two mitzvot of the Ten Commandments. These are: I am the Lord your God, and You shall have no other God’s before me. These commandments are not mediated by Moses because for the Rambam, these are the only mitzvot that can be fathomed by any intelligent monotheist, and need not be transmitted by Moses.

It comforts me to know that we are not the first generation to be bothered by the prayers. I like belonging to a long line and a rich tradition of people wanting things put back and left out. We’ve all got our personal grievances. We don’t like everything we get to hear and say. There are loads of sections in prayers that have bothered me at different times. (Parts of Aleinu, birkat hamazon, some of the Yom Kippur service) but I’m glad they are there to struggle with because what bothers me changes all the time. Nothing is perfect and neither should it be. It would be a pity in our desire for  perfect bubbles of pleasing thoughts that offend nobody ever, we end up only praying the lyrics of John Lennon’s Imagine. 

I like the feeling of power of the people despite the declarations of the rabbis. 

I like that we stand when we should sit, and weirdly we leave out the parts that are most precious to us.

The grievances of the heretics over 2000 years ago mean that the Ten Commandments are no longer said daily, but unlike those heretics who are long dead, we are still standing.

Tetzaveh - humility and majesty

Every day thousands of tourists visit the Tower of London to marvel at the Imperial state crown and the other highly decorated symbols of the British Monarchy. Exquisitely made in gold, velvet and ermine, and encrusted with thousands of diamonds, the crown signifies royal authority to lead the nation.   I find it interesting that interesting the names of the people that have worn this crown are exalted, while the names of the people who created these marvellous objects are unknown. ?

 There is this same distinction in Parashah Tetzaveh. Dazzling ceremonial objects are created for powerful people, while the names of the creators are erased.  Majesty and humility are subtly contrasted. Nechama Liebowitz, an important biblical scholar of the modern age, raises three challenges in this week’s Sedra. She asks: Why is Moses’s name absent? Why does the Sedra go on and on about the clothes of the High Priest and who exactly is asked to make them?

In every chapter in every book after Genesis, Moses is mentioned by name. Only in Tetzaveh is his name erased. With Moses’s name not spoken, the scene is set for Aaron and his sons to become the major players. The second issue bothering Nechama is the amount of space and detail describing the ceremonial paraphernalia. for Aaron and his sons. Among the blue, purple and crimson yarns, is my favourite detail; and that is the description of the frontlets of pure gold engraved with the words: ‘Holy to God’. That sign is placed on the forehead of the high-priest as he goes about his business of being a High-Priest.

The effect of the proto-crown, clothes, breastplate and ceremonial objects must have been dazzling to the Israelites in the desert. .Ramban, an important Spanish Medieval commentator, sees their function to enhance the dignity and prestige of the sacred office in the eyes of the people. In other words, they don’t transform the wearer in any real sense, they simply create a social reality, a majestic, dazzling, powerful social reality. 

The last contradiction in the text as Nechama points out is between 28. 2 and 28.3. Look carefully. Who is being asked to make the clothes? The un-named Moses or the wise-hearted people? I think the key lies in the use of the word Chochmah which is the word used to refer to the wisdom that comes from outside ourselves when we know before whom we stand. It is the wisdom of understanding our small selves in an infinite and intact world of unending creation. It is the essentially modest position with or without a gold crown to remind us of our powers. It is the wisdom of the monotheist who knows that whoever our parents are, or whatever talents we have, we are all equally holy to God.

Liebowitz, Nechama. 1985. Studies in Shemot.  Jerusalem:Haomanim Press.