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By Root 400 0

evidence for Sinai, either in the historical or the philosophical realm. There is rather only testimony, which I take to be quite different. Evidence is impersonal, betokening impartiality, an objective claim that no rational mind could deny. Testimony is all about engagement; it is wholly personal, indeed can only be spoken with the entire self.52 It does not exist for the sake of argument, in order to convince others. It exists for itself, though others may be impressed by it and their hearts may be turned. We Israelites as a faith-community are those who see ourselves as having stood, as still standing, at the base of that mountain. “My soul went forth as He spoke” (Song of Songs 5:6) is the watchword of that experience. We indeed fainted, as the Talmud interprets that phrase,53 as God began to speak. All the rest that we heard was in a swoon.

How do we go about creating a society where the message of Sinai is universally upheld and revered? At the mountain the people of Israel committed themselves to seeking an answer to that question. It is the answer to which we said: “We will do and we will listen!” affirming our commitment even before the words were spoken. It is the answer we then received engraved on the tablets. Those first tablets, the story tells us, were more than we could bear. They are described as “made by God and written by God” (Ex. 32:16). They had to be smashed because (contrary to our first outcry) we were not really ready to receive them. The second tablets were said to be fashioned by Moses, in his own human way, and inscribed by God. These we were ready to receive; the wording on them was essentially the same.

Those ten “words” form the constitution of the Republic of the Hebrews, to borrow a phrase from Spinoza. We also designate it as “the Kingdom of Heaven” here on earth, refusing to make any distinction between those two. But it is a constitution made not for us alone, defining the life of this particular people. It is also the curriculum or the catechism that we as “a kingdom of priests” are to teach and give to the world. It is time for us to return to these ten, to explore them deeply and to ask what it would mean to make them the basis of all that we seek to teach and give.

The essential principles, as I have suggested, are contained in the first two commandments, “Know the One!” and “Worship nothing less!” The remaining eight are there to define and shape the way we do this, to help that transcendent message enter safely into the lives of real, fallible human beings and societies. I offer just a few words of comment on each, interpreting them in this way as themselves refining, exemplifying, and commenting on those first two commandments that contain them and all the rest. I understand these latter eight commandments as embodying Moses’ first attempt to take the two, those all Israel heard directly (or, in my language, those that proceed directly from this respoken “Where are you?”), and I try to embody them in the reality of human life and community. Because Moses is known to us as Moshe Rabbenu (“Moses our teacher”) and, not incidentally, since I have spent my life as a teacher, I understand them mostly as admonitions to teachers, though they would apply to other sorts of leaders as well. Israel's priesthood is one mainly devoted to teaching. Here are some things we as teachers of humanity need to remember along the way. Let us turn first to the remaining three commandments on the first tablet:

Do not raise up the name of Y-H-W-H your God in vain. Honesty is an essential virtue in religious teaching. Hypocrisy is the “sin crouching at the door,” as God says to Cain, of every would-be teacher. Do not speak glibly. Do not preach things you do not believe. Do not lie, even to yourself. At the same time, do not be unduly certain of yourself. Certainty too often allows us to neglect the experience of others, keeping us from acknowledging their part of truth. If you are sure, you are probably wrong. It is in moments of self-assurance that you are most likely to betray God by taking the