| Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... |
It would be too simplistic to assert that the Ten Commandments are meant to be a panacea for all that is wrong in the world, that of all mankind’s ills would evaporate if everyone just observed these humane laws. I regard these commandments as an invaluable guidepost that we should refer to for constant direction as we confront the complex moral problems of our day. The Ten Commandments represent the minimal requirements that are needed to sustain a just and durable society. They do not go so far as to require that we love God; they do not obligate us to love our neighbor or the stranger in our midst. Our duty to love others, including God, is found elsewhere in the Torah, but not in the Decalogue.
The lofty commandments found in the Decalogue are not all absolute. How are we expected to honor a sexually abusive parent? How can we observe the Sabbath day by refraining from work if the seventh day is the only day we can find work and our dependents are in dire need of basic necessities, food or clothing.
All idolaters were not necessarily evil men. Terah, for example, the father of Abraham and, according to a well-known Midrash, a seller of idols, must have exerted some positive influence on his son who would become the founder of a great monotheistic religion. Though perhaps naive and misguided, Terah must have done something right to have helped raise such an imaginative and strong-willed child.
But why should honoring one’s parents be so difficult, so unnatural? For the most part, parents and children have conflicting needs. Many parents want their children to remain close even in adulthood; they prefer to see them in the same compliant role as they were during their dependent years. Growing children, however, develop a different agenda for themselves.
