January 24, 2008
At the heart of parshat Yitro are the Aseret Hadibrot, the Ten Commandments. There are many Americans who see this passage as a concise summary of essential ethical laws that should be posted in every classroom, courthouse, and office building.
But the Aseret Hadibrot are far from simple. One problem is that they are frequently misunderstood, in part because of inaccurate translation. If you were to stop 10 people on the street and ask them to name as many of the Ten Commandments as they could, I suspect that at least nine would say, “Thou shalt not kill.” However, there’s no such commandment. The Torah says “Lo tirtza,” do not murder, and while all murder is killing, not all killing is murder.
Among the Aseret Hadibrot, the one that may be most misunderstood is Lo tisa et shem Adonai Eloheha lashav, which is traditionally translated as “Do not take the name of the Lord, your God, in vain.” Just what does this mean? Some people believe it means we should write G-d instead of God. But that’s not God’s name; it’s His job title. God’s name is the tetragrammaton, the name we never pronounce and write only in Torah scrolls, siddurim, and Humashim, books that are not meant to be destroyed.
Some, particularly in the Christian community, believe that this commandment means that we should not use expressions such as “God damn it” or “He has more money than God” — that is, we should not use God’s name or title for cursing or for non-sacred purposes. But the verse continues, “…for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that takes his name in vain”; that seems a bit extreme for saying “Oh my God” in surprise or horror. I don’t believe God is really that thin-skinned.
Rather, the traditional Jewish understanding of this commandment is that we are prohibited from swearing falsely in God’s name. Furthermore, because the verse uses “in vain” twice, the rabbis teach that it refers to both false oaths and empty or meaningless oaths. The Talmud gives these examples: to swear that an obviously wooden object is gold is a false oath while to swear that a wooden object is wood is an empty oath because it serves no purpose.
The 12th-century Spanish commentator Rabbi Abraham ibn Ezra explains it this way: When someone uses God’s name to validate an oath, it is as if the person says that his word is as true as God’s existence. For him to swear falsely, therefore, shows that he holds God in contempt — therefore, God will not hold him guiltless.
But, of course, translating Hebrew into English is rarely straightforward. Hebrew has what linguists call a small lexicon, and so one Hebrew word may have several English meanings. Lo tisa can mean “do not take,” but it can also mean “do not carry.” So how might we understand “Do not carry the name of the Lord your God in vain or falsely?”
This explanation appears in the midrash Pesikta Rabbati: Rabbi Bibi said, If the verse refers to false oaths, don’t we already have a verse [in Vayikra] that says, “You shall not swear falsely by My name?” [In rabbinic logic, the Torah would not need to say the same thing twice.] What the Torah means by ‘do not carry the name of the Lord your God in vain’ is, do not carry tefillin on your head and wrap yourself in a tallit and go around committing sins.
We’re all a little uncomfortable when we read about Jews who hire hit men, defraud the government, or molest children; we much prefer stories about Jewish Nobel Prize winners. But when these people have “Rabbi” in front of their names, we’re appropriately horrified and outraged. After all, if people who claim to represent God and Torah behave this way, what does that say about God and Torah?
The term for this is hilul hashem, the desecration of God’s name. And if committing sins while claiming to be religious is a hilul hashem, how much more so is committing evil acts in the name of God.
These days, we’re all painfully aware of Islamic terrorists who cry out the name of Allah before they blow themselves up on a crowded street corner. But it’s not just an Islamic phenomenon. Yigal Amir murdered Yitzhak Rabin in the name of the God of Israel, and Christian extremists have gunned down abortion providers in the name of Jesus. This is the worst possible hilul hashem, spreading contempt and revulsion for God and religion. For this, above all, God will not absolve the person who carries His name in vain.