"You stand for the Ten Commandments -- and the Song of the Sea -- not because they are more important than other pieces, but to replicate the experience," says Arian, formally a pulpit rabbi at a Conservative synagogue in York, Pa. "They didn't sit down to cross the Reed Sea, they walked. They stood at Sinai. One bit of the Torah is not more important than the others."

Finally, not only are the numbering and significance of the Decalogue a matter of dispute; its content is unclear as well. There are, of course, two versions of the Decalogue in the Torah, one beginning with Exodus 20:2 and the other with Deuteronomy 5:6. These versions differ in important respects, the most well-known of which regards the Fourth Commandment. In the Exodus version, the word zachor (remember) is used ("Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.") In Deuteronomy, the word shamor (safeguard) is substituted ("Observe the Shabbat day and keep it holy.") Such differences, to those who believe the Torah to be written by humans and assembled from multiple texts, are clear proof that the Ten Commandments are not the "word(s) of God." To traditionalists, God can recite multiple words simultaneously, and thus there are no inconsistencies. Alternatively, since the recitation in Deuteronomy was part of Moses' speech to the Israelites before his death, some commentators suggest that Moses wanted to editorialize a bit. Homiletical interpretations abound -- for example, that God wanted to make sure the Israelites understood that there are both normative and restrictive aspects to the Sabbath laws -- but the ambiguity remains.

Granite and Irony

Roy Moore sought, in two-ton granite symbols, a symbol of unchanging truth and bedrock principles which undergird his America. Yet in fact the two tablets contain within them a complicated, contentious, and ambiguous text. Ironically, the tablets of Moore's Law may well be an apt and unintended symbol for what democratic judicial review, like Biblical interpretation, is meant to be about: wrestling with uncertain meaning, understanding text in the context of lived experience. They may not, indeed, be carved in stone.

Indeed, for many, the chief significance of the Ten Commandments is not in their content but in Sinai's status a revelatory moment. Says Rabbi Newman, "it is not so much the Ten Commandments, as it is the representation of the revelation, the expression of God's desire that we adhere to the Divine." So contrary to Moore's presumed reading, Sinai is a moment of imperative, not dogmatism: the two tablets stand as a challenge to sort out what a life of Divine significance would be.

[1]       [2]       3 Image: Moses Receiving the Ten Commandments, in Reuben Machsor mechol haschana (Jewish Holy Day Prayer Book for the Whole Year) Germany, ca. 1290, leaves 59b, 50a Vellum (2) (in the Saxon State Library)

Joel N. Shurkin is the author of numerous books and articles, including Am I Crazy or is my Shrink: Finding the Help I Need (1998). He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1979 for his coverage of Three Mile Island.

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