Last week we discussed the transition from mitzvot regarding God and mitzvot regarding human beings, the first one being to honor your father and your mother. We discussed the result of doing so, your days may be long on the soil (adamah) that YHVH, your God, is giving you, and noted that the long days referred to are those of the community not of the individual. Honoring parents leads to strong community.

We discussed the two-word commandments. We noted that “murder” implies wrongful killing unlike “kill” which suggests any kind of killing. We noted that adultery was sex by a married man with someone else’s wife (not with any woman whatsoever). We noted that the prohibition on stealing holds society together. We also noted that different editions of Torah number the verses in which these mitzvot appear differently. R. Sara glossed the next mitzvah as “you shall not answer your neighbor with lying (or, false) witness.

We discussed the commandment against coveting your neighbor’s house, wife, servant, maid, ox, ass or anything the neighbor has. R. Sara noted that coveting is not the same as envying. Coveting, instead, is wanting what someone else has. We noted that coveting can lead to violation of other commandments and so is appropriate at the end. We noted that coveting is not an action but a feeling or emotion. We noted that some control or shaping of emotions is possible.

We noted the people seeing thunder, flashes, the sound of a horn and the mountain smoking—and the people moving and standing at a distance when they saw all this. We started discussing the people telling Moses to speak with them, not God, so that they would not die and Moses telling them not to be afraid because God was coming to test them and so that fear of him to be on their faces so that they would not sin. R. Sara reminded us of different kinds of fear, this one (yirah) being closer to awe while another (pachad) has to do with fear of danger.

Our artwork this week is from Israeli Jewish artist, Avner Moriah (1953- ), The Gathering at Mt. Sinai (above) and Mishpatim 1 (below). The latter illustrates the command to return an enemy’s ox or ass. The former shows the people at the foot of the flashing mountain.