Today, the Talmud discusses the option of adding the Ten Commandments to Keriat Shema (recitation). In the time of the Temple, the Ten Commandments were actually read along with Keriat Shema. The question here was whether to add them to the regular daily services outside the Temple and even after the destruction of the Temple. The answer the Talmud gives is no. We’ll address the reason for this in a minute, but before we get to the Talmud’s answer and understand what it means, I think it’s important that we review the Ten Commandments. Unfortunately, many Jews—I don’t want to say most, but many Jews—are not all that clear on the Ten Commandments if you ask them what they are. So let’s go through them really, really quickly.
The first one is Anochi Hashem: God is saying that we have to believe that He is the one and only Creator of the world, the God who took us out of Egypt. The second is Lo Yihyeh: that you should have no other gods for yourself. You should not believe in any other deity. Number three, Lo Tisa: we should not swear falsely or mention God’s name in vain. Zachor et yom haShabbat: observing the Shabbat is the fourth. The fifth is Kabed et avicha ve'et imecha: that we are to honor our parents. Lo Tirtzach: we shall not—we shall not kill. Lo Tin'af: we should not commit adultery. Lo Tignov: we’re not allowed to steal. And here, stealing is in the form of kidnapping. Lo Ta'aneh ve're'acha ed shaker: that we should not bear as a false witness to our fellow. And the tenth is Lo Tachmod: that we’re not to covet anything that belongs to someone else. These are the Ten Commandments.
So now the Talmud gives a reason why the idea of adding the Ten Commandments to Keriat Shema was turned down. The words the Talmud uses are, “Because of the arguments of the heretics.” There are different ways to understand this, and it’s quite interesting to note. The first is the explanation of Rashi and most of the commentaries, which explain that heretics, non-believers, will come to people who are less well-versed in Torah, maybe more ignorant, whom the Talmud refers to as amei ha'aretz (common people). They’ll tell them, “Look, only the Ten Commandments are the ones that you need to observe, because those are the Ten that were given to the Jewish people at Mount Sinai, which they heard God say.” Which, as we know, is completely false, because they only heard the first two from God, and they begged Moses to say the subsequent ones. But anyway, these heretics and non-believers will come and try to convince Jews who are not steadfast in their faith, their belief, and their trust in God. They’ll say, “Those are the only Ten you need to fulfill, nothing else. And you want to know a proof? Look! Those are the only Ten that are mentioned and read along with Keriat Shema. So only hold those Ten.” That’s why the Talmud says, “We do not add the Ten Commandments to a part of our daily services.”
There’s a footnote on the Talmud here. It’s a very big one. It’s a very big topic, and it’s not for right now. The Christians had copies of the Talmud, and they deliberately tried to remove any mention of Jesus in the Talmud, so there are almost no stories of Him. There are a couple. It’s interesting to note that when Rashi interprets what minim (heretics) are, he says, “Our version says they are Akum.” Those are idol worshipers. However, the footnote tells us that they are actually Talmidei Yeshu, the students of Jesus. So it was the Crusades, the original, or, or better yet, the original, uh, students of Jesus, who would be going around and trying to convert Jews to Christianity by playing these mind games and giving them false information.
The Ben Yehoyada, the Ben Ish Chai, gives a different interpretation of what this argument and these claims of the heretics would be. He says that the reason our sages said not to include the Ten Commandments as part of the daily service is so that heretics and scoffers will not come and say, “Look at you Jews, you mention these Ten every single day and you don’t keep them. Oh, you steal, you commit adultery, you commit fraud, you, you, you kill people, you do horrible things. Horrible, horrible things. And you should not be saying them on a daily basis. You guys are hypocrites.” For that reason, so as not to give haters of the Jews that option to say such a thing, it was taken out.
The lesson from this is very important: we have to know that the Ten Commandments, as our commentaries teach us, are only a sample of the 613 mitzvot (obligations). Hashem deliberately selected these Ten as samples. As we know, the first five are between us and God, and the second five are between us and our fellow: bein adam laMakom (between us and God), bein adam lechavero (between us and our fellow). But it’s important to know that these are no more important than the other 603. All 603 commandments are equally important. It’s very, very important that a Jew understands that we have, as Jews, 613 obligations, as opposed to Gentiles, who only have seven. It’s something that we should strive to learn about, even though not all 613 are applicable. 613 are applicable nowadays. Many are applicable to the time of the Temple. But those that are applicable to us, we should learn them, we should know them, and we should know that they are all equally as important as the first Ten. The Ten Commandments are just a sample.