This past week we read the Torah portion of the giving of the 10 commandments. When you look at some of the commandments, they seem simplistic and elementary. Some of the most primitive civilizations enacted these laws (e.g. do not murder). So the question is, what moral innovation do the 10 commandments teach?
Each commandment is actually a general ethic that spawns a set of laws that are a novelty in how to treat others with compassion. They contain measures that although are simple, are shot through with psychological insight. For example, failure to respond to another person’s greeting is included under the commandment of not to steal. When we don’t reciprocate another person’s greeting, we rob them of self-respect, and that is the most profound form of robbery.
I personally really appreciated this because I saw two different, yet beautiful insights:
#1 You can only steal something that belongs to someone. That means the Torah can only declare an unreturned greeting a bonafide theft when each person is inherently deserving of self-respect.
#2 If such a seemingly inconsequential action can rob a man of his self-worth, the message of the Torah is not that people are frail and fragile, but that our actions are significant and powerful, even the most insignificant ones. That despite the smallness of our actions in space and time, they can carry with them endless meaning in the hearts and minds of a person. An unrequited greeting can serve a blow to someone’s self-esteem. A simple smile can lift a person out of their gloom and can be an intoxicating affirmation of their inner beauty and value. A sincere compliment can bring warmth to them on a cold winter evening; or supply them with a much-needed breeze on a sweltering, breathless day.
In that vein, the 10 commandments are anything but primitive. They are guideposts to an endless code that unravels transcendent and compassionate behavior.
2022