Torah Study 2
State violence and the Ten Commandments
My sister’s Bat Mitzvah is approaching, so I’ve begun attending Shabbat services regularly. Naturally, it’s deluded me into thinking I can be a rabbi, so I’ve started a weekly series of Torah commentaries. Last week, we saw the Red Sea parted for the Israelites as they escaped from Pharaoh, and discussed the harmfulness of status quo bias.1
1.
This week’s parsha is called Jethro—or Yitro, in Hebrew.
It’s named after Moses’ father-in-law, who sets all of its events in motion. Yitro isn’t one of the Israelites though—he’s a priest of some other primitive religion, and, according to Kabbalistic teachings, even a member of Pharaoh’s court.
Still, he hears of the great miracles performed by God on behalf of the Israelites, and he comes to meet Moses by the base of Mount Sinai.2
The two talk and Moses tells Yitro about all the miracles God performed, and Yitro is astounded and he praises God and declares Him greater than all other gods.
has a wonderful commentary on how Yitro teaches us to focus on what matters most. I’ll quote briefly, but it’s worth reading in full:Abraham follows God. Ruth follows Naomi. Jethro follows the news. Each, in their own way, grasps what matters most: Abraham, the theologian, understands that there is one God worth following above all else. Ruth, in her declaration “your God shall be my God,” cuts through all the complexity of conversion to grasp the essential truth that joining the Jewish people means joining their destiny. And Yitro, the student of Jewish history, sees through the noise of consensus political opinion to recognize the hand of God in history.
Yitro sticks around for a little while. The next day, he watches Moses sit among the Israelites as they pester him with questions, complaints, and disagreements “from morning until evening.” Yitro doesn’t understand what’s going on, and Moses explains:
It is because the people come to me to inquire of God. When they have a dispute, it comes before me, and I decide between one party and another, and I make known the laws and teachings of God. (Exodus 18:15-16)
Of course, Yitro’s been doing the whole wise-man-priest routine for a lot longer, and he scolds Moses:
The thing you are doing is not right; you will surely wear yourself out, and these people as well. For the task is too heavy for you; you cannot do it alone. (Exodus 18:17-18)
He tells Moses to establish a court system. To find some trustworthy men who can adjudicate disputes, and split the workload. Now, these men won’t have the same direct line to God that Moses does, so they’ll need some code to work from. They’ll need law.
2.
Yitro leaves and the first chapter of the parsha ends. The Israelites build up their camp at the base of Mount Sinai and Moses ascends to speak to God.
God brags for a little while about how great and loving he is for having brought the Israelites out of Egypt, for bearing them “on eagles’ wings,” and so forth. Then he gets to the point: he has a covenant for the Israelites to sign on to.
Coming down from the mountain, Moses gathers the elders, and they all agree to do whatever God asks of them.
So Moses goes back up, and God tells him to make sure everybody’s nice and clean, and to put up some barriers to keep people from getting too close to the mountain, since He’ll be descending from heaven with His covenant in three days’ time.
Moses goes down and tells everyone to wash up and stay clear of the mountain (he and the elders put up barriers), and also tells all the men not to have sex with any of the women.3
Seemingly everyone agrees to this, and on the third day, a dark cloud descends over Mount Sinai and the blast of a shofar sounds. God descends on the mountain in smoke and fire, the smoke of which is very smoky, and the shofar grows louder. Moses tries to talk to God, and God answers in thunder so everyone can hear Him and tremble.
Then God tells Moses to come up the mountain so they can chat in private.
And then He tells him to go back down to warn the people not to come up because He’s a bit bashful, and doesn’t want them to see Him.
Moses is like, “dude, you already told us to put up barriers around the base of the mountain, and also you’re a ball of fire speaking in thunder. No one is eager to come up right now.”
God says, “oh, lol, right.” And then he still insists Moses go down and bring his brother Aaron back up with him before He’ll give the Commandments.
The Torah doesn’t say this, but I think Moses is probably getting a little pissed at this point. Still, it’s God, whatcha gonna do, so he brings Aaron up Mount Sinai and then God delivers the Decalogue.
First, He states the obvious: “I am the Lord your God.” Okey doke.
Then he gets a little long-winded: “You shall have no other gods besides Me” (Exodus 20:3) is followed by a few paragraphs explaining how much He really means it. Also don’t take His name in vain. Then the Commandment to keep the sabbath day is the most verbose—it gets four dedicated verses—and “honor your father and your mother” comes with a couple clauses of elaboration.
But starting with the sixth Commandment, we hit the rapid-fire round:
You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. (Exodus 20:13)
These four all share one verse, no further explanation necessary.
Then “you shall not covet” gets its own lengthy treatment, and it’s over.
Moses comes back down from the mountain. When God spoke, the Israelites had only seen a horrific show of thunder and lightning. They’re understandably freaked out, and Moses tries to soothe them:
Be not afraid; for God has come only in order to test you, and in order that the fear of God may be ever with you, so that you do not go astray.
Be not afraid! God has only come to make you afraid.
3.
At my synagogue, a boy was celebrating his Bar Mitzvah—let’s call him Yoily, for reasons of privacy and hilarity—and he gave a D’var Torah, an interpretation of the parsha.
Yoily made two observations: God’s law differed from Pharaoh’s, and the Commandment to honor your parents was unlike the others.
These observations were astute! Unfortunately, he drew exactly the wrong conclusions from them.4
According to Yoily, Pharaoh ruled through violence and fear. The enslaved Israelites all got along pretty well with each other, but only because they had no other options. Disagreement or conflict or rebellion would’ve meant death.
God, on the other hand, ruled through contract. Social contract, Yoily clarified repeatedly, much to my frustration. He offered the Israelites a covenant and they agreed of their own free will. They formed a society on happy and equal footing, in harmony with one another and with God. 🌈.
This is silly for a couple reasons: most obviously, this wasn’t a social contract, but a divine one. The Israelites didn’t surrender some natural rights to one another in return for mutual cooperation, they surrendered to God.
Moreover, it sure doesn’t seem like they entered the contract very freely. They received a list of demands from a magical, scary fireball on which they relied for food, water, and guidance in the wilderness, and capitulated to it. Could Moses have returned with a counteroffer? Yes to the sabbath, but we get to worship idols on a biweekly basis, and the priestly class should be allowed to adulter. Of course not! God would just smite him and the Israelites and find some other people to offer His covenant.
God is a ruler of men, just as Pharaoh was. And the only source of legitimacy for a ruler is violence. The ability to use violence against any of his subjects, any way he pleases. And it works best if his subjects know that he’s capable of this. Sure, God will probably treat the Israelites somewhat better than Pharaoh. He’ll perform miracles for them and provide them a society of their own. But he still must rule them, and he has to use fear. This is the source of Moses’ paradox: Be not afraid! God has only come to make you afraid… so that you’ll follow His word and be worthy of His beneficence.
Rashi writes that “the words of the Torah may be explained as concise statements: from what is included in a positive statement we may infer the negative and from what is included in a negative statement we may infer the positive.” Moses has given the negative statement: don’t be afraid of God because He’s only trying to stop you from going astray. We infer the positive: be afraid of going astray. Be afraid to transgress your ruler’s will.
God’s Commandments are all very clear-cut—you shall take this specific action, you shall not take that one—except for one: to honor your parents. God is saying that in the case of any confusion—anything not covered by these Commandments (or by any of the many, many other mitzvot listed in the Torah)—just honor what your mom tells you. Honor, not obey. What does it mean to honor?
Yoily spelled this out nicely: it’s about entering dialogue. About respecting their opinion, and making concessions to it, holding it in high esteem, but not submitting to it completely. Yoily thought this was a nice representation of the social contract—in fact, he thought this Commandment’s form was the true version of all the others. That God is never asking you to obey his will, only to honor it.
Again, wrong, you little snot-nosed dweeb.5
If God only wanted us to honor the Commandments, they wouldn’t be called Commandments!6 The point is complete submission. Before God, we must submit completely. Divine covenant is in a separate class from the social contract, from dialogical relationships.
4.
If you believe in God, feel free to stop here. Your relationship with God is actually really special is a pretty lame lesson, but it’s a legitimate one. Maybe go read
on how awesome it is to be a theist (response forthcoming, maybe, probably), and relish in what a happy world you inhabit.Alas, I remain mostly an atheist, and so have to bring this commentary to a boring old atheistic conclusion.
We’ve said that there’s a significant difference between divine covenant and social contract. Which would you rather your government base itself on?
Would you prefer a government that acts like an almost-worryingly-permissive father, or one that fashions itself as your God?
Then ask yourself: what sort of government am I living under?
When I was born, I became an American citizen. I was bound by the US Constitution and subject to violent retribution from US law enforcement if I stepped out of line. I couldn’t vote—I still can’t vote—and besides, everyone knows that we can’t realistically pass amendments to the Constitution anymore. To me, that all feels more divine than parental.
Look, I’m not a complete lunatic anarchist. There’s some room for divine-style governance. Certainly, I don’t think laws around murder or assault should be opt-in, and subject to extensive debate.
But when we try to enumerate the laws that should be divine, what will we find? Recall, divine laws are enforced through fear and credible threat of violence. It seems like that can only be justified in order to prevent further violence.
In other words, government’s job is to be a violence-minimizer. Otherwise, it should humbly shut up, withdraw its forces, and let its civilians engage in threat-free dialogue over how to treat each other well.
Usually, the government should not be your God—keep an eye on when it tries to be.
Lukethoughts
(Lucas and I have clearly got some kind of a symbiosis going on. When I’m writing incoherently, he’s lucid and sane. When I put on my rabbi hat, he’s having a stroke.)
“The lion king movie was trash and somebody needs to be fired at Disney for thinking it was good.” (Ed. note: Did some new Lion King movie come out? Or does Luke just not feel like being topical at all?)
“I don’t like pizza but I think the stuffing makes the pizza more than the actual… pizza? Idk whatever the hell the non crust part is called.” (Ed. note: I- Just, like, what?)
“Someone needs to make it not be winter because this shit is just getting annoying now. The only good part about it is when you exhale you can see your breath.” (Ed. note: Winter weather is such a good excuse to stay inside and be depressed—why would you possibly want it to end? Then who could I blame for my sad couch-potato days but myself? What a terrible thought.)
“Also fuck billy happy and Willy loman. As the person who had to play Linda in our reenactment of the play, I’m tired of being fucking abused.” (Ed. note: Does he mean Biff? He must, right? Luke was a pretty good Linda in our classroom reading, except for when he beat the “I’m using a high voice” joke to death, and then beat it some more, and then shat on the corpse, and then beat his shit too.)
There’s also a short section in that post dedicated to the layout of Jewish scripture, and a rundown of the Passover story. Both of those are good context for today’s commentary too.
How’d he hear about those miracles though? It’s only been a few months… Parshat Yitro is the subject of much debate for the rabbis. It consists of three chapters—Yitro visiting Moses, Moses getting ready for the Ten Commandments, and then God revealing the Commandments—and there are a few verses that make it seem like they’re written out of order.
For instance, Yitro offers a burnt sacrifice to God—but a sacrificial altar wouldn’t be built until about a year after the Commandments were received. After Yitro leaves, the next chapter implies that it’s taking place right after the Israelites defeated Amalek, which came at the end of the previous parsha, seemingly leaving out Yitro’s whole arc. And, of course, it’d be strange if word traveled quickly enough for Yitro to visit so soon, whereas a year would give him plenty of time.
The majority opinion is that Yitro’s visit did come before the revelation, though Ibn Ezra dissents, and I find him compelling. Regardless, I’ll follow the conventional chronology here.
Rashi explains this with some fascinating medieval physiology: in three days, each woman will have to be ready to take a bath. The concern is that “[i]f they have relations within the three days, the woman could [involuntarily] expel semen after her immersion and become unclean again.” Luckily, after three days, semen becomes “putrid” and impotent, so it won’t be able to contaminate the women.
On further research, it seems like Rashi was actually being a bit overconfident! Sperm can survive for up to five days in the female reproductive tract. Not a bad guess for the 11th century, though, and incredible for around 1200 BC, if Moses was using the same logic behind the scenes. Truly we are the chosen people.
This is a thirteen year-old I’m criticizing, so I’m gonna try not to be a massive dick about it. Overall, his speech was nice and thoughtful and sweet, just philosophically muddled to all hell.
Let me be fully transparent: I walked into that synagogue, and the place fucking reeked of marijuana. Yoily and/or his dipshit friends must have been responsible. I’m allowed to be an asshole.
They’d be Suggestiments.