Jewish Civilization and Its Discontents:


2001-02

Sponsored by the Jerry and Joy Monkarsh Family

Hananiah son of R. Joshua's brother said: Just as in the sea there are ripples and wavelets between each major wave, so between each of the Ten Commandments there were Torahs unwritten minutiae, as well as all of Torah's letters. (Palestinian Talmud, Shekalim 6:1, 49d)

"And all the people perceived the thunderings"
(Exodus 20:15). Since there was only one voice, why "thunderings" in the plural? Because God's voice mutated into seven voices, and the seven voices into seventy languages, so that all the nations might hear it.
(Exodus Rabbah 5:9)

Coordinated and Moderated by Kenneth Reinhard,
Chaim-Seidler Feller, and Elliot Dorff


Oct. 4th
Introduction

Oct. 11th
1. I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt.

Oct. 18th
2. Do not have any other gods before me;
do not represent these false gods in images.

Nov. 1st
3. Do not take the name of God in vain.

Nov. 29th
4. Remember the Sabbath, to keep it holy.

Dec. 6th
5. Honor your father and mother.

Jan. 10th
6. Do not murder.

Jan. 24th
7. Do not commit adultery.

Feb. 7th
8. Do not steal.

Feb. 2st
9. Do not testify as a false witness against your neighbor.

March 7th
10. Do not covet your neighbor's house, wife, etc.

Foundations of Jewish Civilization

For many people today, the Ten Commandments stand for simple moral certainty, whether as divinely ordained principles that all righteous people should uphold (and proclaim in our central public institutions of school an d c ourt) or as emblematic of the attempt of the Moral Majority to impose narrow religious beliefs on the secular world. But both perspectives fail to take into account the remarkable textual and historical complexity of these so-calle d commandments and their legacies - both conservative and progressive - in the modern world.

The Decalogue is neither obvious nor irrelevant. Either to intone the commandments as a universal code for right living or to reject them as an example of trite moral sententiousness is to miss the very real challenge they present to us today.

This open forum is meant to restore the Decalogue to public scrutiny and commentary as a living text that confronts us with enduring problems - interpretive, historical, and ethical. These questions lie at the heart of our legal system and continue to test our best thinking.

Elliot Dorff, Chaim Seidler-Feller,
Julia Reinhard Lupton

David Lieber, Jack Miles

Elliot Dorff, Yitzak Etshalom, Grace Grossman

Brad Artson, Laurie Levenson

Chaim Seidler-Feller, Joseph Everson

Ed Feinstein, Julia Reinhard Lupton

Robert Wexler, Khaled Abou el Fadl

Deborah Orenstein, Doreen Seidler-Feller

Stewart Vogel, David Nimmer,
Pamela Brubaker

Mordecai Findley, Daniel Smith-Christopher

Elie Spitz , Richard Mouw