וידבר אלו-הים את כל הדברים האלה לאמור, “G‘d spoke all these words to be relayed.” The word לאמור was added here in order to teach that all these Ten Commandments were spoken in a single utterance. This was something a human mouth would be unable to do, and a human ear would be unable to hear. We also find in Bamidbar Rabbah 11,19 concerning two apparently contradictory statements in Psalms 147,4 and Isaiah 40,26 that what G’d is able to do, man is not. In the former statement the psalmist says: “He counts each one of the stars supplying them with names,” whereas in Isaiah the prophet says: “He leads out their number as an army, each one He calls by name.” The meaning is that when G’d calls upon the stars He calls each one by name simultaneously.

Another way of understanding the word לאמור in our verse is that it refers to the hidden meaning of the words of the revelation. Each utterance of G’d contains meanings obvious to all as well as hidden meaning. In this instance the expression דבור, i.e. וידבר, refers to the plain meaning, the revealed message, whereas the hidden meaning is alluded to by the word לאמור. This principle may be applied to most instances where the Torah writes: וידבר ה’ אל משה לאמור, “G’d spoke to Moses, saying.” The text tells us that G’d said more than what meets the eye at a superficial reading of the words. I have already elaborated on this concept in my commentary on Exodus 13,1 (page 907 my translation, Ed.) In this instance, a moment in time when the Israelites were all of a level capable of receiving prophetic insights, G’d revealed both aspects of His words, the plain and the more sophisticated, at one and the same time to all of them. This is the meaning of Psalms 62,12: “G’d has said one (word) whereas I have heard two.”

You should know that in the view of Maimonides (Moreh Nevuchim section 2 chapter 33) at the revelation at Mount Sinai the sound the Children of Israel heard (G’d’s voice) had been created for the purpose. This was a one-time manifestation of that sound and while they heard it, they were not able to separate different letters from one another. It was heard a single time and comprised only the first two of the Ten Commandments. Concerning this phenomenon the Torah wrote (Deut. 5,19) “a powerful sound without break.” The Torah also wrote concerning this sound (Deut. 5,20) “when you heard the sound.” Furthermore, in Deut. 4,12 Moses said קול דברים אתם שמעים, “you hear the sound of words.” Significantly, Moses did not say that the people actually heard words,” i.e. were able to hear distinct letters. This is also what is meant in Exodus 19,9: “in order that the people hear when I speak with you (Moses).” The meaning is that the people will hear the sound but will not be able to make out the individual words. Our sages (Makkot 24) say that the Israelites heard the first two commandments from G’d’s own mouth. The wording there is: מפי הגבורה שמענום. This reflects the difference between what Moses heard and what the people heard. The people only heard קול דברים, “the sound of words,” whereas Moses heard the words themselves. This is why Moses interpreted the words he had heard to the people by separating between letter and letter and word and word. This is what Moses referred to when he said (Deut. 5,5) “I was standing between you and G’d at that time in order to tell you the word of the Lord.” Moses referred to the first two commandments which the people, though having heard them, had not been able to understand. This explains the way Onkelos renders both the words וידבר אלוה-הים את כל הדברים האלה לאמור, and וידבר אלו-הים אל משה לאמור, as ומליל ה’ as if both verses meant the same. He is correct because the word לאמור in each verse means that Moses was to communicate G’d’s words to the people. In 20,15 when Onkelos translates the people saying to Moses ואל ידבר עמנו אלו-הים פן נמות, “let not G’d speak to us so that we shall not die,” he translates this as ולא יתמלל עמנא מן קדם ה’, instead of ולא ימלל עמנא. The distinction Onkelos makes between the way the people heard G’d’s voice and the way Moses perceived it is clearly reflected in his rendering what the people had heard as מן קדם ה’. The people had been aware that what they heard was something other than words. After the people had heard the first two commandments by hearing G’d’s voice their souls departed as we know from Song of Songs 5,6 (compare our comments page 1049 this volume on Exodus 19,17) נפשי יצאה בדברו, “my soul departed at His decree.” They were afraid that they would continue to hear G’d’s voice and were afraid they would die as a result. This is when they said to Moses (Deut. 5,22) “let us not die,”....(and in verse 24) ”approach you and hear what G’d says,....and tell us what G’d said.” Moses heard every one of the Ten Commandments one at a time and related them to the people. To sum up: the Israelites did hear the first two commandments at the same time and from the same source as did Moses, but they could not make sense out of them. The other eight commandments they heard from Moses just as they heard all other commandments in the Torah from Moses. This is what is meant at the beginning of Shir Hashirim Rabbah (5,6), that the words in Deut. 33,4 תורה צוה לנו משה “Moses commanded us the Torah” (not G’d), means that Moses relayed to the people 611 of the 613 commandments. The numerical value of the letters in the word תורה add up to 611. The other two commandments G’d personally commanded the people. Seeing that the first two commandments were heard by the people as a continuous utterance (no break between letters to form words or sentences), this was what David had said in Psalms 62,12: “G’d said a single word but I heard two.” This is the opinion of Maimonides of what transpired at the giving of the Torah.

Nachmanides is of the opinion that the entire people heard all the Ten Commandments directly from G’d. According to his view this is the meaning of our verse: “G’d spoke all these words,” as well as Deut. 5,19: “these words G’d spoke to your entire congregation at the mountain out of the fire, etc.” Furthermore, it is written: “He told you of His covenant ....and He inscribed them on the two stone Tablets” (Deut. 4,13). From this we learn that just as G’d had communicated the Ten Commandments to the entire people directly by word of mouth, He subsequently communicated them to the entire people in writing. How does Nachmanides understand the words of the Talmud in Makkot 24 that the Israelites heard the first two commandments from G’d’s own mouth which suggests that they did not hear the other commandments from His mouth? He understands the word שמעום in the Talmud as relating to what the ear heard, similar to the meaning of the words in Proverbs 15,31 אזן שומעת תוכחת חיים, “the ear that listens to life-giving discipline.” This verse implies that the heart also understood the message as is evident from Kings I 3,9 (also Solomon speaking to G’d in his dream) לב שומע, “a heart that hears.” [Seeing that it is not the function of the heart to hear and to listen, clearly Solomon asked for something more, i.e. understanding, when he asked G’d to be granted a “heart which can hear.” Ed.] As far as the Israelites were concerned, they heard and understood only the first two of the Ten Commandments. The other eight commandments they “heard” without understanding what they heard. This is why Moses had to interpret for them what their ears had heard. This is the meaning of Deut. 5,5: “I was standing between G’d and you at that time in order to tell you the word of G’d.” This is also the meaning of 19,19: “Moses would speak and G’d would respond with a voice.” What G’d had said בקול, in an indistinguishable voice,” Moses interpreted to the people. The word עניה, which usually appears in the form of ויען means “beginning.” We find it in this sense in Job 3,2. [In that verse the word ויען could not have meant: “he replied,” as Job’s friends were reported sitting with him for seven days without opening their mouth. Ed.] This is the way Nachmanides understands what happened at Mount Sinai.

A Kabbalistic approach: The words וידבר אלו-הים really mean וידבר ה’. The reason we do not find the attribute י-ה-ו-ה spelled out in this verse is that Israel had attained such a high level of spirituality at the time that it did not need to be addressed by an attribute which primarily represented the attribute of Mercy, i.e. an attribute which makes allowance for human weakness. The Torah had already hinted at that in verse 3 when Moses was described as ומשה עלה אל האלו-הים, that Moses ascended to the presence of G’d in His capacity as אלו-הים. Onkelos, in his infinite wisdom, has therefore seen fit to translate the word אלו-הים wherever it appears in this chapter as י-ה-ו-ה, so that we would understand the spiritual level at which this entire episode occurred. [The author must have had a different edition of Onkelos, as in our editions he only renders אלו-הים as י-ה-ו-ה in 19,17. Chavell]. At any rate, the word אלו-הים is not used to depict G’d in His capacity as delegating to agents such as nature, but as the attribute of גבורה, Justice; at the same time use of this attribute indicates that the people did not experience what we have called אספקלריא מאירה a “clear vision,” (such as was reserved for Moses) but they experienced the type of visions granted prophets of lower rank. In other words: whereas the attribute of Hashem spoke to Moses, the people heard the attribute of Elohim.

You must appreciate that in view of the fact that actually the attribute Hashem was speaking, the Torah should have written here: וידבר ה’ את כל הדברים האלה, just as Moses said when he recalled the event of 40 years ago to the people in Deuteronomy. At that point he said in Deut. 5,19: את הדברים האלה דבר ה’ אל כל קהלכם בהר מתוך האש הענן והערפל קול גדול ולא יסף. Also in Deut. 4,12 Moses quotes G’d as וידבר ה’ אליכם מתוך האש. Seeing that that in Exodus 19,18 the Torah wrote אשר ירד עליו ה’ באש, “on which Hashem descended in fire,” and it has been explained that His great name represents the emanation תפארת, which “resides within fire,” it had now become necessary to write וידבר אלו-הים, as these words reflect that the sound of the voice emanated from the fire. In other words, the Israelites heard a sound which seemed to come out of the fire. We find a similar description [involving both the attributes Elohim and Hashem. Ed.] in Deut. 5,21: הן הראנו ה’ אלו-הינו את כבודו ואת גדלו ואת קולו שמענו מתוך האש. “The Lord our G’d has just shown us His majestic Presence, and we heard His voice out of the fire.” [Israel speaking, Moses quoting how they had perceived what they had experienced. 40 years earlier. Ed.]. Keeping all these factors in mind, when Moses mentioned וידבר ה’ אליכם in Deut. 4,12 he immediately added the words “out of the fire.” He did the same again when referring to what had occurred in Deut. 5,19 after reviewing the Ten Commandments immediately prior to that verse. The reason is that whereas in Hebrew, and to Hebrew speakers the achievements of Israel are considered primary, in the Aramaic translation of Onkelos (which reflects the use of the language by people speaking that tongue) the achievements of Moses are highlighted. When the Torah (in Hebrew) writes וידבר אלו-הים, this reflects the spiritual level reached by the Jewish people, whereas when Onkelos translates as if the Torah had written וידבר ה’, this reflects the spiritual level achieved by Moses. Onkelos wants to make plain by his very translation of the words of the Torah that Moses had attained a higher spiritual plateau than had the people. Isaiah 26,4 writes as follows: בטחו בי-ה-ו-ה עדי עד כי בי-ה י-ה-ו-ה צור עולמים, “trust in Hashem for ever and ever, for in Yah Hashem you have an everlasting Rock.” What the prophet means is that the name Hashem which symbolizes the concept of “an everlasting Rock” may be described on occasion as Yah. When G’d is described in 20,2 saying: אנכי ה’ אלו-היך, He is described as speaking in His capacity as Yah, an aspect of the צור עולמים. This צור עולמים contains this name as we learn from Exodus 23,21 כי שמי בקרבו “for My name is within it,” the “it” being the צור עולמים. This is also the mystical dimension of אני ה’ בקרב הארץ (Exodus 8,18) a reference to this Rock. A kabbalistic approach to the words אשר הוצאתיך, “who has taken you out.” The Exodus, as distinct from the utterance of the Ten Commandments, was orchestrated by G’d in His capacity as Hashem. This is the reason the Torah writes (13,16 ) כי בחזק יד הוציאנו י-ה-ו-ה ממצרים, “for with the power of the hand Hashem took us out of Egypt.” The same formula is repeated in 13,3. When the Torah writes: (20,3) לא יהיה לך אלו-הים אחרים על פני, generally translated as “you must not have (recognize) any other gods in My Presence,” the meaning is that the only Presence you are to recognize as divine is My Presence, i.e. פני. The wording here is similar to the wording in Genesis 31,50 where Lavan warns Yaakov not to marry any additional wives. He said: ואם תקח נשים על בנותי. Lavan meant: ”but my daughters certainly are to remain your wives.” Similarly here; G’d forbids other gods to be recognised implying that most certainly He is to be recognised as G’d. The fact that this is so is demonstrated by the use by G’d of the word פנים in Deut. 34,10 when describing His relationship with Moses as אשר ידעו י-ה-ו-ה פנים אל פנים, “whom G’d knew (intimately) face to face.” A similar use of the word פנים is found in Deut. 5,4 describing the close relationship of G’d to the whole people at the revelation at Mount Sinai. The Torah describes this as פנים בפנים דבר י-ה-ו-ה עמכם, “face to face Hashem spoke to you.” All these expressions made it necessary to repeatedly use the expression מתוך האש, in order to explain whence G’d’s voice emanated. The best way to understand these words is that the power of G’d is within another power, just as the appearance of fire, while representing a display of power, contains within it another core of power. This what is meant in Numbers 14,14 כי עין בעין נראה אתה ה’, “that You, Hashem, appeared eye to eye.” The true meaning is that though You Hashem appeared to the eye, there is an inner dimension to this manifestation which remained invisible. This is also the mystical dimension of 20,23 לא תעשון אתי, “you shall not make ‘with’ Me, etc.” The meaning is that no other so-called deity shall share על פני, “My Divine Presence.” When the Torah writes about Moses ascending the mountain (19,3) ומשה עלה אל האלו-הים ויקרא אליו - י-ה-ו-ה that “Moses ascended to G’d, and Hashem called to him,” the meaning is that Hashem called to him from within the attribute אלו-הים. This too is the meaning in Deut. 5,21 ואת קולו שמענו מתוך האש, “and we have heard His voice out of the fire.” The voice referred to there is the voice of the attribute Hashem. It was this voice which the people had been afraid of hearing again, and this is why they said: אם יוספים אנחנו לשמוע את קול י-ה-ו-ה אלו-הינו עוד ומתנו “if we will continue to hear the voice of Hashem, our G’d, again we will die.” This is also the mystical aspect of our sages’ saying (Shevuot 20) זכור ושמור בדבור אחד נאמרו, “the words זכור and שמור [one of which appears in the first version of the Ten Commandments in Exodus and the other in the version in Deuteronomy, Ed.] were said as one.” The former refers to the attribute of Mercy, i.e. י-ה-ו-ה, the other to the attribute of Justice, the attribute known best as אלו-הים. The attribute of Mercy spoke from within the attribute of Justice. This was also why there were two Tablets instead of merely one. One represented the attribute of Mercy, the other the attribute of Justice. The Tablet on which the words לא תרצח, “do not murder,” was inscribed at the top represented the attribute of Justice. (according to the view that five of the Commandments were written on each Tablet) Moses, who, as we explained had attained the level of communicating with G’d’s attribute (emanation) תפארת, heard the word זכור, i.e. as a positive commandment, an expression of the attribute of Mercy. The people who had not attained such a lofty level of communication with G’d heard the word as שמור, as a negative commandment, as an expression of the attribute of Justice. When we find an expression (verse 22) such as כי מן השמים דברתי עמכם, ”for I have spoken with you from the heaven,” the meaning of the word מתוך in that verse is similar to the meaning of the words מתוך האש in the verses we have already discussed. If you peruse all the verses connected with מתן תורה, you will not find a single one mentioning the tetragrammaton unless it is connected to the words מתוך האש.

Whereas all of the Israelites heard the tetragrammaton, no one, including the אצילי בני ישראל, who are described in Exodus 24,11 as having “seen” האלו-הים, “saw” G’d as it is impossible to “see” G’d as we know from Exodus 33,20 that no living human being can have a visual experience of G’d. If you were to counter that G’d Himself had told the people that on the third day ”G’d will descend in full view of all the people” (19,11), the meaning is that when the people would observe this great glory, “like a fire consuming the top of the mountain,” they would understand that within that spectacle the name Hashem would be concealed, i.e. the attribute which cannot be perceived by human eyes. The “glory” of G’d on the other hand, is subject to being seen by human eyes, the attribute called Elohim. It is this attribute which is described as being seen both by the expression ויחזו, and by the expression ויראו in Exodus 24,10 and Exodus 24,11 respectively. Once we have established this you will appreciate that when G’d described Himself as “descending” on the third day in full view of the people” (19,11) what is meant is a “descent” to that level of His glory which could be seen by the people. The area to which G’d had “descended,” was the area from which the word communicated itself to that attribute of glory which in turn became audible to our physical ears. This is what Moses meant when he said in Deut. 4,36 מן השמים השמיעך את קולו “out of the heaven He made you hear His voice.” We find a very similar verse in Nechemyah 9,13 (the Levites addressing G’d in the presence of the people) ועל הר סיני ירדת ודבר עמהם משמים, “and You descended on Mount Sinai to speak to them from the heaven.” You must realise that this is the G’d who is referred to also as שם (“there”, vowel kametz under the letter ש).

The word שם is the “home” of the כרובים, as we know from Samuel II 6,2 להעלות מ-שם את ארון האלו-הים אשר נקרא שם שם י-ה-ו-ה צבאות יושב הכרובים עליו, “to bring up from there the Ark of G’d to which the Name was attached, the name Lord of Hosts enthroned on the Cherubim.” This was the attribute of G’d in whose honour King Solomon built the Temple as a residence on earth. This is why you find Solomon refer to it again and again as a sanctuary built לשמך, “in honour of Your name.” (Examples: Kings I 8,44: “the house I built for Your name.” Kings I 19: “the house he will build for My name.”] The sacrifices which were offered up on the altar of that Temple were all offered to the attribuite described there as שמך, “Your name.” Solomon’s father David had already instructed him that דע את אלו-הי אביך ועבדהו, “know the G’d of your father and serve Him” (Chronicles I 28,9). When Moses upbraids Korach in Numbers 16,9 for wanting to be a priest not only a Levite, he describes the function of the Levites as כי הבדיל אלו-הי ישראל אתכם מעדת ישראל להקריב אתכם אליו, “for the G’d of the Israelites has separated you (elevated) from the community of Israel to bring you near to Him.”

Nachmanides comments on Exodus 32,27 where Moses tells the Levites to seek out the idolaters who served the golden calf and to execute them that the words אלו-הי ישראל in that verse refer to the attribute to whom sacrificial service to G’d is directed. Furthermore you find a verse in Chronicles II 29,7 ועולה לא העלו בקדש לאלו-הי ישראל, “they did not offer burnt offerings in the holy place to the G’d of Israel.” This teaches clearly that such burnt offerings were offered to the attribute known as אלו-הי ישראל. Another explicit verse teaching us the same is found in Leviticus 21,8: כי את לחם אלו-היך הוא מקריב, “for he offers the food of your G’d,” and the attribute אלו-הים is used to describe the attribute of G’d to whom the offerings are directed. Additionally, it is worthwhile to reflect on the expression לחם אשה, in Leviticus 3,11 where the priest is described as the one offering such an offering to Hashem. The word אשה is derived from אש; we have many similar expressions all referring to certain sacrifices as אשה לה’, “fire-offerings to the Lord.” The reason that the Torah does not describe such food for the altar as (לחם אש) “fiery food,” is that the word אשה is almost identical to the word אשה, woman, meaning that the recipient of the sacrifice is passive like a woman who is passive, a recipient. All of this proves that sacrifices are offered to the attribute of Justice. This is the reason that such “food,” i.e. לחם, is called לחם אשה. The truth is that while the sacrifices are offered up to the attribute אלו-הים, they are intended for the attribute Hashem. Similarly, when we offer our prayers in (lieu of sacrifices), we dedicate them to the attribute which is far above all our abilities to praise, and we verbalize that when we emphasize this very fact by saying that G’d is מרומם על כל ברכה ותהלה “exalted far above every blessing and praise” (Nechemyah 9,5). The same thought is expressed in the Kaddish prayer i.e.לעילא מכל ברכתא ושירתא תושבחתא.

Kabbalists do not agree. They believe that all prayers are addressed to the one and only great name, the tetragrammaton. They believe that G’d is not beyond our ability to praise, but that He is close to all who call upon him as stated in Psalm 145,18 קרוב ה’ לכל קוראיו. There is only one condition for the “closeness” of G’d to all who call upon Him; it too has been stated in the same verse of that Psalm, i.e. יקראוהו באמת, “they must be truthful (not ambiguous) in their appeal to G’d.”

Nachmanides himself mentions in his liturgical poem beginning with the words מראש מקדמי עולמים אקרא הלא תענה כי בושתי לשאול מן המלך, “l call, for are You not sure to answer? for I would be ashamed to ask (such a thing) from a king (human ruler).”

We have numerous instances when the petitioner describes himself as addressing a particular attribute and at the same time expects to receive his response from a different attribute. Example: Psalms 55,17 אני אל אלו-הים אקרא וי-ה-ו-ה יושיעני, “I will call out to Elohim, and Hashem will deliver me.”—An example of a different nature which comes to mind is Psalms 6,10 where David had addressed the attribute Hashem asking not to be judged by an attribute G’d employs when He is angry. David acknowledges that Hashem answered him. There are too many examples of man addressing the attribute Hashem directly for us to have to enumerate them. If you will examine Solomon’s prayer more closely you will observe that he too did not address himself simply to the subordinate attribute Elohim, but that he combined both attributes in his petition addressing himself to י-ה-ו-ה- אלו-הי ישראל, “the Lord G’d of Israel.” He stressed merely that there is none like Him either on earth or in the heavens. Solomon avoided using the attribute אלו-הי ישראל exclusively when appealing to G’d. [The specific verse quoted by the author from Kings I 8,26 has Solomon saying: ועתה אלו-הי ישראל, without referring to the attribute Hashem. The verse prior does indeed begin ועתה ה' אלו-הי ישראל. Ed.] At any rate, we find that sometimes a combination of G’d’s attributes is being addressed, whereas at other times only a single attribute, be it Hashem or Elohim is being addressed

The above will help you understand why the sages when formulating our benedictions and mentioning the attributes of Hashem and Elohim in the benedictions we recite have at the same time not employed the grammatical formula we would have expected such as אשר קדשתנו במצותיך וצויתנו, “You have sanctified us and You have commanded us,” but have insisted on the formula “who has sanctified us and who has commanded us” in the third person. The reason is that the words ברוך אתה, “blessed are You” at the beginning of the benediction refer to the words מלך העולם in a later part of the benediction. This is an attribute more familiar to us by the name תפארת. It is a reference to a certain emanation and it is this emanation (the attribute it represents) which “has sanctified us and commanded us.” It is this emanation which is the repository of G’d’s commandments to us. You will find what I have said confirmed in the Sefer Habahir item 184 who queries אשר קדשנו במצותיו instead of אשר קדשתנו וצויתנו? The answer given is that all the commandments are found in two worlds. In His great Mercy G’d has given them to us in order to sanctify us so that we will merit to establish a claim to the hereafter, the עולם גדול, in the here and now. Thus far the quote from the Sefer Habahir. From there you can conclude that the relationship between the Shechinah and the people of Israel is not one based merely on the need of the common Israelite, but that it is a reciprocal relationship also satisfying a need of the celestial forces represented by the Shechinah. Seeing that the glory of the tetragram and all it stands for is disseminated by the attribute כבוד, “glory, honour,” whenever this occurs an additional element of Holy Spirit is added to the Shechinah. This is why a prayer (Psalms 104,31) such as יהי כבוד ה’ לעולם ישמח ה‘ במעשיו, makes sense. The meaning of these words is: “the glory of G’d is enhanced to the emanation עולם when the attribute we know as the tetragram has occasion to rejoice in the deeds of its creatures.” This means that every Israelite has the potential to strengthen or, G’d forbid, to “weaken” certain attributes of G’d by his deeds or lack of them. This idea is expressed succinctly in Deut. 32,18 as צור ילדך תשי, literally: “You neglected the Rock that begot you;” according to Kabbalists this means: “when Israel neglects the Torah, it weakens the power of the Torah.” A verse conveying a similar sentiment is Psalms 60,14 באלו-הים נעשה חיל, “we can perform valiant deeds which enhance Elohim.” The attribute of כבוד which we have spoken about is expressed in our verse by the words וידבר אלו-הים, “The One who spoke was the One who both writes and gives, i.e. hands over what He has written.” It is the same attribute we find referred to in Exodus 32,16 והמכתב מכתב אלו-הים הוא, “and the writing was the writing of Elohim.” When we read in Exodus 31,18 ויתן אל משה וגו’, the unnamed subject is the same Elohim who did the writing on the Tablets. The reference is to the word אלו-הים which appears at the very end of that verse. It was also this attribute of G’d which Moses (Deut. 33,12) referred to when he described Benjamin as ידיד ה’ ישכון לבטח עליו, describing that while this attribute rested on the Holy Temple, Benjamin and the entire Jewish people would dwell securely. Moses singled out Benjamin as the Holy Temple would be built on his tribal territory. This attribute was also referred to as פי י-ה-ו-ה, in Exodus 17,11 at al. This expression, i.e. “The mouth of the tetragram” means that the instructions emanated from an attribute outside the core of Hashem. It was the attribute described as פי ה’ which Moses and Aaron sinned against in Numbers 20,12 when instead of having spoken to the rock Moses struck the rock. G’d spelled this out when He said לא האמנתם בי ...אשר מריתם את פי, “you did not believe in Me....you rebelled against פי. (Numbers 20,24) I shall explain this in greater detail when we discuss that event. You will now be able to understand the meaning of the word צור when this word refers to an aspect of G’d. We have verses such as הצור תמים פעלו, “the Rock, His works are perfect” (Deut. 32,4). Another verse of that category is Deut. 33,12: צור ילדך תשי. A third word featuring the word צור occurred in Exodus 17,6 הנני עומד לפניך שם על הצור בחורב; I will explain the last verse in detail in connection with Numbers 20,8 [where only the word סלע is mentioned in contrast with the word צור in Exodus 17,6 Ed.].

First we have to understand why G’d repeated the word צור in His instructions to Moses in Exodus 17,6 when all He had to say was והכית בו, “strike it,” seeing that He had already told Moses that the צור was the object he was to concentrate on. This hints that the words והכית בצור, may refer to a different “צור.” The attribute כבוד we have been mentioning repeatedly is the one that said to Yaakov (Genesis 31,13) אנכי האל בית-אל, seeing that it was this attribute which had been described earlier as the G’d of his father when we read of G’d (introducing) revealing Himself to Moses (Exodus 3,6) saying אנכי אלו-הי אביך אלו-הי אברהם, אלו-הי יצחק, ואלו-הי יעקב, ויסתר משה פניו כי ירא מהביט אל-האלו-הים. ”I am the G’d of your father, the G’d of Avraham, the G’d of Yitzchak, and the G’d of Yaakov; Moses averted his face as he was afraid to look at Elohim.” [The common denominator in the last two verses quoting G’d is the word אנכי coupled with Elohim. Ed.] According to Hoseah 12,5 בית אל is an attribute by means of which G’d addresses human beings. The verse in Hoseah, clearly a reference to Yaakov, reads as follows: וישר אל מלאך ויכל, בכה ויתחנן לו, בית אל ימצאנו ושם ידבר עמנו “He wrestled with an angel and prevailed; he (the angel) cried and pleaded with him. At Bet-El He would meet him, and there He would speak with us.” [The next verse continues (not quoted by our author) “But the Lord, the Lord of Hosts must be invoked as “the Lord.” Ed.]. When G’d said to Moses (Exodus 33,19) אני אעביר כל טובי על פניך, “I shall let all My goodness pass before you,” He referred to His capacity as the attribute כבוד. In Exodus 34,6 this is described as “Hashem passed before him.” I shall explain the apparent anomaly in this verse when we get to it. The verse in Ki Tissa refers to the attribute which is meant in verse 23 of the same chapter where the Torah speaks of the pilgrims presenting themselves את פני האדון י-ה-ו-ה- אלו-הי ישראל.

You have to understand the meaning of the words את פני האדון coupled with the expression י-ה-ו-ה -אלו-הי ישראל. What is meant is that the Hashem aspect is concealed within the manifestation of the attribute פני אדון. The word את פני used in connection with the pilgrimages in Ki Tissa is the mystical dimension of על פני in our verse, and it is the attribute to which Moses appealed in Exodus 32,11 as soon as G’d told him about the Israelites having made themselves a molten calf to worship. Moses’ prayer commenced with the words ויחל משה את פני י-ה-ו-ה אלו-היו. Moses pleaded with the attribute of Justice. It is also possible, following the approach of Nachmanides on that verse, that the word ויחל is derived from תחלה, “beginning.” In that event the meaning of the Torah’s description of Moses’ prayer is that he drew strength throughout from the beginning of his prayer until its successful conclusion known as פנים. [I suppose the word פנים in that context means that G’d was once again prepared to turn His face, i.e. goodwill, to the people at the conclusion of Moses’ intercession. Ed.] This may have been why Moses used the words למה י-ה-ו-ה i.e. the attribute Hashem in the course of his prayer as if to ask G’d: “why do You Hashem allow the attribute of Justice to exercise authority over Your people?” The attribute which Moses addressed at that time was the one we described as כבוד. We find confirmation of this in Deut. 9,26 where Moses recalls the events of that period saying: ואתפלל אל י-ה-ו-ה ואומר אד-ני אלו-הים אל תשחת עמך ונחלתך אשר פדית בגדלך אשר הוצאת ממצרים ביד חזקה. “I prayed to Hashem and said: “My Lord Hashem/Elohim do not destroy Your people and Your heritage that You redeemed in Your greatness, that You took out of Egypt with a strong hand.” You will observe that Moses addressed the name with the letters אד followed by the name with the letters יה. [The author refers to the name printed in most editions as yud heh vav heh but read as Elohim, i.e. a combination of part of adonay and the tetragrammaton. Ed.] Seeing Moses had addressed the attribute of Justice, he had pleaded by saying: “do not destroy Your people, etc.” If we were to sum up the meaning of the verse we would say: “Lord (אדון), You within whom is the attribute of Mercy, do not destroy Your people.” We find another occasion in the desert when Moses employed the term adonay in the same sense in Deut. 3,24 where he begins his prayer to be allowed to cross the Jordan prior to his death. At that time Moses reminds G’d that He had revealed to him at the burning bush that within the attribute of Justice there is concealed the attribute of Mercy. Yet another instance when Moses used this address was when he asked G’d to continue to be present amongst the people in Exodus 34,9. A fourth time Moses employs that attribute is in Numbers 14,17 after the debacle with the spies. In our daily blessing of the attribute כבוד when we recite ברוך כבוד ה' ממקומו, “blessed be the glory of Hashem from His place” [an inadequate though customary translation, Ed.], the meaning of the word ממקומו is: ”from the place from which the attribute כבוד receives its input,” i.e. from the attribute גבורה. The ultimate source of blessing is the אין סוף, the essence of the Lord. In our daily kedushah prayer we first proclaim the Holiness of the Lord, followed by ברוך, blessing Him. The reason we make a distinction between קדושה and ברכה, Holiness and blessing, is that the type of sanctity on terrestrial earth and the type of Holiness in the celestial spheres is not to be compared although we call both by the name קדושה. We do this although the blessing is derived from the Holiness in the celestial regions. The two domains must remain separate from one another. Midrash Tehillim 19 on the words יום ליום asks the rhetorical question: “whence did Moses know while he was on Mount Sinai (in heaven) when it was day and when it was night?” Answer: at the time when the angels were engaged in praising the Lord using the word קדוש, Moses knew that it was daylight on earth. When the angels used the word ברוך in their praise of the Lord Moses knew that it must be night on earth. When we read in Hoseah 3,5 ובקשו את ה' אלו-היהם ואת דויד מלכם, “and they will seek the Lord their G’d and David their king,” the prophet expresses the difference between Holiness in the celestial spheres and holiness on earth. This is a reference to the respective attributes of תפארת and כבוד. The third part of the daily קדושה prayer when we recite the words ימלוך ה' לעולם אלו-היך ציון, “may the Lord reign forever, your G’d Zion,” re-establishes the joint partnership between the attributes of כבוד and תפארת, the words ימלוך ה' לעולם being a reference to the attribute תפארת, whereas the words אלוה-יך ציון are a reference to the attribute כבוד.

We find a similar concept expressed in writings explaining aggadic material. We are told there that when the Shechinah will once again take up residence in the Holy of Holies, the inner Sanctum of the third Temple, people will acknowledge this event by reciting ברוך כבוד י-ה-ו-ה ממקומו. In the Sefer Habahir (item 131) this is explained in the following way: “what precisely is this כבוד ה'? We may understand all this in the form of a parable. A king had a beautiful lady in his chamber, a lady that all his soldiers amused themselves with. The king and that lady’s children would pay daily visits to the palace blessing their father the king profusely and asking: “where is our mother?” The king replied: ‘you cannot see her just now.” The children then said: “may she be blessed wherever she is.” Thus far the Sefer Habahir. This “כבוד” is known generally as שכינה, and you know already that it is perceived as extending to all “extremities, endings,” i.e. all six directions [in terms of our terrestrial world, i.e. the six directions in which we shake the Lulav, Ed.] This emanation כבוד itself ranks seventh [from the bottom up in the ten emanations, Ed.] so that it “presides,” i.e. provides spiritual input for the six “lower” emanations. Basically, this is what occurred at Mount Sinai when the Israelites heard the Ten Commandments as if emanating out of the fire. This is also what the sages (Shemot Rabbah 28,4) had in mind when they said “the Torah was given with seven קולות, “voices.” The word קול or קולות occurs seven times in our paragraph. [The word קול or קולות occurs six times, the seventh time being the words וידבר אלו-הים “G’d spoke,” something obviously involving קול, “voice.” — compare 19,15, 19,16, 19,19,(twice) 20,16. (twice)]. When you look at the second version of the Ten Commandments in Deuteronomy 5,19 you will again find that the word קול or קולות occurs seven times. I will refer to this in detail when we discuss those verses. On this occasion Moses attained an understanding of seven different קולות, which in kabbalistic terms are called seven emanations, and to which our sages referred as שבעה קולות, “seven voices,” whereas in the language of our prophets these are called שבעה עינים, “seven facets.” This is the mystical dimension of Zecharyah 3,9 על אבן אחת שבעה עינים. The word עינים is related in meaning to גוונים, “varieties.” Only Moses understood the name and the full meaning of it. The people at large only heard the voice of G’d as a single קול. This is what Moses referred to when he wrote Deut 5,19: את הדברים האלה דבר ה' אל כל קהלכם ...קול גדול ולא יסף, “these words the Lord spoke to your entire congregation.. .a great voice without addition,” The verse makes it plain that the congregation only heard a single voice, nothing additional. This was because their limited powers of perception did not allow them to distinguish nuances within that voice. You also find that David mentions seven קולות Psalms 29,3 (1); 29,4(2+3); 29,5 (4); 29,6 (5); 29,7 (6); 29,8 (7). The sequence there is understood in a descending order, i.e. from חסד-גבורה-תפארת-נצה-הוד-יסוד-מלכות. After Moses had attained understanding of these seven emanations, he turned to G’d asking to be granted understanding of the emanations which were still higher, i.e. the emanations בינה-חכמה-כתר in ascending order. This is the meaning of Exodus 33,18 הראני נא את כבודך, “please show me Your כבוד. I will deal with this in detail when we discuss that verse.

In the meantime you must appreciate that the Shechinah is the seventh emanation and it exudes its influence on “seventy,” i.e. the seventy nations. As soon as the דבור left the mouth of the Shechinah it split into seven nuances, קולות, and subsequently into seventy languages parallel to the seventy nations on earth and their respective languages. As a result every single nation participated to some degree in the revelation at Mount Sinai, hearing sort of an echo of that original voice (Shabbat 88).

This is also mentioned in Midrash Tehillim on Psalm 68,6 (on verse 11 in that Psalm) on the words א-ד-נ-י יתן אומר המבשרות צבא רב. “The Lord gives a command; the women who bring the news are a great host.” When G’d (attribute גבורה) spoke His words, the sound was split into seven voices which in turned were subdivided into seventy voices, i.e. the seventy languages of the seventy nations to enable all of them to hear part of G’d’s voice. The process may be compared to a person who strikes an anvil and sparks fly in all directions. This is the meaning of the words המבשרות צבא רב. Having understood this it is possible to understand the mystical dimensions of שבועה and נדר, commonly translated as “oath” and “vow” respectively. The word שבועה is derived from the word שבע, “seven,” whereas the word נדר is related to the three emanations “above” the seven represented by the קולות ה' as we described previously. A נדר ranks higher in Jewish law than an oath, שבועה. Seeing that the Torah (in its aspect as a Book of laws) does not concern itself with matters beyond the seven lower emanations and the Torah itself is a product of those seven emanations, it makes sense that in Jewish law an oath would never be overriding one of the already existing Torah commandments, i.e. someone who swore an oath not to observe one or several of the Torah’s commandments would not thereby have obligated himself to keep his oath. Any such oath is as if the person who uttered it had not said anything. Regarding a נדר the matter is quite different, seeing that basically the concept ofנדר emanates from a domain higher than the lower seven emanations. In principle, a נדר, a vow of a certain type, is able to override a מצוה. The very wording which our sages have assigned to the respective formulations of vows and oaths reflect their legal status in Jewish law. By definition, a נדר is unlimited, i.e. person says “I accept for myself a certain duty,“ such as when David said in Psalms 56,13 עלי אלו-הים נדרך אשלם “it is up to me to pay my vows to You G’d.” There was no time-limit to that obligation, nor was there any kind of contingency which might have rendered the vow as invalid. The word נדר is related to דירה dwelling, as I will explain in greater detail on Numbers 30,3. David understands that the obligation to fulfill his vow is not contingent on pre-existing contrary obligations which would invalidate it. The same is the case in Numbers 30,7 where the Torah describes the absolute duty of a woman, who has not had a husband or the authority of a father who could have objected to her vow at the time she made it, to make good on her vow. When we will discuss the third of the Ten Commandments, I will elaborate on the seriousness of the failure to keep an oath and how it is related to the seven emanations, while in Numbers 30,3 I will discuss the difference between that prohibition and the sin of not honoring a vow one has made. Seeing that I have explained some basic principles of the Torah here I will not need to elaborate on these principles again.

אנכי ה' אלו-היך, “I am the Lord your G’d,” This is a commandment to be carried out by the heart (compare Chovot Halevavot beginning of the first chapter); it therefore is not counted except as an obligation of the heart to believe with complete and absolute faith that there is a Creator who preceded any phenomena in the universe that we are either aware of or will ever become aware of. We must similarly believe that He is alone, has no partners. (Deut. 4,35). The word אנכי always refers to a presence and the letter א at the beginning of the word alludes both to His existence and to His preceding all. The other letters (נכי) are all multiples of ten which itself is a dimension of the number 1, i.e the א. The entire word conveys “oneness, unity.” [the letter י is to multiples of the number 10 what the letter א is to multiples of the number 1 The number 1 spelled as a word, אחד, equals 81 when squared (1x1 plus 8x8 plus 4x4). This is the numerical value of the letters in the word אנכי. Furthermore, the word אנכי alludes to all the letters in the Hebrew alphabet. The א represents the three letters known as אמות (א,מ,ש); the נ represents the 12 letters known as פשוטות (ה,ו,ז,ח,ט,י,ל,נ,ס,ע,צ,ק); the letter כ represents the seven letters known as כפולות. (ב,ג,ד,כ,פ,ר,ת). This means all 22 letters are accounted for. The last letter is the י which is one of the so-called נעלמות (i.e. the letters א-ה-ו-י, letters not usually heard when a word containing them is uttered).

An additional comment on the word אנכי found in Shabbat 105 is that the word אנכי is also an acrostic אנא נפשי כתיבת יהבית, “I Myself have written and given” (Aramaic).

It is appropriate to explain why such an acrostic is necessary seeing that immediately after the word אנכי G’d spells out the fact that He gave the Torah by referring to Himself as י-ה-ו-ה אלוה-יך. You are familiar with the fact that Onkelos translates the word אנכי when applied to G’d as מימרי, except in this instance where he does not translate it but renders it in the original Hebrew. By not translating the words and simply copying them, Onkelos preserves the fact that G’d refers to the attribute of Mercy and the attribute of Justice as having been equally involved in uttering the Ten Commandments and makes plain that the commandment which demands from us complete faith in G’d’s Oneness and being unprecedented extends to both of these attributes of His. By reminding us of the acrostic concealed in these four letters, the sages reminded us of the fact that the entire Torah was given by the attribute Hashem. Our sages (Mechilta Bachodesh section 6) have called this commandment “acceptance of the Kingdom of heaven.” Both the attribute of Justice and the attribute of Mercy are qualities which a king of flesh and blood also has to display when judging his nation. Solomon already refers to this when he says (Proverbs 29,4) “a king sustains the land by justice.” The same Solomon writes in Proverbs 20,28: “mercy and truth preserve the king; he upholds his throne by loving kindness.” אשר הוצאתיך מארץ מצרים, “who has taken you out of the land of Egypt.” He did this in order to demonstrate the miracles to establish His claim to Kingship and Divinity in your eyes. Seeing that it was all-important to G’d to remind the people of their visual experience of what He had done, He decided not to introduce Himself as the G’d Who had created heaven and earth. The people had not witnessed that, nor for that matter had anyone else. In fact, G’d used the visual experience the people had of Him to support His claim that He had created the heaven and earth. Moreover, the Exodus of Egypt was a manifestation of G’d equal to creation of heaven and earth. The miracles which occurred subsequent to the Exodus were many and variegated; the various miracles which contradicted the laws of nature were proof that only Someone Who had established those “laws of nature” could have also have been the One Who created heaven and earth. This is why G’d chose the word הוצאתיך to describe the Exodus. The word also means “to bring forth,” and has been used repeatedly in that sense in the first chapter of Genesis. It signifies that what occurred at the Exodus was a חדוש העולם, “a rebirth of the world as it had been known.” Instead of being slaves to an earthly power, i.e. Pharaoh, the Israelites would now serve an entirely different Master, the Creator, Who had adopted them as His special people. When referring to the bondage in Egypt as a “house of slaves,” G’d may even have alluded to the fact that the masters,” i.e. the Egyptians, had been shown to be only slaves themselves, subject to a higher authority, G’d. After all, the Egyptians were descended from Cham, youngest son of Noach, whose descendants had been cursed by their father Noach to be slaves. (Compare the Egyptians’ genealogy in Genesis 10,7). Having become the slaves of slaves was in itself unnatural. It is also possible that the word עבדים in the expression בית עבדים in our verse is a reference to an object or objects. We would have to translate it as “the house of eternal slavery.” It is also possible to explain the words מבית עבדים as “from the house of horoscopes to which all Egyptians were mentally enslaved.” The reason the Torah describes the horoscopes as “slaves,” is that whereas they are like kings to those who believe in them and feel utterly dependent on their power, they are in reality servants to all the celestial forces above them. There is a hint here that actually the Israelites had been condemned to remain in Egypt for longer (according to horoscopic calculations) had not the Lord negated the power of the horoscopes and taken the Israelites out as a miracle. This is the meaning of Deut. 4,20: “He took you out from the iron crucible” in which the Israelites had been meant to dissolve like iron being melted down. Our verse then describes that the Exodus proceeded in two stages, first G’d took the people out of the iron crucible, then out of the land of Egypt.

לא יהיה לך אלוהים אחרים על פני, “You are not to have any other deities in My presence.” We are not to accept any of G’d’s agents, forces, known as Elohim as deities for ourselves, nor any of the horoscopes as guiding our fates. The word אחרים “others,” [which might suggest that there are such. Ed.] is explained in Sifri Eikev section 43 as justified by the fact that they are “different, false” to those who serve them. Another explanation of the meaning of the word אחרים: the deities whom people serve differ from day to day or from year to year. One day they worship gold, another day they worship silver, a third day they worship wood. The principal reason they are called אחרים is that they derive whatever power they are presumed to possess from אחרים, from “other” sources, they have absolutely no power of their own. This is spelled out in Exodus 34,14, לא תשתחוה לאל אחר, “do not worship a deity which derives its power from another (alien) source!” You are to bow down, i.e. worship only the true source of power, the G’d of Israel who does not derive His power from an external source. This is also the way our sages (Shir Hashirim Rabbah 1,45) interpret Isaiah 44,6 ומבלעדי אין אלו-הים, “there is no god that exists independently of Me.”

על פני, ‘in My presence.” According to the plain meaning of the text this means “in addition to My essence.” It is similar in meaning to Samuel II 17,11 ופניך הולכים בקרב “and you yourself are marching into battle.” An alternate meaning of the words על פני may be a reference to the direction, the place to which G’d turns. Seeing that G’d turns to every direction, is all-present, this means that we must not turn to deities in any direction.

A Kabbalistic approach: the mystical dimension of the words על פני is על הפנים שלי, “to My face,” similar to the meaning of Deut. 5,4 פנים בפנים דבר ה' עמכם, ”face to face did Hashem speak with you;” the mystical dimension of the word אחרים is to be found in the fact that G’d did not say לא יהיה לך אל אחר על פני, but He said אחרים in the plural. it is similar to Lavan who had said to Yaakov (Genesis 31,50) אם תקח נשים על בנותי “you must not marry other women in addition to my daughters.” I have already explained (See commentary on verse 1 והוא כמו אם תקח נשים וכו') why Lavan could not have used the word נשים in the singular, i.e. אשה. Nachmanides explains that idolatry may manifest itself in three different ways. 1) Some people worship the angels; 2) some people worship the celestial constellations in the sky, horoscopes and astrology; 3) Some people worship demons. During the early generations of mankind any deviation from pure monotheism occurred by the people addressing the angels as G’d’s ministers, believing that since G’d had given authority to these angels to supervise and intervene in the fates of different nations they deserved to be “worshipped,” albeit as subordinate beings. When Daniel 10,20 speaks of the שר יון or the שר מלכות פרס, he refers to the angels G’d appointed to supervise those kingdoms and their respective peoples. At that time each tribe or nation worshipped only a single such angel, i.e. the one appointed to supervise its fate. The reason that the Torah (Deut. 10,17) describes Hashem as הוא אלו-הי האלו-הים is to make clear that Hashem was understood to be the supreme power above these angels who had jurisdiction over one nation each. This is also what Yitro referred to when he said he had learned that כי גדול ה' מכל האלוהים, that “Hashem was greater than all the divine powers known as Elohim.” The angels are the ones described as Elohim. This is also what David had in mind in Psalm 97,7 where he says השתחוו לו כל אלהים, “all divine beings (angels) bow down to Him.” This is what our sages said (Menachot 110) that Yitro referred to G’d as the “G’d of gods.” (Exodus 18,11). After the period when people still worshipped the Supreme G’d but only in His capacity as a remote “boss” of the respective angels to whom He had entrusted their fate, they began to worship visible deities, horoscopes, all kinds of celestial constellations consisting of stars, and other planets. They realized that these forces exercised great influence on what goes on earth. This is the period described as people prostrating themselves before the sun, the moon and many other stars and constellations visible in the sky (Jeremiah 8,2). These people believed that by serving these forces they would increase their relative power and that this in turn would be of benefit to them. The people initiating this were very learned people who had studied what they perceived as the method of these stars exercising their influence on earth. Still later, people began to worship demons. This is what is meant in Deut. 32,17 אלוהים לא ידעום, “gods they had never known of.” The Torah ridicules the people who sacrifice to demons, phenomena which had never been endowed with divine powers at all, referring to them as “newcomers, recently arrived, whom your ancestors did not dread.” These forces were new to the Israelites; they had heard of them only during their exile in Egypt. Even the Canaanites had not known of their existence. Because of all these various forms of phenomena competing with G’d, the Torah warns not to place any store in any of them. The word אלהים אחרים in our verse refers to the first group, i.e. the angels.

לא תעשה לך פסל וכל תמונה, “do not make for yourself a molten image or any likeness, etc.” After G’d had warned against believing (sin in thought) in any force competing with G’d as the only Divine Force, the Torah now adds the prohibition of constructing (sinning in deed) such a substitute for Him. A person might have thought in all innocence that painting or making three-dimensional replicas of phenomena which G’d had created would be acceptable to G’d as a reminder, for instance, of miracles G’d had performed for His people. These phenomena had been used by G’d as instruments to help the Jewish people, after all. A major reason why it seems reasonable for people to make such images as reminders of the miracles G’d had performed are certain ceremonial laws such as the offering and eating of the Passover lamb, the bitter herbs, the unleavened bread, all intended to ensure that the memory of that event would not be forgotten. The commandment to make and dwell in huts on Tabernacles specifically instructs us to thereby remember the fact that the Israelites dwelled in huts during their wandering in the desert. Seeing that a Jew might want to make for himself a visible memento to remind him of his faith, the Torah had to legislate that he must not do so as once he would do so he would, in due course, substitute the symbol for the real thing and begin to worship the symbol. Such idolatry would commence with relatively innocent obeisance, such as bowing down to the symbol; ultimately it would result in properly serving such symbols. This is why the psalmist (Psalms 1,1) says: “happy the man who did not walk (following) the counsel of the wicked, or did not stand still when encountering the path of the sinners, or sit in the company of the insolent.” On this verse our sages (Avodah Zarah 18) ask: “seeing he did not follow (walk with) the wicked, how would he stand? Seeing that he did not stand, how could he sit?” What David meant to warn us of is that once one walks with the sinners, one will also stand with them and eventually one will sit with the scoffers, i.e. keep regular company with them. In order to avoid this from happening one must not even go for a brief walk with them. Once a person becomes a scoffer he will qualify for what Solomon termed: “if you scoff you bear it alone” (Proverbs 9,12). People who have sunk to that level will not be welcomed by the Shechinah. In our verse the Torah also staggers the description of the danger of idolatry; first you must avoid putting faith in any phenomena besides G’d; next you must not construct something which could become an idol; third, you must watch out that you will not prostrate yourself to an idol. The Torah commences with the relatively mild sin describing how it will lead to the most serious kind of sin. This leads us to the apparent contradiction of the construction of the commandment in Exodus 25,18 to construct two golden cherubs, which sounds as if “the same mouth which prohibited making molten images permits them” (Ketuvot 22) in a different context. [G’d is the only One who knows when to allow or even order the making of symbols. Seeing He allows in one context He must have His reasons for prohibiting it in other contexts. Ed.]

The expression וכל תמונה, means: “any kind of likeness.” [not “every likeness.”] It is similar to verse 10 in our chapter לא תעשה כל מלאכה, “do not perform any kind of work.” Alternatively, the word כל in the phrase לא תעשה לך פסל וכל תמונה, could refer to the attribute כל, which would represent one of the likenesses of what is found in the celestial regions., i.e. אשר בשמים ממעל. The “כל” referred to is the likeness of some celestial phenomenon. The same applies in Deut. 4,23 where the Torah warns against ועשיתם לכם פסל תמונת כל, “from making for yourselves a molten image, a likeness of כל, concerning which the Lord your G’d has commanded you.” Here too the word כל may be understood as a reference to something specific rather than as a reference to “all” or “any.” The words אשר בשמים ממעל, “of what is in the heavens above,” refer to images of angels or other celestial beings the likeness of which we are not to reproduce. Examples would be such angels as: Ophanim, Seraphim or Chayot Hakodesh, categories of angels which we speak about in our prayers. Even though we have not seen these angels we must not portray their likeness as it corresponds to our imagination. The words ואשר בארץ מתחת, “or those that are on earth below,” refer to three-dimensional reproductions of either human beings or animals or birds which populate the earth. The words ואשר במים מתחת לארץ, “or which are in the water below the earth,” refer to all manner of fish. We must not make accurate three-dimensional reproductions of these either. Neither must one construct likenesses of the demons inhabiting the domain under the surface of the earth (Mechilta Bachodesh section 6). This verse teaches also that earth is positioned above water. This is the reason for the wording: “which is in the water beneath the earth.” We have a verse in Psalms 136,6 לרוקע הארץ על המים, “who spreads the earth above the waters” which makes this point even more directly. It is commonly assumed that the demons consist of three varieties (Chagigah 16). Some reside in the atmosphere and cause people to dream at night. Some reside within our bodies and tempt men into sinful conduct. Some reside within the bowels of the earth. If G’d had allowed these demons to surface they would be powerful enough to devastate the terrestrial universe. Our sages (Mechilta Bachodesh section 6) added that the words אשר בשמים include the sun, the moon, and the stars, as well as constellations of stars, signs of the zodiac. The word ממעל includes the angels, whereas the words ואשר בארץ include man, beast and birds. The word מתחת, includes insects, reptiles and the like. The words ואשר במים include the fish in the sea and rivers; the words מתחת לארץ include the demons. Pessikta Zutrata on our verse confirms this interpretation.

לא תשתחוה להם ולא תעבדם, “do not prostrate yourselves before them nor perform any act of obeisance.” Any form of service is included, even a form of service which does not deny the sovereignty of Hashem. This verse stipulates that any form of service, adulation, recognition of a Divine Power, is to be reserved exclusively for Hashem. The author refers to a Midrash (similar to our version of the Zohar) in which even a demeaning kind of service vis-a-vis an idol is included in the prohibition the Torah expresses here. The classic example cited in the Talmud is service to an idol known as Pe-or which consists of people excreting in front of such an image. Similarly, pelting stones at Markulin, another ancient deity is equally forbidden, though within the parameter of our culture pelting stones is an insult rather than an act of worship. Even if the form of service performed is not at all the kind prescribed for honouring that particular deity, it is still absolutely forbidden. The words: “do not bow down to them or perform obeisances” does not only refer to voluntary performance of any form of worship but it includes involuntary worship even under threat of death. This is the reason that Chananyah, Mishael, and Azaryah refused to transgress this commandment and chose (what they thought was) death instead. Not only does the principle of יהרג ואל יעבור, “that one must rather face death than violate this commandment,” apply to deliberate, intentional violation of this commandment, but it applies even to incidental, unintended violation, such as bending to pick up coins one had dropped in front of an idol. It is absolutely forbidden to give others the impression as if one bent down to the idol even if in fact one merely wishes to scoop up one’s coins (compare Avodah Zarah 12). כי אנכי ה' אלוה-יך, “for I am Hashem your G’d.” I alone; exclusively. it is not appropriate for you to exchange Me for someone else. If you do, אנכי אל, “I have power,” i.e. I am able to punish you. Moreover, I am קנא, jealous, I am jealous of preserving My reputation so that I will carry out retribution sometimes as long delayed as the fourth generation. In this instance the word פוקד does not mean that G’d remembers, considers benevolently as is the meaning of this word in the list of G’d’s thirteen attributes in Exodus 34,6-7. To make certain we do not misunderstand, the Torah here adds the word לשונאי, “to those who hate Me.”

Remember that throughout the Torah this attribute of jealousy as one of G’d’s attributes occurs only in connection with idolatry. The reason is that once the Jewish people had accepted the Torah at Mount Sinai they became an irrevocable part of G’d’s “heritage.” They had given up the freedom to opt out. If for some reason they, or an individual, decide to abandon G’d and His commandments He is entitled to relate to such conduct like a husband who is jealous of the infidelity of his wife. You will not find a single statement by our prophets concerning other nations and their relations with their deities being described in terms of such deities being jealous of their worshippers. The Torah sums up the difference between us and other nations in Deut. 4,19-20: “and you be drawn astray and bow down to them and worship them, which Hashem your G’d has apportioned to all the peoples under the entire heaven! But Hashem has taken you and removed you from the iron crucible, from Egypt, to be a nation of heritage for Him, as this very day.”

ועושה חסד לאלפים לאוהבי, “and who performs deeds of loving kindness for thousands of generations for those who love Me.” Our sages in Sotah 31 explain the word לאוהבי as meaning: “for those who perform My commandments from a sense of love (for Me), whereas for those who perform G’d’s commandments only out of a sense of fear, i.e. לשומרי מצותיו, He does perform such acts of loving kindness for only one thousand generations. They also say (Sotah 31) that seeing the word לאוהבי, “to those who love Me,” has been written next to the word אלפים, “thousands, or at least two thousand, it is appropriate that it applies to people who perform the commandments out of a sense of love for G’d. On the other hand, the word לאלף דור, “for one thousand generations” (Deut. 7,9), applies to the people who though they perform the commandments do so only because they are afraid of being punished Even though performance of the commandments by such people is not at its optimum level G’d rewards them with disproportionately high reward. In Pessachim 50 our sages interpret the difference between the words in Psalms 57,11 “for Your kindness is as high as heaven,” and Psalm 108,5 where G’d’s kindness is described as “extending even beyond heaven,” by applying the former to people who observe the commandments without the proper intent, and the latter statement as reflecting the reward due to people who perform the commandments with the appropriate intent, i.e. not for what they stand to gain by it but by wanting to fulfill G’d’s purpose. All of this has been explained by Rav who said on that folio that the value of performing the commandments without the proper motivation lies in the fact that eventually one will perform them with the proper motivation. How do we reconcile this statement by Rav with that of Berachot 17 that someone peforming the laws of the Torah for the wrong reasons would better not have been created at all? That latter statement is meant for people who teach Torah to show off their knowledge but who have no fear of the Lord. [It is difficult to know which of many textural emendations on this line is correct. I have assumed that the author agrees with Tosafot Pesachim 50 on the correct interpretation of the statement in Berachot. Ed.]

לא תשא את שם ה' אלו-היך לשוא, “do not take the name of the Lord your G’d in vain.” Why is this injunction phrased as if spoken by some outsider? Why does G’d not say: “do not take My name in vain?” Up until this point G’d had spoken in the first person!

Nachmanides uses this switch to the third person to prove his point that the people heard only the first two commandments directly from the mouth of G‘d, hence they heard the “I.” From this point on all they heard was what Moses told them in the name of G’d. The Israelites had to hear the first two commandments from G’d Himself in order to rise to the level of prophecy concerning their belief in G’d and concerning the unthinkability of becoming guilty of idolatry. This is also why G’d employed His Holy Name without such a preface as שם ה', whereas from now on we find the word שם which itself is like erecting a barrier between G’d’s essence and His intermediary to the people. The reason the commandment of not taking the name of G’d in vain follows immediately after the prohibition of idolatry is to teach that just as it is imperative to accord honour, etc., to G’d exclusively and not to negate this by treating any other phenomenon as a lesser divinity, so it is imperative to relate with equal reverence to “the name of the Lord, not only to His essence. Anyone failing to do so is guilty of desecrating G’d’s name. The essence of this commandment is not to swear an unnecessary oath, similar to Leviticus 19,12: “do not swear a false oath in My name and desecrate the name of your G’d thereby.” In this verse the Torah goes further by prohibiting an oath which is pointless, such as someone declaring on oath that the sun rose this morning. Such a declaration does not add to our knowledge and constitutes the use of G’d’s name in a frivolous manner. An oath which is meant to pervert the truth, such as that a pillar of marble is in reality a pillar of gold, also comes under the heading of שבועת שוא, a vain oath. The reason the Torah uses the expression לא תשא instead of לא תשבע, “do not swear an oath,” is because this prohibition includes even mentioning G’d’s name unnecessarily without the context of an oath. It is as if the Torah had said: “do not bring this name over your lips.” The word לשוא equals לחינם, “without valid reason.” We have a different nuance of this word תשא in Exodus 23,1: לא תשא שמע שוא, “do not carry false reports.” The reason that conveying something by one’s lips or mouth is referred to as תשא, “you raise,” is that one has to “raise” one’s voice in order to convey the utterance. We have another example of this usage of the word תשא in Psalms 16,4: ובל אשא את שמותם על-שפתי, “their names will not pass my lips.” The entire legislation has been described by our sages (Temurah 3) as מוציא שם שמים לבטלה, “uttering the name of the Lord in vain.” The Talmud Nedarim 10 asks: “whence do we know that if someone who is about to declare a certain animal as a sacrificial animal, he must not say לה' עולה or לה' חטאת, “for G’d a burnt-offering,” or “for G’d a sin-offering,” but must say instead עולה לה' or חטאת לה', “a burnt-offering for G’d,” or “a sin-offering for G’d?” Answer: because he may not be able to complete the sentence and would have said only the word: “for G’d,” which would be pointless. If a person who is about to utter G’d’s name when he has to must be so careful not to use it in a way that might result in it going to waste, how much more so must we be careful not to utter the name of G’d to deny the truth or make some other frivolous declaration by involving G’d’s name! Thus far Nachmanides. The reason that it is forbidden to swear falsely is that by doing so one negates a basic truth as well as one’s belief in G’d; [If one ignores warnings such as “G’d will not absolve someone who takes His name in vain,” one obviously does not believe that one will be punished severely. Ed.] It is immaterial for the severity of the sin whether one held some object in one’s hand at the time one uttered the oath or if not. In either event such an oath makes the person swearing it guilty of heresy, denying the Torah and the Lord who gave it. Rabbi Avraham Ibn Ezra in his commentary on our verse similarly condemns people guilty of this offense and describes them as perverting the purpose of every oath. The purpose behind swearing an oath is to assure the person to whom it is sworn that “just as G’d is true, so my words are true.” If that person fails to honour his oath he is as good as accusing G’d of lying. It is the custom in Egypt (in the time of Ibn Ezra) that if one swore by the life of the king and it was found that one had perjured oneself, the person guilty of this was executed. Even if that person was willing to atone by paying his own weight in gold his life would not be spared as he had shown his contempt for the king in public by using his name in vain. If this is the penalty administered to someone who showed contempt for a mortal ruler, how much more severe is the same sin when committed against Eternal G’d?

We have observed an example of the punishment which accrued to the Jewish people who had sworn an oath in public in the matter of פלגש בגבעה, (Judges 20,9) not to go home until they had punished the men of Givah for their vicious rape. This oath was a public declaration in the presence of Pinchas the High Priest (20,28). We find there that the people of Yavesh Gilead who had not participated in the punitive expedition against the people of Benjamin were killed, men, women and children because they had dishonoured their publicly given oath (Judges 21,10).This was a harsher punishment than is applied to people who desecrate the Sabbath. Another instance where the severity of not complying with a public oath is demonstrated was the edict of King Saul that no one was to taste any food until after the battle against the Philistines (Samuel I 14,24). Yonatan, King Saul’s eldest son, who had been unaware of his father’s decree and the public oath accepting it, had tasted a little honey in all innocence. In spite of Yonatan’s not having heard the prohibition the King was going to execute him had not the people intervened. (verses 44-45). At any rate, we learn from there that when someone deliberately violates his oath, (or an oath that he had agreed to though not initiated, he is subject to the death penalty. I can show you that the Torah has compared the severity of violating an oath to the sin of adultery The Torah writes here in connection with swearing a false or unnecessary oath that G’d will never totally forgive a person guilty of this. You will also find the expression לא ינקה in Proverbs 6,29 where Solomon applies it to someone who indulges in sexual intercourse with someone else’s wife. We find that G’d punished the entire nation by a famine because King Saul had failed to honor an oath sworn to the Gibeonites by the leaders of the Jewish people under the rule of Joshua. G’d told David in Samuel II 21,1 that the famine was the punishment for Saul having killed some Gibeonites in contravention of an holy oath sworn to them at the time of Joshua. Only after this gross injustice had been wiped out by David handing over seven descendants of Saul did G’d again turn to His people with goodwill. (Samuel II 21,14). Another tragedy involving non-compliance with an oath was the killing of Shimi ben Geyrah who had been sworn by Solomon on pain of death not to leave Jerusalem where he had been under house arrest since the death of David. Kings I 2,42 makes it clear that Solomon executed him for violating this oath. It is noteworthy that in all the Ten Commandments we find a specific reward promised for compliance only in connection with the commandment to honour father and mother, whereas a specific punishment is reserved for violation of the commandment not to worship idols and not to swear an unnecessary oath. Many people think that the sin of murder and adultery are far worse than the sin of swearing a needless oath and they wonder why the Torah has reserved its condemnation for the sin of swearing an unnecessary oath rather than for committing murder or adultery. The answer is simple. Murder and adultery are the kinds of sins which cannot be committed all the time. One needs a special opportunity in order not to be caught; in the case of adultery one also needs a willing partner. Not only that; having murdered one person whom one hates is unlikely to lead to the same person again murdering other people against whom he harbors no ill will. Similarly, it is unlikely that someone wants to commit adultery again and again with different women as his libido may not have been aroused by them. Committing the sin of swearing unnecessary oaths, however, does not satisfy one’s evil urge and is not subject to special opportunities but is likely to become a way of life with a person who has indulged in that sin without being caught. The very fact that he who commits this sin generally does not even get a feeling of special satisfaction from doing it makes it such a dangerous sin, one which is liable to become a norm rather than the exception. This is why the Torah reserved the warning that G’d will never completely forgive someone who knowingly commits this sin. If Israel were guilty of no other sin than indulging in such oaths this would be enough to add years to our collective exile. Thus far the words of Ibn Ezra on this subject.

We find that the prophet Isaiah admonishes Israel concerning this sin in chapter 48,1-2 where he writes as follows: “Listen to this O House of Yaakov, who bear the name of Israel and have come forth from the waters of Yehudah, who swear by the name of the Lord and invoke the G’d of Israel- though not in truth and sincerity- for you are called after the Holy City and you do lean on the G’d of Israel whose name is the Lord of Hosts.” What Isaiah was trying to explain to the people was that they had no reason to be surprised that the pagans did not honour their oaths seeing that they had not been given the Torah. The Jewish people failed to honour their oaths in spite of having been given the Torah and being perfectly aware of how G’d hated the swearing of false oaths. Isaiah referred to the Jewish people as the House of Yaakov to remind them of the introductory words of the Decalogue where Moses was told to address the “House of Yaakov” (Exodus 19,3). It was the very presence at the revelation and their acceptance of the Torah that entitled the Jewish people to bear the name Children of “Israel” and “Yeshurun,” both distinctions conferred on people who are loyal to G’d and His ethical teachings. They had observed the Majesty of G’d by a visual demonstration, i.e. His שררה, as a memento of this they were accorded the name Yeshurun. (compare Deut. 32,15 “Yeshurun” waxed fat, etc.) The words ממי יהודה יצאו, “they came forth from the waters of Yehudah” were a reference to the זרע יהודה, the “seed of Yehudah.” The reason Isaiah singled out Yehudah was because his first prophetic message had been addressed to the tribe of Yehudah, compare אשר חזה על יהודה וירושלים, “who prophesied concerning Yehudah and Jerusalem (Isaiah 1,1).

When you look at the verses we quoted above you will realise that the prophet reflects on the almost unbelievable fact that a people who had enjoyed such advantages could have become guilty of such disloyalty, could still bear the name Israel. How could a people with such illustrious antecedents as Yehudah, the founder of the Kingdom of David, people at home in a Holy City such a Jerusalem have become guilty of such depravity as had the people of Israel? They were the people who should have demonstrated holiness and the characteristics of priests as had been their official purpose bestowed upon them by G’d when He said: “you will be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation!” (Exodus 19,6). The words “and they leaned on the G’d of Israel” mean that they paid lip-service to the G’d of Israel but their heart was not in their words. Jeremiah 12,2 criticises the same phony attitude of the people when he says: “You are present in their mouths, but far from their thoughts.” Isaiah had concluded his critique with the words: “the Lord of Hosts is His name.” He meant that G’d is the Supreme commander of both the armies of the celestial regions as well as those on earth. This knowledge should have been enough to inspire fear of the Lord in the people.

A Midrashic approach to the severity of violating oaths (Pirke de Rabbi Eliezer chapter 38): violation of an oath is equivalent to violation of a חרם (matters forbidden by the Torah such as the property of inhabitants of a city in Israel the majority of whose inhabitants had worshipped idols). We know this from the example of Achan Hacarmi who had appropriated to himself gold and other property from the city of Jericho which G’d had put in חרם, had placed out of bounds to any Israelite (Joshua 7,1-26). Achan’s sin became the cause of 36 righteous Israelites losing their lives in the first battle against Ai. When Joshua was dismayed at this G’d told him “Israel has sinned;” in other words the sin of one individual violating the terms of the חרם was attributed by G’d to the entire nation. Joshua thereupon looked at the names of the tribes on the breastplate of the High Priest and found that the guilty party was a member of the tribe Yehudah, seeing that the gemstone on which Yehudah’s name was engraved had lost its lustre. After that he drew lots to find out to which family of the tribe of Yehudah the sinner belonged. When it became clear that he belonged to the family Zevach, the individual responsible by the name of Achan ben Carmi was isolated and he admitted his guilt. He was executed. We have another incident involving violating a חרם, when King Saul expressed a curse against anyone who would taste food until the evening (Samuel I 14,24). We have already mentioned that Yonatan had not heard about this חרם i.e. about the curse Saul had placed on violators of this oath. (the Book of Samuel calls this חרם oath.) We read there (Samuel I 14,27) that when Yonatan put the honey to his lips his eyes “lit up”. (the word used for “lit up,” ותאור, are the same as “he was struck by the curse.” At any rate, when the battle against the Philistines started to go badly, Saul wondered if someone had violated the oath (and thus brought a curse on the soldiers). He looked at the stones of the breastplate of the High Priest and found that the gemstone with the name Binyamin had lost its lustre. This caused him to draw lots until he found that the culprit was a member of his own family (verse 41). He condemned Yonatan to death in accordance with the terms of the חרם. It was then found that Yonatan had eaten because he had not been aware of the חרם, and the people prevailed on the King to spare him (verse 45). We find another example of the severity of violating oaths and the comparison with violating a חרם in connection with Joseph’s brothers. They had made such a חרם amongst themselves that none of them would reveal to Yaakov what had happened during their encounter with Joseph. They had said: “we are only nine” (seeing that Reuven had been absent when Joseph was sold). A חרם is legally binding only when it involves a minimum of ten people. They had therefore made G’d Himself a partner to their חרם in order to give it legal force. This meant that G’d Himself was constrained from revealing to Yaakov what had happened to Joseph. Reuven respected the חרם and never told his father what he knew. G’d also respected the חרם as we know from Psalms 147,19 that He מגיד דבריו ליעקב, “reveals His words to Yaakov.” Clearly, He had not revealed this matter to Yaakov. The reason was that He had become partner to this חרם. Thus far Pirke d'Rabbi Eliezer.

A kabbalistic approach to our verse: The word שם in the verse לא תשא את שם ה' אלוה-יך לשוא refers to the Shechinah. The verse tells us that Hashem the attribute י-ה-ו-ה will not exonerate anyone who trifles with the name of the Shechinah, uses it in vain. We have a similar verse in Leviticus 19,12: ולא תשבעו לשמי לשקר, “and you shall nor swear an oath in My name which is a lie;” here too the word לשמי is a reference to the attribute known as Shechinah. The verse concludes with וחללת את שם אלו-היך, “and you would (thereby) desecrate the name of your G’d.” The clear message is that even swearing in the name of any of the lesser attributes of G’d is as severe a sin as uttering the tetragram itself to confirm one’s statement on oath . The severity of the sin of dishonouring one’s oath is tied to the fact that the word שבועה, “oath,” is based on the word שבעה, “seven.” This is a reference to the seven קולות, different nuances of G’d’s voice, whose meaning Moses learned to understand during the revelation at Mount Sinai. Anyone who violates an oath based on these seven קולות, i.e. on the Sinaitic experience, is as if testifying that he is not entitled to life in the hereafter. By doing what he did he excluded himself from the community of people who have embraced these seven קולות as yardsticks by which to guide their lives. Our sages (Sifri Mattot item 153), when trying to illustrate the difference between שבועות ונדרים, “oaths and vows,” explain that an oath may be considered as using the “king as he manifests himself” to buttress his statement, whereas when someone formulates his oath as a vow he buttresses it by the “life of the king,” i.e. the king’s “essence.” You will appreciate this when you reflect on a verse in Kings II 2,2 where Elisha swears that he will not leave Elijah and let Elijah go to Beit El by himself. He phrases it thus: חי-י-ה-ו-ה, וחי נפשך אם אעזבך, “as the Lord lives and as you live I will not depart from you.” The expression חי ה' refers to the “king” Himself and constitutes an oath. The expression חי נפשך refers to the “life of the king” and constitutes a נדר, a vow.

It is an accepted fact that a person swearing an oath and vowing a vow simultaneously does not mention the more severe aspect of his undertaking before he mentions the aspect which is relatively easier, simpler to fulfill. This is why Elisha first mentioned חי ה', meaning that he considered this as a less demanding undertaking. Subsequently he also vowed a vow when he said: “by your life.” He considered this as the more demanding undertaking. Having appreciated the above we can understand why inadvertent violation of an oath can be atoned for by a sin-offering, whereas inadvertent violation of a vow may not be atoned for by a sin-offering. This will also help you understand that the essence of the “soul” called נפש is in the lower seven emanations, whereas the essence of the soul called נשמה is within the realm of the three highest emanations. When the Torah writes in Genesis 2,7 ויפח באפיו נשמת חיים, “He blew into his nostrils the soul of life,” this is evidence that seeing G’d blew into man’s nostrils, he received something directly from G’d’s spirit. The meaning of that verse is that some of the nobility of “G’d’s life” was infused into man. He imparted to man part of His own essence so that seeing this part emanated in the emanation בינה which is the source of the concept תשובה, return or repentance, we can understand what Solomon had in mind when he spoke about man’s רוח, “spirit” “returning to G’d who had provided it when his body dies” (Kohelet 12,7). The reason Solomon mentions the attribute האלו-הים in that verse is that the Torah commences with the words בראשית ברא אלו-הים, “at the beginning He created Elohim” i.e. the concept of Teshuvah, (without which the universe could not have endured).

You should realize that from that emanation בינה the souls of the Israelites are channeled to them via the emanation תפארת, (the next lower one). They travel via what we have repeatedly referred to as the קו האמצעי, the “central” line, route. This line is symbolic of the “east of the world” when Israel perform the will of G’d. We have a verse confirming this idea in Isaiah 43,5 where the prophet says: “I will bring your folk from the East.” If Israel are wicked, then the souls arrive from a westerly direction, i.e. from seed which already existed on earth in the form of previous life (transmigration of souls) as explained in Sefer Habahir.

[Transmigration of souls is based on a sinful person being given a chance in another body to achieve the moral and ethical objectives he failed to achieve in his first round of life on earth. The person on earth who is here as a re-incarnation therefore “inherits” an impure soul, the one described here as coming from the West instead of from the East. Souls coming from the East originate in G’d’s reservoir of “unused” souls in heaven, souls which had not had a chance to become tainted. Ed.]. The author dealt with this concept in his commentary on Genesis 2,8. This entire concept is one which is applicable only to the Jewish people seeing that all the souls of the other nations originate in the “left” side of the table of emanations. This “left” side is the attribute גבורה also known as האש הגדולה, “the great fire.” This is the reason behind the halachic rule that if a Gentile slaughters an animal (which is fit for consumption by a Jew as it corresponds to the requirements, such as having cleft hooves and chewing the cud), such slaughter converts said animal into an animal equivalent to one that died by natural causes or disease, an animal whose carcass confers ritual impurity on the person touching or carrying it. All of this is due to their failure (the Gentile nations) to accept the Torah which has been described by Moses (Deut. 33,2) as מימינו אש דת למו, “On G’d’s right- law became like fire for them.” The Gentiles will be judged by the fires of Gehinom. This is the advantage of Jewish souls over those of the Gentiles. This is also what Ezekiel 23,37 referred to when he said: וגם את בניהן אשר ילדו לי, “and also their sons whom they bore for Me.” The prophet explains in that paragraph that all Israelites when born are born “to Me,” i.e. to G’d, as their souls emanated in the “right” regions.” If anyone of the Gentiles converts to Judaism his soul will be spared from having to undergo the fires of Gehinom, purgatory, seeing he has entered the קו האמצעי, “the middle line,” from which he may return to his roots on the right side of the emanations.

Let us return now to the subject matter under discussion, i.e. oaths and vows. Anyone who swore an oath and keeps it, honors it, will receive his reward in the regions governed by the seven lower emanations as by keeping his oath he has as good as testified that he believes what these seven emanations resp. seven קולות, symbolize. Such a person has demonstrated a longing for G’d’s closeness to man as represented by these emanations. The reverse is the case with people who violate their oaths. Instead of being rewarded by what these seven emanations represent they will be punished by seven different degrees of fire in purgatory. Our sages in the Midrash (Shir Hashirim Rabbah 2,18) have alluded to this mystical dimension when they interpreted Song of Songs 2,7 השבעתי אתכם בנות ירושלים בצבאות, “O daughters who are destined to ascend to Jerusalem I have adjured you by gazelles or hinds, etc.” Solomon means that if you will heed the warning you will ultimately wind up as illustrious as the Hosts of G’d in heaven; if you fail to heed the warning you will be like the army on earth. Thus far the Midrash. The meaning of that Midrash is that the word השבעתי is to be understood as “I give you a choice” to become attached to the seven emanations or seven kinds of fire in purgatory. The choice is up to you. Either way you will wind up as part of an army, i.e. צבאות. If you will merit it you will enjoy the seven heavens (Chagigah 12), become part of the army described as attached to the צרור החיים, “the bundle of eternal life” promised by Avigail to King David (Samuel I 25,29). If not, you will join the army undergoing seven kinds of fire in purgatory. The Lord can save people from having to endure punishment and hide them under His protective wings. May He make our share to be with the righteous who put their faith in Him.

זכור את יום השבת לקדשו, “remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.” After G’d had commanded us to believe wholeheartedly in His overriding attribute Hashem, and not to exchange Him for any other deity, and He also commanded us to “honor” His name by not using it in vain, He now commanded us to make a visible symbol of His holy name by sanctifying the seventh day, the Sabbath, by proclaiming His holy name on that day. The purpose of it is to proclaim publicly that He has created the universe as something absolutely new, out of nothing.

An approach based strictly on the literal meaning of the text: The words זכור את יום השבת “to remember the Sabbath day,” with the word זכור as an infinitive as distinct from an imperative, mean that we should remember this thought that G’d created the world out of previously non-existent materials all Sabbath long. Not only must we not exchange Him for any other force claiming divinity status on the Sabbath, the day we spiritualise more than any other, but we must not act on the weekdays as if there were some other divinity, some other ideal that we devote ourselves to. The best way not to deviate from our basic faith is by not forgetting G’d during the week either. When we think of Him constantly, we will also remember the whole process of creation; once we do this we will remember that He supervises His handiwork and rewards those who are loyal to Him and punishes those who are disloyal. When G’d says לקדשו, “to sanctify it,” this means that we should remember to sanctify it. We should realise that our resting on the Sabbath is an expression of the holiness of that day and we should turn away from secular concerns such as preoccupation with our bodies and devote ourselves on that day to matters of concern to G’d, by studying His ways and methods of doing things. On that day we are under an obligation to visit prophets or sages and scholars in order to receive instructions in the ways of the Lord. It recalls Kings II 4,23 when the husband of the Shunamite woman asks her: “why are you on the way to the prophet today? It is neither Sabbath nor New Moon?” This question shows that it was customary to visit the prophet on the Sabbath to receive spiritual uplift from him (compare Rosh Hashanah 16). David is on record in Psalms 119,97 where he said כל היום היא שיחתי, “it is my meditation all day long.” We would have expected him to say: “I have meditated every day.” Clearly, David refers to a special day devoted to meditations, i.e. the Sabbath. Isaiah 58,13 calls the Sabbath עונג, “a delight,” meaning it is a delight for the soul. The reason is that intelligent people and G’d-fearing people use that day to derive spiritual delight from it. Man’s soul thirsts for G’d on that day, a thought expressed poetically in Psalms 42,3: “my soul thirsts for the living G’d.”

A Midrashic approach based on Shabbat 118. Anyone observing the Sabbath laws meticulously has all his sins forgiven to him. Even if he had indulged in idol worship of the type practiced by the generation of Enosh, this too is forgiven him. This is based on Isaiah 56,2 אשרי אנוש יעשה זאת...שומר שבת מחללו, “hail to the man who does this.....who keeps the Sabbath and does not desecrate it.” A story is told of the Roman governor Turnusrufus (the wicked) who encountered Rabbi Akiva on a Sabbath (compare Tanchuma Ki Tissa 33). He asked Rabbi Akiva sarcastically: “what is so special about this day compared to other days?” Rabbi Akiva replied: “how is one man superior to other men?” (that he arrogates to himself special powers and status) Turnusrufus answered: “The King of Kings evidently wanted to honour me!” Rabbi Akiva replied that the King of Kings also wanted to honour the Sabbath. Turnusrufus replied: “if so why does He Himself perform work on the Sabbath?” Rabbi Akiva: “what work does G’d do on the Sabbath?” Turnusrufus: “just as He performs work on the weekdays, He performs the same activities on the Sabbath!” [he meant that we do not observe a change in nature on the Sabbath. Ed.] Rabbi Akiva: “I know you are familiar with Jewish law and our Torah. You therefore are aware that when two people who live in adjoining houses and share the same courtyard they are allowed to carry in the courtyard if they first established a partnership called Eyruv. This means that each of them abandons his exclusive claim to his property for the benefit of the second party. If, however, a single individual lives in a house surrounded by a very large courtyard without a neighbour sharing it he may carry inside it without the need of an Eyruv. The reason is that he does not thereby infringe on the property rights of anyone else. G’d owns heaven and earth; He has no partners to whom He has to cede part of His exclusive rights. Hence He is free to let the sun rise, make the wind blow, the rain fall etc. without infringing on the Sabbath legislation. This is not all. The Jews who wandered in the desert and who were being supplied by G’d with manna testify to the truth of what I have just told you. The manna descended every day of the week but not on the Sabbath. This shows clearly that the Sabbath was a special day. Not only that but the river Sambatyon which is full of flame daring people to cross it, is silent and still on the Sabbath.” Turnusrufus: “as to the manna, this happened a long time ago and we cannot bring proof from there that the Sabbath is special nowadays. As to the Sambatyon river, I simply do not believe you. Who has seen the river or how it works?” Rabbi Akiva: “go to necromancers and you will find that they practice their art in consulting the dead or making them appear every day of the week. On the Sabbath they are unable to perform their tricks. Go to the grave of your own father and you will observe smoke rising from it every day except on the Sabbath. This should teach you that even the dead are aware when it is Sabbath and that the day is special. You expect the living to ignore a day which even the dead are aware of?” Turnusrufus: “maybe my father’s judgment has been completed so that is the reason no more smoke rises from his grave.” Rabbi Akiva: “Tomorrow you will have proof.” On the following day Turnusrufus again observed smoke rising from his father’s grave. He went to a necromancer and ordered his father to appear. When he did, he asked his father: “while you were alive you did not observe the Sabbath; why do you observe it now that you are dead? Since when have you become a Jew?” His father answered him: “listen my son; anyone who does not observe the Sabbath amongst you on earth is forced to observe it against his will in the hereafter.” Thereupon Turnusrufus asked his father: “what are you doing in the hereafter during the weekdays?” He answered him that on every weekday they were being judged (punished). On the Sabbath they were left alone to rest. A heavenly voice is heard in those regions at the onset of the Sabbath instructing their tormentors to let the victim rest on the Sabbath. An angel known as דומה is in charge of administering the punishments during the week. As soon as the Sabbath is over this angel shouts to the wicked to return to purgatory, explaining that the Israelites have already concluded their various Sabbath observances.” Thus far the Midrash. Keeping this in mind, the Jews have adopted the custom to recite the paragraphs ויהי נועם, and ואתה קדוש at the conclusion of the Sabbath services very slowly in order to afford the souls being judged in purgatory a little extra time before they have to return to that place. This may also be the reason that it is forbidden for us to drink some water at dusk before the onset of the Sabbath, as according to the Midrash this would be an act of stealing (time) from the souls in purgatory. By decreeing this prohibition the sages wanted to instill in us the belief that the souls of the sinful Israelites enjoy rest on the Sabbath even though they have been consigned to purgatory. When they are released from that place before the onset of the Sabbath they wash and dress in honour of the Sabbath. If the living drink water at that time it is considered as robbing the souls leaving Gehinom for a better place on the Sabbath of some of the water they need to prepare themselves for the Sabbath. The Rabbis have categorized a person drinking water at dusk on Fridays as robbers, and as people lacking in faith. This is also the reason that we do not recite the verse והוא רחום at the beginning of the Friday night service, as mention is made of three destructive angels in that verse, אף-חמה-משחית, angels who have been appointed to be in charge of the wicked and their sufferings in purgatory. These angels do not enjoy any authority over their charges on the Sabbath. Furthermore, the purpose of this custom is in order to instill in our hearts the awareness that even the wicked enjoy rest on the Sabbath plus the fact that these angels do not enjoy authority on the Sabbath. I have found the source of this in a book called Masechet Gan Eden, a book which is similar to פרקי היכלות, פרקי מרכבות and פרקי דרך ארץ. I have found the gist of this in another version: “anyone drinking water on the Sabbath between the Minchah service and the Maariv service during the year he has lost a close relative is in effect robbing the deceased. In that book the reason given for this is that the souls leave purgatory on the Sabbath and drink from the waters of a river emanating in Gan Eden. By the bereaved drinking water during those hours one would diminish the supply available to these souls. Once the year has passed there is no need for all this as the soul’s judgment and possible period of punishment has already been completed.

A more rational approach to the Sabbath legislation. It is well known that this physical/material world is conducted on the basis of light and darkness. Its anchors are day and night. The reason for the alternating periods of light and darkness, day and night, is so as not to subject people to unceasing labor but to give them an opportunity to rest and recover their energy through sleep, etc. Rest, i.e. sleep, is an absolute necessity for all living creatures. Even flies are in need of sleep. If light were to prevail on earth constantly the creatures on earth would not be able to endure, i.e. the world would not be able to continue functioning as all its creatures would collapse from lack of rest. The commandment of the Sabbath therefore is also a natural law ensuring the continued functioning of the world and its inhabitants by providing regulated rest periods at regular intervals. By observing the Sabbath laws, man spends one seventh of his life in constructive מנוחה, relaxation. The reason this day occurs on the seventh day of the week is that it represents a happy medium between the lunar cycle and the solar cycle. [The author describes four “cycles”, i.e. daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly. The Sabbath is middle ground between the daily cycle and the monthly cycle. Elsewhere he described the centrality of the day as being that we count towards it and away from it thus declaring it in effect as the “middle” of the week, not as the “week-end.” Ed.] Many of the Torah’s laws revolve around this number seven. Although the Sabbath has been handed down as legislation from Heaven and has not been made part of natural law, and most of our beliefs are directly or indirectly connected to it (and therefore not applicable to all of mankind), this does not contradict the fact that it has world-wide significance as natural therapy relieving the tedium of life on earth. [If it had not been legislated, man would have had to invent it. Ed.]

A Kabbalistic approach: The words זכור את יום השבת are a reminder that the Sabbath is the last emanation seeing that it completes the whole cycle of creation. It has been named כנסת ישראל. Our sages (Bereshit Rabbah 11,8) have illustrated this by saying that the Sabbath is the natural partner of the Jewish people (much as a woman is the natural partner of man). This is the reason we find the Sabbath referred to in much of aggadic literature as Matrona, “a lady of stature.” We find the following in Vayikra Rabbah 27,10: “The reason the Torah legislates that no animal may be offered up as a sacrifice until it is at least seven days old (Leviticus 22,27) is because it must first have seen the face of the Matrona. The Midrash means that an animal which has not experienced at least one Sabbath on earth must not be slaughtered as an offering. Even the life of an animal would not have been worth living unless it had experienced at least one Sabbath. The Sabbath is also known as ברית, covenant. Just as the circumcision and the rainbow are described by the Torah as ברית, so is the Sabbath (compare Genesis 9,12--Genesis 17,10--Exodus 31,16). The reason the Torah writes here זכור, “to remember” is a reference to a specific Sabbath, i.e. the Sabbath known as שבת הגדול, the emanation יסוד, from which all the 248 positive commandments emanate. The numerical value of the letters in the word זכור plus the acrostic formed by the first letters in the words יום השבת total 248. When the Torah writes שמור את יום השבת in the second version of the Ten Commandments in Deut. 5,12, the word שמור is a reference to the מקדש, Sanctuary, aspect of the Sabbath. This is the emanation כבוד from which the 365 negative commandments are derived. They are the ones that also all women are obligated to fulfill. This is the mystical dimension of the verse את שבתותי תשמורו ומקדשי תיראו, “you shall observe My Sabbath days and My Sanctuary you shall revere” (Leviticus 26,2) [the plural My Sabbaths refers to the שבת הגדול and to the Sabbath called מקדש.] This is why the prophet warns (Jeremiah 17,24) “not to perform any kind of work on it.” The word בה “on it,” in that verse is read one way and spelled another, i.e. it is both בו and בה, i.e. masculine and feminine. When the Torah writes in verse 10 of our chapter ויום השביעי שבת לה' אלו-היך, “and the seventh day is a Sabbath for the Lord your G’d,” the meaning is that “the Sabbath is on the seventh day because the seventh day is the foundation (יסוד) of the universe the seventh emanation the one wherein the Sabbath (the concept of the Sabbath) is located.” Our sages referred to this as הכל בכל, “for that which comprises everything (כל) is contained within the emanation known as כל, respectively יסוד. The two emanations יסוד and מלכות are inseparably linked to one another. [The seventh day represents יסוד, which is described here as the seventh emanation. Since the concept of Sabbath (associated with מלכות) is contained in יסוד, it follows that the two are linked together. Ed] We find verses which confirm this in Exodus 31,15: וביום השביעי שבת שבתון קודש לה', “and on the seventh day, which is the Sabbath, the Sabbath of Sabbaths, it is holy to Hashem.” The verse following the above states לעשות את יום השבת ברית עולם, “to make the Sabbath-day into an eternal covenant.” The verse refers to the seventh day which is the foundation of the universe שבת שבתון קודש לה'. At the same time the Sabbath which receives its input from that שבת שבתון is called ברית. Having appreciated all this there is no longer any reason to wonder why the sages called the benediction we recite over the wine on the Sabbath by day קדושא רבא, “the great sanctification,” (Pesachim 106) a description which has not been applied to the Kiddush we recite on the evening after the Sabbath has commenced. The Kiddush recited by day corresponds to the זכור element of the Sabbath whereas the Kiddush we recite at night corresponds to the שמור element of the Sabbath. Day is usually associated with זכור something denoting activity, whereas night is associated with שמור, something denoting passivity. Considering all we have said above it is clear why the prophet considers the Sabbath a delight and called it such (Isaiah 58,13) “and you shall call the Sabbath a delight.” It is a delight for the souls. David confirmed this in Psalms 42,3 when he exclaimed צמאה נפשי לאלו-הים א-ל חי, “my soul thirsted after the living G’d.” Every creature thirst (yearns) after its origin, its roots, the place it will eventually return to. The place in question is the river which irrigates Gan Eden, the foundation of the Sabbath and its root. The word ענג, delight, is an acrostic formed by the words עדן, נהר, גן. We base all this on Genesis 2,10 ונהר יוצא מעדן להשקות את הגן “and a river emerges from Eden to irrigate the garden.” This is why the Sabbath is called ענג, as it is a delight both for the celestial beings as well as for the terrestrial people on earth.

ששת ימים תעבור ועשית כל מלאכתך “during six days you shall work and perform all your activities.” The meaning of this line is: “during all the six preceding days you will be preoccupied with serving the Lord while you perform your work, just as the patriarchs who served the Lord by the work they performed with herding sheep and cattle and other physical activities. But the seventh day is Sabbath; this day will be devoted to G’d exclusively. You must not perform any labour on it at all.” This is the interpretation of this verse which I have heard attributed to Maimonides.

כי ששת ימים עשה ה', “for during six days the Lord made, etc.” The plain meaning of the text is the same as if the Torah had written בששת ימים, “during the course of six days, etc.” we find a similar construction in Genesis 14,4 where the words ושלש עשרה שנה מרדו do not mean that “they rebelled for 13 years,” but that “they rebelled during the course of the 13th year,” i.e. בשנה השלוש עשרה.

A more rational approach to the wording in this verse: G’d “made” these six days, i.e. they were part of His creative activity. Basically, the verse teaches that the concept of “time” was created during these days. Had the Torah written the words בששת ימים this would have taught that “time” preceded creation of the universe.

A Kabbalistic approach: the words כי ששת ימים are a reference to the period of time the universe will continue to function according to the rules established for it by G’d. During this period there will be interaction and reciprocal input by celestial forces on earth and man’s conduct will have its impact on the celestial regions (compare more about this on Numbers 10,35).

כבד את אביך ואת אמך, “honor your father and your mother.” Up until now G’d had instructed the people to honor the original father in heaven, i.e. Himself; now He wanted to sign this side of the Tablets with the command to honor progenitors in the lower world, here on earth. In effect, what G’d says here is “just as I commanded you to treat Me with honor and respect, so I command you this day to treat your father and mother who are My partners in creating you with respect and honor. Just as one of the most important aspects of honoring G’d is to acknowledge Him as such, so one of the most important aspects of honoring one’s parents is to acknowledge them as such. Just as an important aspect of belief and faith in the Lord is the second commandment לא יהיה לך, that you must not exchange Him for another deity, so an integral part of the commandment to honor one’s father and mother is not to deny the fact that they are in fact your father and mother. Just as it is forbidden to swear a false or vain oath in the name of the Lord, so it is forbidden to use the reference to the life of one’s father or mother as a way of reinforcing one’s credibility when swearing a false or vain oath. Furthermore, it is forbidden to serve one’s father because one expects to inherit his wealth or even because one hopes to receive the honor and title one’s father enjoyed during his own life time. There are numerous details pertaining to the observance of this commandment which our sages have taught us in this regard. To mention but a few: the son is obligated to provide for his father with food, drink, clothing, etc., both as a financial contribution as well as being a physical support for him in case of illness, frailty in his father’s old age, etc. (Kiddushin 31). In Proverbs 3,8 Solomon instructs us כבד את ה' מהונך, “demonstrate your honoring the Lord by using your wealth.” The way one honors the Lord with one’s wealth [seeing He has neither need of it nor use for it, Ed.] is to distribute some of one’s wealth to the poor. One must set aside the various tithes the Torah has instructed us to give to the priest, the Levite, or the poor. Seeing the Torah has set aside tithes and gifts for these people who are not your next of kin, one must certainly provide for one’ parents if the need arises. As to the reward promised here that he who observes this commandment will enjoy long life in the land of Israel, Rav Saadyah Gaon has explained that seeing that on occasion father and son share many years together on this earth, i.e. the father enjoys in inordinately long life, and as a result the son may feel that the obligation to look after his father in addition to his obligation to look after his own wife and children has become very burdensome, this is the reason why the Torah went out of its way in this instance to promise long life to the son who observes this commandment meticulously. This is not as much a promise of reward as it is a warning not to neglect fulfillment of this commandment as failing to observe it is equivalent to playing with one’s own life. If you are interested in long life yourself, make sure that your father and mother’s lives are enjoyable. This concludes the first five of the Ten Commandments. They all appear on the same tablet, and, as we have demonstrated, there is conceptual linkage between all of them. To sum this up once more: the first commandment is to believe in the Lord, His existence, His exclusivity. In order that one should not think that it suffices to believe in the Lord and at the same time to believe that He has partners, the second commandment spells out that belief in any partner of G’d is intolerable. In order that someone should not say that seeing that G’d has no partner it does not matter if we bandy His name about needlessly, the Torah had to go on record that this is the very reverse of honoring Him, that one must on no account treat His name as if it were something common or ordinary. Having begun to tell us what is an act of dishonoring G’d, i.e. using His name in vain, the Torah then instructed us in an example of how to honor His name, i.e. observing His Sabbath. If we really want to show that we honor Him and His name we will be meticulous in our Sabbath observance. Having instructed us in how to honor Him by honoring the Sabbath, the Torah then proceeded to instruct us to honor those who have begotten us, i.e. our parents. This concludes my commentary on the first five of the Ten Commandments and how they are related to each other.

לא תרצח, “do not murder!” The five commandments on the second Tablet are all negative commandments, and I will explain to you the reason for the order they appear in and how they relate to one another. Seeing that the commandment not to worship idols was expressed as a negative commandment, G’d continues here with a list of negative commandments commencing with the commandment not to murder. This commandment and the one following it, i.e. not to commit adultery, share the death penalty for deliberate violation, but seeing the kind of death penalty applicable to these three commandments is not identical the Torah lists the sins according to the severity of the death penalty applicable in descending order. Idolatry is punishable by stoning, (the most severe kind of death penalty); murder is punishable with death by the sword, decapitation, whereas adultery is punishable by death through strangulation. Our sages always mention the following three sins in one breath, i.e. idolatry, sexual licentiousness, incest and murder. [In order to avoid committing any of these in a context of religious coercion and in public, one must choose death rather than violate either of them. Ed.] The seventh commandment i.e. “not to steal,” speaks of stealing people, kidnapping, not inert objects or animals (Mechilta bachodesh section 8). This kind of theft too is punishable by death through strangulation (compare 21,17). The last three commandments which all deal with different forms of theft, robbery, i.e. greed, are listed in descending order of their severity.

לא תענה ברעך עד שקר, “do not bear false witness against your fellow.” Please note that the Torah does not write “against your brother,” as it does when forbidding charging interest, (Deut. 23,20) or when it commands you to return found property (Deut. 22,3), or in similar legislation. In all those instances our sages explain the word אחיך as excluding non-Jews. In other words, while it is forbidden to charge (or pay) interest to a Jew, it is not forbidden to charge interest to a Gentile. While one must go out of one’s way to restore lost property owned by a Jew, there is no legal obligation to spend time, energy, and even money to restore lost property to a Gentile. Here the reason the Torah fails to limit the legislation to אחיך, “your brother.” It is clear that one must not bear false testimony against a Gentile, i.e. against Egyptians. Moreover, we find in Exodus 11,20 וישאלו איש מאת רעהו, “they asked each person from his fellow;” it is clear that the word רעהו refers to the Egyptians as the verse would not make any sense otherwise. Not bearing false testimony therefore is a commandment of universal application. Furthermore, if the Torah had written the word אחיך in our verse we might have concluded that it is in order to testify against (or on behalf of) other relatives, whereas generally speaking a whole list of relatives are unfit to testify together (as a team), on behalf of each other or against each other. Not only is false testimony illegal in such instances but even true testimony is unacceptable. Were this not so the Torah should have written לא תענה ברעך עדות שקר, “do not lie in your testimony against your fellow.” Such wording would have been very misleading as it would have meant that only the actual false testimony is prohibited but that someone who is in collusion with people arranging false testimony would be exonerated by the legal process. The Torah therefore uses ambiguous wording to cover as much ground as possible, i.e. in order to include as many people as possible in the parameters of guilt governing the subject of false testimony. The very word תענה means to “assist,” or “invite.”

לא תחמוד, “do not covet.” It is known that coveting something is a matter for the heart. The principal warning contained in this commandment is that one must train oneself to absolutely renounce all hope of ever acquiring things belonging (legally) to another person, be it real estate, livestock, inert objects, etc. One must not even think of these and wish for them in one’s heart. Were one to covet them one would ultimately commit murder in order to own them oneself. A classic case in point was Achan. When he confessed to having taken from the loot of the city of Jericho, this is how he worded his confession (Joshua 7,21): “I saw among the spoils a fine Shinar mantle, two hundred shekels of silver, and a wedge of gold weighing fifty shekels, and I coveted them and took them. They are buried in the ground in my tent, with the silver under it.” This act of coveting resulted in Achan being stoned to death.(ibid verse 29). Another example of the extremes to which allowing oneself to covet someone else’s property may lead was King Achav (Kings I 21, 1-24). His uncontrollable desire to own the vineyard of Navot ultimately resulted in his being slain in battle.

Concerning this the Talmud Sotah 9 comments that “if someone covets something that is not appropriate for him to have, he will wind up losing even what was appropriate for him to own.” He becomes cursed. This is what happened to the serpent who seduced Chavah. It wanted to replace Adam as Chavah’s husband and instead it wound up having to crawl on its belly and to eat dust. Thus far the Midrash. Had it not been for the fact that robbery is an integral aspect of coveting and on account of this it deserved to be included in the Ten Commandments, the outright prohibition of robbery would have had to be included in the Ten Commandments, seeing that robbery is such a wide-spread a sin and so severe an infraction of G’d’s laws. Furthermore, robbery is a sophisticated sin similar to murder, adultery, theft, and false testimony. However, seeing that coveting conceptually includes robbery as a person does not commit robbery until he has first coveted the object he robs, it was not included specifically in the Decalogue. The proof for the close linkage between coveting and committing robbery is found in Micah 2,2 where the prophet places the two sins side by side when he writes: “they covet fields and seize them, houses and take them away.” A further reason why the Torah preferred to include the prohibition of coveting in the Ten Commandments over the alternative of including “do not commit robbery,” is that the prohibition to covet is more all embracing and the Torah wanted to make plain that it views a person eyeing other people’s property with an eye to acquiring it as being guilty of such a severe sin that it was included in the Ten Commandments and inscribed by G’d Himself on the stone tablets. The Torah wanted man to use a little logic and to realise that if G’d took such a dim view of someone who only eyes other people’s property as something he wants for himself, how much more so would G’d react to someone who actually made a move to commit robbery to possess the property in question! Still, there are occasions when coveting is a character trait which is permitted. Coveting the opportunity to perform certain commandments of the Torah is not only permissible but is praiseworthy. This is what our sages had in mind (Baba Batra 21) when they said קנאת סופרים תרבה חכמה, “the envy displayed by scholars of the knowledge of other scholars who are their superiors leads to an all-round increase in wisdom.” This kind of jealousy and coveting such knowledge possessed by another is not only permissible but is rewarded by G’d. Included in this type of permissible desire is the desire for one’s friend’s (unmarried) daughter to be married to one’s son. When the Torah writes first: “do not covet the house of your fellow,” this is a general prohibition; when it continues with detailing: “his wife, his field, his house, his servant or maidservant,” these are details. Just as these details are matters which cannot possibly become yours unless their present owner so agrees, so the same rule applies to what is described in the כלל, i.e. in the introduction to this legislation, coveting a house. This, however, excludes one’s fellow’s daughter (if she has reached the age of puberty, 12 and a half years of age) to become the wife of your son or vice versa as neither requires the permission of a second party to become married to the other party seeing they are not presently “owned” by anyone. This concludes my commentary on the last five of the Ten Commandments. I have demonstrated that they are all conceptually linked to one another commencing with the warning not to murder. One must not decrease the world’s population even if one thinks the world is overpopulated. Having understood this a person might say to himself that it must be G’d’s will to increase the human population on earth even at the cost of engaging in illicit sexual relations, [even if well meant, such as impregnating a married woman with her sterile husband’s consent in order for them to have a child. Ed.] The Torah therefore warns you that any form of adulterous relationship is taboo; so much so that the penalty is death. A person may then reason that if increasing the world’s population by adulterous means is forbidden, he might at least effect a population exchange by acquiring an existing human being (through stealing it). All he would be doing is to transplant that human being from one city or country to another. He would then sell such a person in a different location. He would reason that at worst he had committed a minor offense involving financial damage to the first owner. The Torah therefore included this sin in the Ten Commandments to make clear that it views such conduct as a capital offense, not merely a commercial misdemeanor. Having appreciated the seriousness of the sin of kidnapping, one might still think that an offense such as uttering false testimony is minor, seeing that it involves only words, not deeds. To prevent us from thinking along these lines the Torah had to include the legislation that one must not be involved in false testimony as part of the Ten Commandments. Finally, even if one had understood that causing damage to a second party by deceitful use of one’s mouth, one’s words, is serious indeed, one might think that harboring only evil thoughts such as contemplating property belonging to someone else would certainly not be considered criminal, so the Torah disabuses us of such thoughts by legislating the law of לא תחמוד as so important that it is included in the Ten Commandments.

The reason why there are precisely Ten Commandments which were deemed fit to be engraved on these Tablets: according to the plain meaning the number 10 is a number which symbolises a closed circle, i.e. something complete. There is not a single number which does not somehow derive from the י the number represented by the number 10. [Even when we count beyond the number 10 we have to begin again with the number 1, etc. i.e. we repeat ourselves to some extent.] A Midrashic approach: the reason that Ten Commandments were inscribed on the Tablets was that prior to the revelation mankind had known seven basic G’d-given laws which were the guidelines for man’s conduct on earth. This original number had already been increased to nine prior to the revelation. At this point G’d wanted to enable the people of Israel to earn credit for performing additional commandments; this is why He decided to reveal all the commandments starting now (Makkot 23). The matter is explained in Shir Hashirim Rabbah 1,4 by means of a parable: A king had a large cellar wherein he stored many barrels of good wine. One of the king’s friends came to visit and the king presented him with a barrel of wine. A second friend came to visit the king, and and the king presented him also with a barrel of wine. A third friend came to visit and the king presented him with yet another barrel of wine. Eventually, the king’s son came to visit and the king was so overjoyed that he gave him the entire stock of wine in the cellar. The parable mirrors the sequence in which G’d handed out His commandments to man. When Adam had been created he had been given six commandments. They were designed to ensure the ability of the universe to endure, i.e. each commandment symbolised one of the six points of the globe known in aggadic terms as קצוות העולם (the extreme ends of the world). Fulfillment of each commandment would prevent those ends of the universe from disintegrating [due to their distance from the center. Ed.]. With the appearance of Noach on earth and his having survived the deluge due to meticulous observance of these six commandments, G’d rewarded him with a seventh commandment, not to consume tissue of a living animal. Avraham, who led the life of a model human being, was rewarded with an eighth commandment, that of circumcision. Yaakov, another “friend of the king,” was rewarded with a ninth commandment, that of גיד הנשה, not to eat the sinew of the femoral vein. When the Israelites arrived at Mount Sinai in their multitudes, G’d decided to reward them with the Ten Commandments which contained within them the gist of all the 613 commandments of the Torah. In order to allude to this concept the Torah writes in connection with the offerings of the princes on the occasion of the consecration of the Holy Tabernacle (Numbers 7,14) כף אחת, עשרה זהב, מלאה קטרת, “one (gold) ladle of ten (shekel weight) filled with incense.” In an allegorical sense, the verse speaks of the Ten Commandments which are represented by the golden ladle and which are filled with the balance of the 613 commandments described as “incense.” Actually, the letter ק in the word קטרת is interchangeable with the letter ד, so that the numerical value of the letter in the word קטרת would amount to a total of 613. (compare Bamidbar Rabbah 13,16. It is pointed out there also that the number of letters in the Ten Commandments commencing with the word אנכי, excluding the last two words אשר לרעך total 613. The seven letters in the last two words would represent the seven Noachide laws to which all of mankind was obligated after the deluge. (All of this reinforces the idea that the Ten Commandments are the gist of all the commandments in the Torah.)

A rational approach: The reason that there are Ten Commandments is that they correspond to ten celestial גלגלים, “planets,” i.e. celestial spheres influencing events on earth. [This number for the major stars in the planetary system (and what they represent in theological terms) is a departure from the number seven with which astrologers and astronomers of the middle ages used to operate. The idea of nine such planets is mentioned in Ibn Ezra’s commentary on his verse, attributed to an unnamed scholar. Expanding the number to nine involves assuming the existence of a “super-planet” which is responsible for the orbits of the other planets. Our author has his own method of explaining the number. Ed] The first commandment, אנכי, corresponds to the גלגל השכל, the sphere of intelligence, the highest sphere beneath the throne of G’d’s glory [described in the essay called כתר מלכות by Rabbi Sholomo Ibn Gabirol printed in the Yom Kippur Machzor of Heidenheim (and recited privately in many German synagogues at the conclusion of the Kol Nidrei service still in my youth. Ed.] This celestial sphere is especially effective in alerting our thinking to thoughts of the Unity of G’d, His exclusivity as the only deity, etc. The commandment לא יהיה לך, corresponds to the celestial sphere called גלגל המקיף by Ibn Gabirol. This commandment refers to אלהים אחרים, other deities. G’d had to take a stand against such erroneous thinking caused by people believing that though He is the Creator, seeing He is not physical, there were yet other divine forces which had a body. The third commandment, לא תשא, corresponds to the planet sun; the גלגל חמה, the fourth, זכור, to the planet moon, גלגל לבנה. The fifth commandment, כבד corresponds to the celestial sphere Jupiter צדק גלגל. The sixth commandment, לא תרצח, corresponds to the גלגל מאדים, the planet Mars. The seventh commandment לא תנאף corresponds to the גלגל שבתאי, the celestial sphere of Saturn, whereas the eighth commandment לא תגנוב, corresponds to the גלגל נוגה, the celestial sphere of Venus. The ninth commandment לא תענה corresponds to the celestial sphere regulating the signs of the zodiac, the various constellations, whereas the tenth commandment לא תחמוד corresponds to the celestial sphere כוכב, Mercury. There is great התעוררות, excitement, awakening of spiritual forces, connected with each of these commandments and how they interact with these celestial spheres. If you will study the subject in depth you will find that the wonders of G’d and the wisdom expressed by His creations becomes very manifest. There is another reason for the number of these commandments being 10. Man possesses 10 basic organs which constitute the essence of his body without which he cannot function as a proper human being. We have mentioned repeatedly that the composition of man of 248 limbs and 365 sinews closely parallels the structure of the Torah which consists of 248 positive and 365 negative commandments. Just as the Torah considers the Ten Commandments as the irreducible minimum of man’s obligations vis-a-vis His Creator, so the ten organs which we mentioned as essential to man will be found to correspond to the messages addressed to man in the Ten Commandments. The ten organs in question are: 1) the heart, 2) the ear, 3) the mouth, 4) the brain, 5) the hands, 6) the liver, 7) the male organ, 8) the legs, 9) the eyes, 10) the kidneys. According to Rabbi Chavell, the heart corresponds to the first commandment seeing it has to be fulfilled by the heart. The ear corresponds to the second commandment as the ear must not listen to a false prophet inviting obeisance to another deity. The mouth corresponds to the third commandment not to utter false oaths. The brain corresponds to the fourth commandment as appreciation of the meaning of the Sabbath requires a brain. The hands correspond to the fifth commandment to honor parents by performing services for them with one’s hands. The liver corresponds to the sixth commandment seeing it is all blood and murder deals with blood. The male organ corresponds to the seventh commandment as one cannot engage in adultery without that organ. The legs correspond to the eighth commandment as in order to steal one employs one’s legs. The eyes correspond to the ninth commandment as testimony is based on what has been seen. The kidneys correspond to the tenth commandment seeing they are the seat of עצה, they advise how to translate the wish into reality, how to acquire what one has coveted.

A kabbalistic approach. The Ten Commandments correspond to the ten emanations. You will find in them 613 letters corresponding to the 613 commandments which emanate from the Ten Commandments. The extra seven letters (which we discussed already) are an allusion to the seven קולות Moses heard, i.e. that he acquired an understanding of the meaning of the seven lower emanations while he experienced the revelation at Mount Sinai. When you add these seven letters to the other 613 letters the total numerical value will be 620, the numerical value of the tenth and highest emanation כתר. The seven emanations which Moses had learned to understand were all derived from that highest emanation כתר.

I will use this opportunity to acquaint you with some aspects of the emanations by explaining how each one relates or is relevant to one of the Ten Commandments. The first commandment, אנכי, corresponds to the emanation כתר, the highest emanation. The second commandment לא יהיה לך corresponds to the emanation חכמה. The third commandment לא תשא corresponds to the emanation תפארת; the fourth commandment, זכור corresponds to the emanation עטרה, i.e. כנסת ישראל. The fifth commandment כבד corresponds to the emanation חסד, whereas the sixth commandment לא תרצח, corresponds to the emanation פחד. The seventh commandment לא תנאף corresponds to the emanation יסוד. The eighth commandment לא תגנוב corresponds to the emanation נצח, whereas the ninth commandment לא תענה corresponds to the emanation תשובה. The tenth commandment לא תחמוד, corresponds to the emanation הוד.

You will have to consider this very carefully. Although the Commandments are not listed in their usual order, i.e. parallel to the sequence of the ten emanations, you will realise the reason why the commandment אנכי had to be the first one. This is because seeing that G’d is first and we have to believe in that fact, the second commandment, which ensures that we do not dilute our belief in the supremacy of G’d as the first and only מציאות at that time, had to be commandment number two although the angels were created before man and it might seem odd to command man who did not exist yet how not to relate to G’d. This might seem especially peculiar when we consider that it was commanded in a framework when seeing there had not been any angels or other agents of G’d, man could not have become guilty of idolatry even if he had tried. The angels represent second rank in the order of creation, immediately below G’d Himself. This is why they were created on the second day (see author’s comment on Genesis 1,21 under “a kabbalistic approach). This is the reason why the angels are called שנאנים based on Psalms 68,18 אלפי שנאן (from the word שני “second”). The third commandment לא תשא is the third as anyone who uses G’d’s name in vain destroys the world which is built on three pillars, i.e. Torah, service of the Lord, and the performance of deeds of loving kindness for fellow human beings (Avot 1,2). The penalty for contravening that commandment also is threefold: Such a person destroys “his bones, his timber, and his stones.” Compare Zecharyah 5,4 who describes what G’d will do to people who swear false oaths as: “it (the curse) shall lodge in the inside of their houses and shall consume them to the last timber and stone.” The Torah repeats the sin, concluding the commandment with the words: “who will use His name in vain,” to emphasize how severely G’d views violation of this commandment. Treating G’d’s honour as of little consequence is equivalent to shaking off the whole range of the commandments as an intolerable burden. The prophet Malachi 1,6 phrased it thus: “If I am a father, where is the honour due Me? If I am a master, where is the reverence due Me?” The reason the commandment זכור was chosen to be the fourth commandment is because the Sabbath is the fourth day following the fourth day, the day on which sun, moon, and all the celestial phenomena were placed in their respective orbits. The sun is the fourth of the seven (or nine) such celestial orbits revolving around the earth. [The author as well as the Kabbalists whose views he mentions lived long before Copernicus, Ed.] The moon is in a fourth orbit relative to the sun, based on the sequence שצ'ם חנכ'ל, the seven “fixed stars” which we have mentioned on repeated occasions. The luminaries are considered מרובעים, “divided into four,” seeing the day is divided into four parts. You will also note that שבתאי, Saturn, the planet corresponding to the Sabbath is the fourth from (inside) the orbit of the גלגל השכל, the sphere of intelligence. Immediately above (outside) that sphere is the eighth sphere that of the כוכבים, the stars. Beyond that sphere is the ninth sphere, the one called ערבות, beyond which is the גלגל השכל the sphere of intelligence. Everything connected with the Sabbath is divided into “four.” There are four separate prayers on the Sabbath none of which is a repetition of any other. The prophet (Isaiah 58,13) when describing the outstanding features of the Sabbath and how we are to behave on it, makes his points in sentences of four words each, such as 1) אם תשיב משבת רגליך, “if you refrain from trampling the Sabbath; 2) עשות חפציך ביום קדשי, “from pursuing your affairs on My holy day.” The fifth commandment כבד is the fifth in number as there are five contributing components which result in offspring being born, in parents becoming parents. They are father, mother, fundamentals of nature, i.e. יסודות, time, and G’d. The father contributes the sinews, the bones and everything in the human being that is coloured white; the mother contributes all the red-coloured parts, such as the blood, the flesh, the hair and the black in the pupil of the eyes (compare Niddah 31). This black-looking colour is in reality a form of red, it has been impaired (Niddah 19). The יסודות are the four basic raw materials our physical universe is composed of. These four basic components function in various combinations, i.e. they are to a human body what a mixture of metals is in an alloy. Time is a factor as a baby’s development inside the womb is determined by the passage of a certain amount of time. Development of the embryo is not complete unless a certain amount of time has elapsed. G’d contributes the soul which is the principal contribution to man’s intelligence. Without G’d’s contribution man would not amount to anything worthwhile although there had been input from 4 other sources. You will find that there are 5 different categories of living creatures in nature: man, mammals, birds, fish, and creeping creatures. When formulating the fifth commandment, the Torah referred to life on האדמה, “on the earth,” i.e. the part of nature yielding some sort of harvest. This part of the earth is divided into 5 categories, i.e. fields yielding a grain harvest; vineyards; vegetable gardens, orchards, forests growing trees for making furniture, heating, etc. There are also five basic kinds of metals that the earth yields for man: gold, silver, copper, iron and lead. The sixth commandment לא תרצח, was placed in sixth position as 6 different character traits may be responsible for a human being murdering another human being. They are: jealousy, greed, hatred, anger, irresponsibility, and drunkenness. The first murder was committed against a human being who had been created on the sixth day (of the week and of creation). The seventh commandment, לא תנאף, is appropriately number seven as there are seven forbidden sexual relationships. 1) sleeping with a woman married to someone else; 2) sleeping with any woman including one’s own when she is in a state of menstruation. 3) A High Priest must not marry a widow. 4) An ordinary priest must not marry a divorcee. 5) sexual relations with animals. 6) homosexual relations. 7) sexual relations with non-Jews. There are seven prohibitions (6 are Rabbinic) that might lead to such forbidden sexual relations. 1) visual, i.e. a situation which may cause arousal because one has viewed what is forbidden. 2) Aural arousal, i.e. listening to the seductive voice of a woman with whom relations are forbidden. 3) secreting oneself with such a woman; 4) conversation with her. 5) touching her; 6) kissing; 7) the actual deed. The eight commandment לא תגנב, is in eighth place as there are eight varieties of violating this commandment. 1) wrong numbering; 2) wrong measuring; 3) wrong weights; 4) withholding found property. 5) kidnapping a Jew or Jewess. 6) stealing money. 7) גנבת דעת, deliberately misleading, i.e. “stealing somebody’s mind.” 8) “stealing for oneself,” i.e. embezzling funds entrusted to one by using them for one’s own needs in a legally permissible way such as if one is a trustee of funds of an orphan using these funds or part of them to pay for a wedding or even to become the dowry of the trustee’s son marrying such a female orphan. Concerning this way of taking advantage of one’s position as a trustee the Torah wrote (Leviticus 19,13) “You shall not defraud your fellow; You shall not commit robbery.” The ninth commandment, לא תענה, was placed ninth because it is well known that the ninth (highest) celestial sphere ערבות contains the throne of G’d’s glory where He stored the souls prior to assigning them to bodies; deserving souls return to that region after death. Anyone who testifies falsely denies the existence and significance of that region and as a result his soul will never return to its sacred origin. Finally, the tenth commandment לא תחמוד was placed in tenth position as anyone who covets other people’s possessions and money will not be likely not give up a tenth of the money he already has; he will not set aside his tithes, etc. By placing this commandment in tenth position, the Torah found an elegant way of warning people that the positive commandment of paying one’s tithes is conceptually linked to the negative commandment not to covet. This commandment concludes the list of the Ten Commandments which correspond to the ten celestial spheres The fact that they have not been listed in the order corresponding to the sequence of the ten emanations is testimony to the deep wisdom of our sages who have said that the Torah is under no obligation to write matters in a chronological sequence of events These sages have displayed deep insight into how all of the 613 commandments are represented in the Ten Commandments and the 613 letters that the list comprises. They have even revealed to us the reason for the absence of the letter ט in this version, i.e. the absence of the words למען ייטב לך, a promise written in the second set of Tablets in the Book of Deuteronomy. Kabbalists suggest that the reason may have been that G’d knew that this set of Tablets was going to be smashed and He did not want the letter ט which symbolises טוב to be smashed (compare Baba Kama 55).

Personally, I can think of another reason why the letter ט is absent in the Decalogue (first version). The letter used to represent an allusion to killing or the death penalty in olden days. When the Jews died (80% of them during the ninth plague) which was itself a forerunner to the tenth plague, the wholesale dying of the first born, the letter ט, meaning “killing” was far more closely associated with death than with טוב, and the Torah wanted to avoid such allusions. at this time. [When the Israelites were given the second set of Tablets they were not standing at the mountain in mortal fear of expiring from the impact of G’d’s voice. Ed.] The eating of leavened bread on Passover may have been prohibited because we left Egypt walking from deep spiritual darkness into great spiritual light, i.e. an Exodus orchestrated by the great name of Hashem, not just the “strong hand” which was involved in killing the Egyptian firstborn. At Mount Sinai the great name of Hashem was again in evidence and gave us the Torah. The sages of the Midrash had this in mind when they suggested that the letter ט is a veiled hint of the attribute of Justice. Seeing that the text of the second Tablets has the word שמור instead of the word זכור as the operative word describing Sabbath observance, there has already been a reference to the attribute of Justice, i.e. the negative aspect of the Sabbath observance. It is therefore not surprising that the Torah saw no need to omit the letter ט in that version when writing למען ייטב לך as part of the reward for observing the commandment to honour father and mother. The Ten Commandments may be viewed as completing the circle with the tenth commandment, i.e. just as the first commandment addresses itself primarily to our heart, so the tenth commandment again addresses itself to our heart. The author concludes by citing Avraham (reportedly) the author of the most ancient kabbalistic text, the ספר היצירה which concludes by acknowledging the insights into the emanations granted Avraham by G’d and how he learned to understand by means of the covenant of circumcision the deeper significance of the seven celestial spheres and the 12 signs of the zodiac. Understanding the ten emanations and how they were the prelude to G’d commencing the creation of a physical universe has been paraphrased by Daniel 12,3: “and the wise will shine like the radiance of the firmament and those who make the many righteous (Avraham’s missionary activities on behalf of monotheism) like the stars forever and ever.” Just as the flame is connected to the glowing coal from which it has risen, (i.e. the tangible produced the intangible) this is true in reverse for our world of the apparently tangible, physical, substantive having had its origin in the utterly intangible. [I have paraphrased the words of the author according to my understanding of them. Ed.]

וכל העם רואים את הקולות, “And all the people saw the sounds (thunder), etc.” The word “saw” in this context is to be understood as “understood, comprehended,” similar to when Yitzchak spoke of ראה ריח בני “look at the fragrance of my son” (Genesis 27,27). He was well aware that fragrance just as sound cannot be seen by the eye. He meant that just as the eye is used to understand something clearly, so he experienced a clear understanding of what his son’s fragrance represented. Similarly, here; the Torah describes that the aural perceptions of the people were as convincing to them as if they had experienced the same thing with their eyes, a normally superior tool for clear perceptions. An alternative meaning could be that the Torah employed the word “saw” because these thunders were invariably accompanied by fire, something very visible to the eye. We have examples of such expressions and meanings in Psalms 29,7: “the voice of the Lord kindles flames of fire.” The people then saw the fire not the thunder. The words of the text may then be understood literally without the Torah telling us of an additional miracle.

ובעבור תהיה יראתו על פניכם, “and so that the fear of Him shall remain on your faces, etc.” Mechilta (bachodesh section 8) understands this “fear” as a “sense of shame.” The reason is that fear or reverence are parameters of the heart, whereas shame is something one recognizes in one’s face. This is the reason the Torah refers to it as being על פניכם, “on your faces.” The Torah adds לבלתי תחטאו “in order that you will not sin,” to teach us the psychological lesson that shame inhibits the commission of sin (Mechilta bachodesh section 9).

ויעמוד העם מרחוק ומשה נגש, “The people stood from a distance, whereas Moses went close.” Why did the Torah have to write this, seeing it had already written (in verse 15) that “the people saw and trembled and stood from afar?” We may have to understand that verse 15 describes the people as standing even further distant from the area where the mountain had been fenced off. Now the Torah wanted to tell us that although in the meantime the people had been elevated to the level of being prophets, they were still not comparable to the level of Moses who could approach much closer. The word הערפל with which the Torah describes the place which Moses approached always appears as meaning “a thick darkness” as mentioned by all the commentators such as Rashi, Kimchi, Ibn Ezra, etc. Examples are: Psalms 97,2 ענן וערפל סביביו. The meaning of all this is that the attribute כבוד is not visually accessible even to the angels. This is why David writes in Psalms 18,11: “He made darkness His screen, dark thunderheads, dense clouds of the sky were His pavilion round about Him.”

I believe that the meaning of the word ערפל is a very clear and brilliant form of light, the word being a composite of ערוי אפל, i.e. that the darkness was transfused, emptied out of that place. The word describes a light so brilliant that it blinds so that the viewer sees it no better than he sees darkness. It (this brilliant light) hides matters just as effectively as does ordinary darkness. In other words, the attribute of G’d called כבוד is so brilliant that it remains hidden from the eye. [Just as the human ear can hear only up to a certain number of decibels and anything beyond that number, though sound, cannot be heard by the human ear, so we have something parallel here with the intensity of light. Ed.] Proof that the word ערפל describes a form of light is that the Torah adds אשר שם האלו-הים, “where G’d was.” Daniel 2,22 states that “light is where G’d is,” or (vice-versa). We refer to this fact in the Mussaph prayer on Rosh Hashanah in the paragraph which commences with the words אתה נגלית, “You have become revealed.” The author of that liturgical poem continues with the words ונגלית עליהם בערפלי טוהר, “You revealed Yourself to them in clouds of brilliance.” Moses did not enter the cloud but merely approached it, much like a man approaching the entrance gate of a palace. This is the meaning of the word נגש in our verse. Onkelos translates it as קרב לצד אמיטתא, “he approached the edge of the dense cloud.” In other words, Moses did not cross the boundary of where cloud ended. The Torah adds the words “where G’d was” to explain why Moses did not go any further. At that point the report of the Torah in verse one of our chapter begins, i.e. וידבר אלו-הים את כל הדברים האלה, and all of Israel heard His voice. This was the fulfillment of what G’d had announced previously in 19,,9: “Here I will come to you in the thickness of the cloud in order that the people will hear that I am speaking with you.” The subject matter of these verses here is to make clear that the people had “seen” the voices before the giving of the Torah. This is quite clear from the wording both in chapter 19 and in chapter 24,17 where the people standing at the bottom of the mountain are again described as having seen the glory of G’d in the form of consuming fire at the top of the mountain.

אתם ראיתם כי מן השמים דברתי עמכם, “you have seen that I spoke with you from the heaven.” Seeing that all the Israelites had witnessed with their own eyes all the miracles G’d had performed beginning with the ten plagues in Egypt and now culminating in the giving of the Torah, G’d repeated both at the beginning (19,4) of the Decalogue and at its end the words: “you have seen.” At this point G’d wanted to clarify that though His attribute כבוד had been at Mount Sinai, the voice they heard had not emanated from Mount Sinai but from heaven, as I have already explained previously.

לא תעשון אתי, “Do not make with Me.” The plain meaning of this verse is that ‘you must not make as partner with Me any reproduction in gold or silver which is supposed to represent a deity.’ G’d then repeats: “do not make it for yourselves.” This latter statement includes a prohibition to make such reproductions even if not intended as a form of religious symbol [but merely as a form of art. Ed.]

One may also interpret the words לא תעשון אתי וגו' to mean that “while you are engaged in prayer to Me, do not think of your gold, your silver, etc.; in other words, when you address Me I expect to have your full attention, do not share Me in your thoughts with anything else at such a time. If you were to do that, I would consider it as equivalent to your having made competing deities.”

Rashi writes as follows on the words אלוהי כסף: “this is a warning not to construct the cherubs which were to be part of the lid of the Holy Ark in the Tabernacle to be made of silver (instead of gold). If you were to do that I would consider this as a form of idolatry, as if you had constructed them as a divine image.” He goes on: “the words לא תעשון לכם, mean that you must not construct such cherubs in your synagogues reasoning that just as the cherubs graced the Holy Temple they are appropriate symbols in the synagogues and houses of study.” The Talmud Avodah Zarah 42 understands the words לא תעשון אתי to mean that that “you must not make anything which is with Me, i.e. in My universe.” This is a prohibition not to construct likenesses of what one perceives to be celestial beings i.e. different kinds of angels, אתי, “with Me, in My domain,” neither must you make such likenesses of things in the lower domain, such as the sun and the stars. Seeing that the Torah prohibited the making of images of angels which are perceived as humans with wings attached, I would have thought it would be in order to make reproductions of human heads by themselves; this is why the Torah had to add לא תעשון אתי as if it had been spelled לא תעשון אותי “do not make a reproduction of Me as the head of a human being.” The likenesses (three-dimensional, sculpture) of humans as humans or as superhumans is equally prohibited. Sanhedrin 7 adds further that the words also mean that one should not appoint a judge because he is financially independent but because he possesses the wisdom to know truth from falsehood. According to this interpretation the words אלוהי כסף ואלוהי זהב mean that ownership of silver or gold in substantial quantities does not constitute a reason to deify the owner and to elevate him to a high position. Remember that the Torah often employs the term אלוהים when speaking of judges of flesh and blood.

A Midrashic approach: (Mechilta bachodesh 10) the entire line is a warning not to apply human yardsticks to the way one relates to G’d. Humans revere people who have done them favors, i.e. they only worship and show respect to their deities if these deities treated them in the way they expected or demanded to be treated. If the deity in question did not fulfill their expectations they do no longer show honor and respect to it. An example are the Philistines who did acknowledge their deity when they had captured Samson and gave credit for their success to their deity (Judges 16,24). When idolaters experienced disaster such as described in Isaiah 8,21: “and when he is hungry, he shall rage and revolt against his king and his divine beings,” he takes out his rage on his gods. The Torah’s message to us here is that we have to thank the Lord both for the good and for the unpleasant (which we are foolishly assuming is evil). This is what David said in Psalms 116,13: “I raise the cup of deliverance and invoke the name of the Lord.” In the same psalm verses 3-4 he said: “when the torments of She-ol overtook me, I came upon trouble and sorrow; and I invoked the name of the Lord.” David invoked the same G’d, rain or shine, We find similar sentiments expressed by Job 1,21 who exclaimed after suffering painful reverses: “the Lord has given and the Lord has taken; may the name of the Lord be praised.”

A Kabbalistic approach: I have already explained on 20,2 that the word אתי has a similar meaning to the expression על פני “in addition to Me.” I have to add to what I wrote then that one must imagine the word אתי as derived from את with the vowel tzeyre under the letter aleph. It is similar to ואראה את ה' in Isaiah 6,1: “and I saw the Lord.” Clearly it does not mean that a prophet of the calibre of Isaiah saw the Lord, when G’d had told Moses that no living human being including himself could see the Lord (Exodus 33,20). Isaiah described that he saw something “with” “beside” the Lord. The wicked King Menasheh (prior to his repentance) erred when he read these words of Isaiah taking them at face value, not paying heed to the meaning of the word את. This is why he accused Isaiah of being a false prophet and executed him. (compare discussion in Yevamot 49). The Talmud explains that the reason Isaiah did not defend himself by explaining what I have explained to you was that he knew that Menashe would not accept his explanation and this would make him into a murderer instead of merely a king exercising his authority. According to the Talmud, Isaiah (after uttering the holy name of G’d) hid in the hollow trunk of a cedar. Menashe sawed off the cedar killing Isaiah in the process. Isaiah had been guilty of slandering the Jewish people when he had described himself as living amongst a nation of impure lips (Isaiah 6,5). This is why he was killed when the saw cut through his mouth. The word את or אות mean the same thing. Example Numbers 16,39 וראיתם אותו, “when you see it,” etc. (the blue thread on the fringes). The word אותו in that verse is a derivative of the word את. This is what enabled the sages in the Mechilta which we quoted to interpret the word אתי as if it had been spelled אותי.

בכל המקום אשר אזכיר את שמי, “in any location where I allow My name to be mentioned.” The Torah really should have written תזכיר, i.e. “you mention.” After all, it appears that the message is that wherever man prays to G’d, i.e. mentions His holy name, He would respond.

A kabbalistic approach. The reason the Torah writes אזכיר rather than תזכיר is that the verse provides an opening to help us understand the value of animal sacrifices. These verses (19-23) were spoken by G’d in His capacity as the tetragrammaton. This is also why in verse 22 the Torah does not write ואם מזבח אבנים תעשה לו, “and if you will build an altar of stone for Him,” but it writes ואם מזבח אבנים תעשה לי “if you will construct an altar of stone for Me, any altar must be exclusively for Me in My capacity as the tetragrammaton.” Once you offer sacrifices on such an altar I will cause My goodwill to be drawn toward you, and as a response to these offerings I will bless you. The Torah’s message by writing אזכיר instead of תזכיר is that the blessings will already commence now, they will not await your building the altar that is mentioned in verse 22. The fact that the tetragrammaton, the source of all blessings had begun to dispense it at Mount Sinai means that the whole world will benefit by it. The word אזכיר is associated with expressions such as אזכרתה, i.e. “a memorial portion,” something designed to channel the ריח ניחוח, the pleasant fragrance (allegorical) in the direction of the Almighty bringing to His attention the pure thoughts of the one offering the sacrifice. Expressions such as מזכיר לבונה, (Isaiah 66,3) “using incense to be remembered through it,” or Jeremiah 17,2 כזכור בניהם מזבחותם, “as their children remember their altars,” or Song of Songs 1,4 נזכירה דודיך מיין, ”let us savor it (your love) more than wine,” all refer to spiritual pleasures. The meaning of אזכיר את שמי then is similar to אריח את שמי, “I will allow My name to exude a pleasant fragrance.” Or, “I will let My goodwill follow to where My name has been mentioned in a positive context.” The reason the Torah wrote the letter ה at the beginning of the word מקום, i.e המקום instead of simply כל מקום, is a hint at a site which already existed and was known, i.e. the site of the Holy Temple in the future. It was the site where Yaakov had spent the night where he had the dream with the ladder. It was the site where Solomon built the Temple of which he said: והבית אשר בניתי לשמך. Had the Torah not written the letter ה in front of the word מקום we would have concluded that it would be in order to build the Temple wherever we saw fit to do so. We have been warned against offering sacrifices wherever we want to in Deut. 12,13-14: “be on guard not to offer your burnt-offerings in any place which you see, except in the place that the Lord your G’d will choose; there you may offer your burnt-offerings.”

לא תבנה אתהן גזית, “do not build them hewn.” The reason for this prohibition of hewn stones to be used on G’d’s altar is to avoid stones meant to serve as an altar to be partially discarded. This would not be appropriate, would not honour G’d. This is Ibn Ezra’s reason for this commandment.

Maimonides (Moreh Nevuchim 3,45) writes a reason for this in his essay dealing with underlying reasons for the command- ments which seems rather remote. He suggests that this was forbidden so that people would not make some kind of image of the parts of the stones that had been discarded and make them part of their flooring, their mosaic floors.

Nachmanides supplies a much better sounding reason claiming that using instruments that are instruments of war to fashion the stones for an altar which symbolises peace would seem a contradiction in terms. Esau’s power derives from his father’s blessing ועל חרבך תחיה, “and you will survive by the sword” (Genesis 27,40). At the same time, G’d is on record repeatedly as saying that He hates Esau and what Esau stands for (Malachi 1,3). Esau is the very antithesis of the altar. Actually, the principal prohibition is not that the stones are hewn but the fact that in order to be hewn iron instruments, instruments used to wage war have to be used. This is made plain in the words at the end of the verse: “for your sword has been raised over it.” You have a similar verse in Deut. 27,5: לא תניף עליהם ברזל, “do not raise iron above them.” If a stone which is hewn is made by use of chemicals such as the secretion of the Shamir worm or a silver hammer, the Torah would actually not object to an altar so constructed. The main purpose of the prohibition is to ensure that iron is not used in construction of or use on the altar. The reason that in our verse the word “iron” is paraphrased as “your sword,” is that the sword is a destructive agent bringing death to the world. The altar’s purpose is to ensure that peace reigns on earth. It is therefore conceptually difficult to reconcile the use of iron in building the altar. When you peruse the gifts the people brought for construction of the Tabernacle you will not find that any iron was contributed. None was used in its construction. Kings I 6,7 makes a point of mentioning that during the seven years it took to build Solomon’s Temple “the sound of a hammer, ax, or iron tool was never heard in the House while it was being built.” There is a commentary which views the words “in the House” as meaning that only inside the Temple were iron tools not heard, but they were used outside of it without restriction. This means that items requiring iron tools were constructed outside and not brought into the Temple until they had been completed.

A Midrashic approach: (Mechilta bachodesh 11) The words “for you will have raised your sword over it,” teaches that whereas the altar’s function is to prolong man’s life, the sword’s function is to shorten it. It would therefore be incongruous if a tool designed to shorten man’s life were to be employed in building a structure whose function is to prolong man’s life on earth. This teaches that every single commandment of the Torah has many different facets, that in fact the words of the Torah are reminiscent of someone striking and smashing a rock. Splinters will fly in all directions (Jeremiah 23,29). In other words, when one studies Torah intently, many different reasons for each commandment will suddenly surface. Every one of these reasons will be of value both to our bodies and to our souls. They enrich the lives of the people who discover these reasons. This is what Solomon had in mind when he said (Proverbs 4,22) “for they are life for those who find them and healing for all his flesh.”