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Poroshas Ekev ב''ה SERMON RESOURCE FOR SHLUCHIM DISTRIBUTION DATE: FRIDAY, FE BRUARY 2ND 2018– 17 SHVAT 5778 PARSHAS YISRO SERMON TITLE: Taking a Stand for the Ten Commandments Yisro Taking a Stand for the Ten Commandments Good Shabbos! Anyone ever hear of the Nash Papyrus? [Interact with audience] Well, as some of you know, the Nash Papyrus is the name for the four fragments of papyrus discovered in Egypt in 1898 and reassembled by the archaeologist Walter Nash. On the papyrus, which is written in ancient Semitic script dating back to the end of the Second Temple Era, interestingly enough, there appears the text of the Ten Commandments, followed by the beginning of the "Shema." Researchers estimate that the papyrus dates back to the Second Century BCE. The discovery verifies the custom mentioned in the Mishnah (Tractate Tamid), that in the Beis Hamikdash, during the daily prayers, the Ten Commandments were recited before reciting the "Shema." And the Mishnah (Tamid 5:1) states, "The appointee would say to them, 'Bless one blessing'... [and] they would recite the Ten Commandments, the "Shema," "V'Haya Im Shamo'a," "Vayomer...", and the Priestly Blessing. In addition to that, among the scrolls discovered in the Qumran Caves in the Judean Desert in the early 1950s, they also discovered a tefillin headpiece that contained parchment inscribed with the Ten Commandments. To this day, it's not clear who wrote those scroll and tefillin parchments. Some argue that they belonged to a cult called the Essenes, and not to Jews who guarded and protected the Mesorah, our authentic Torah tradition. Now, historians write that the Egyptian Jewish community of Fostat, just outside of Cairo, had a special scroll in their ark which they called the Book of Song, and they would take it out every morning after the prayers and read the Ten Commandments from it. What's more, the Talmud (Tractate Brachos 12a) implies that there were communities in ancient Israel and Bavel (Babylon) that wanted to add the Ten Commandments to the standard Tefilos (prayers): "Rabbi Yehudah said in the name of Shmuel, 'Even in the outposts did they want to recite thusly, but that recital had already been negated due to the chaos of the heretics.' " And the Talmud cites a story regarding this issue, in which they tried to enact that amendment in the Diaspora: "Rabbah, son of Bar Chanah argued for establishing it in Sura... and Ameimar [another Sage] argued for establishing it in Neharde'a." In other words, the Sages of Bavel tried to induct it into the official format of the Tefilos, but refrained "due to the chaos of the heretics." 2 What this means is that there were those in the Jewish community who saw this custom of reciting the Ten Commandments every day as functioning as a "proof" that only the Ten Commandments came from G-d. As Rashi put it: "So that they should not communicate to the rest of the world that the rest of the Torah is not true and make it 'known' that they do not read anything but what G-d said and what was heard from His Mouth at Sinai." So, just who were these "heretics," then, who tried to introduce doubt into the heart of the Jewish Nation that the Torah is not true, G-d forbid? Rashi merely says, idol worshippers, but there is also another opinion that says that the "heretics" here were "talmidei Yeishu,", the early Christians who protested against the tradition of the divine source of the Torah from Heaven. According to this opinion, it was they who argued that only the Ten Commandments came from G-d--and "the rest of the Torah is not true." And so, the Sages decided that it would be better to uproot the entire custom of reciting the Ten Commandments in the Tefilos every day--so long as there never take root a false belief that only the Ten Commandments came from Heaven, but that all the rest "was conceived by Moshe in his heart," G-d forbid. But the story doesn't end there. The Ten Commandments were (and are!) so vital to the Jewish Nation that they found their way back into many Siddurim. For example, Rabbeinu Yaakov Ben Asher, a.k.a. the Baal HaTurim, writes that everyone should recite the Ten Commandments privately every day. Rabbi Yosef Caro, the compiler of the Shulchan Aruch, aslo writes that the Sages only forbade the reciting of the Ten Commandments during group prayers. However, he notes, it's proper to recite them privately every day after the Tefilos. And indeed, in many of the Siddurim, the Ten Commandments appear after the Tefilos between the Six Remembrance and Maimonides' Thirteen Principles of Faith. But the debate continued--and the Jewish Nation, despite by and large stopping the recital of the Ten Commandments as a part of the Tefilos, still wanted to honor and especially emphasize the Ten Commandments when they are read from the Torah in synagogues three times a year: on Shavuos, in the Torah portion of Vaes'chanan, and in our Parshah here this week. In the year 1934, a compilation of responsa from Maimonides were popularized. And in one of those responses, the questioners relate to Maimonides that in their synagogue, the custom was to rise and remain standing during the reading of the Ten Commandments--but that several generations prior, a great rabbi and Torah scholar came to their city and canceled their custom, arguing that it constituted "chaos of the heretics." And ever since, the writers wrote to Maimonides, they had the custom of sitting during the reading of the Ten Commandments in synagogue. Now, the writers continued, a new rabbi was recently appointed, who came from a city in which the custom was to stand during the reading of the Ten Commandments. This new rabbi, of course, wanted to apply his custom to his new congregation, arguing that the 3 verse (Shmos 19:17) "and they stood under the mountain" means that you have to stand. The inevitable result was that a dispute broke out in the synagogue--with some of the congregants standing and some of them sitting. So now, they turned to Maimonides, asking him what they should do. Well, Maimonides followed in the footsteps of the custom of the community's previous rabbi, and for the same reason mentioned in the Talmud. And Maimonides wrote, "Any place where the custom is to stand, it is necessary to counter them, because what results from this smacks of a gradual degrading of faith in the Torah, bit by bit, and this is a very bad thing." And Maimonides adds: "As for what the other scholar argues--that in Baghdad and a few other cities, they indeed do so--this does not constitute a proof whatsoever, because no one would say that healthy people should purposely get sick so as to be the same as sick people. Instead, we would say that we should try to heal every sick person to the extent possible" (Responsa, Maimonides, Section 46). The story is also told about how there was a Jewish community in which there there was a fight every Shabbos in the synagogue--because some people stood during the reading of the Torah and some people sat. So in order to finally put an end to this squabble, they sent a delegation to the chief rabbi. "Honorable rabbi," they asked, "Is it the custom to stand during the reading of the Torah?" "No," he replied. "So the custom would be to sit, then?" "No," the rabbi again replied. "Honorable rabbi! Every Shabbos, in our synagogue we have a fight!" "Yes," said the rabbi. "That's the custom!" But seriously, my friends, despite Maimonides' battle against it, even in his Jewish community in Egypt they had the custom of standing during the reading of the Ten Commandments. So we discover here a wonderful phenomenon--that despite the efforts of the Sages of the Mishnaic and Talmudic Eras, as well as those of the Rishonim like Maimonides, who all tried to ban any custom that would impart special honor upon the Ten Commandments, whether in the Tefilos or in the Torah readings--the Jewish Nation still found ways to restore it to the Siddur and to the reading of the Torah. The great Sage Hillel said (Talmud, Tractate Pesachim 66a), "Leave Israel be--if they are not Prophets, they are sons of Prophets." What that means is when Jews are drawn to 4 one custom, it's a sign that there is a spark of prophecy to it. So what makes the Ten Commandments unique is the fact that it is the foundation for Jewish faith. As Maimonides writes, so long as belief in G-d was based on the Ten Plagues and the Splitting of the Reed Sea, on signs and miracles, then it is a faith that can be doubted-- because every charlatan says that he does miracles and that he speaks in the name of G- d. With the Ten Commandments, by contrast, "Our eyes, not a stranger's, saw; our ears, not another's, heard; the fire, the thunder and the flames; and he approached the thick smoke as the voice spoke to him as we heard... and from where do we know that the Stand at Mt. Sinai itself is the proof that Moshe's prophecy is true and has no falsehood? As the verse states, 'Behold, I come unto you in the thick cloud so that the nation shall hear as I speak to you, and shall also believe in you forever'--from which we deduce that before that, they didn't believe in Moshe with a faith that would endure forever" (Maimonides, Laws of Torah Fundamentals 8:1).
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