Would you support a law requiring the display of the Ten Commandments in every public school classroom? My Houston colleague, Rabbi Joshua Fixler, joined with 15 other lone star state families in opposition to a Texas law requiring the public school posting of a distinctly Christian version of the Ten Commandments in every classroom. The law is on hold while it wends its way through the courts. Here is Rabbi Fixler’s objection.
There are two versions of the Ten Commandments, known also as the Decalogue, in our Jewish Bible. Both are in the Torah, one in Exodus and the other in Deuteronomy. The versions within our Jewish tradition differ. For us, that’s a source of study and learning, not contradiction. Each version edifies the other.
Christian translations of the Decalogue in English are based on Greek and Latin translations from the Hebrew. The King James translation is often like a bad game of telephone, seeing the original text through a distinctly Christian lens often mistranslating with a distinctly Christian agenda. Remember that for our Christian brothers and sisters the New Testament comes to both replace and succeed what they call the Old Testament. The very term Old Testament essentially retires our Jewish Bible. And, to make matters more fraught, Protestant and Catholic versions of the Decalogue also differ.
Says Rabbi Fixler, “Posting a Christian version of the Ten Commandments in public schools sends “the clear message that this Christian version of the Ten Commandments is authoritative, and that our children’s schools are Christian spaces where non-Christian children, including my own, should feel unwelcome unless they conform to the government’s preferred religious doctrine.
I am a proud Reform Jew for many reasons. Not the least of which is our Movement’s long history of supporting the healthy separation of church and state. When I study this week’s Torah portion, which contains the Decalogue in Exodus, I’ll be reading it in its original Hebrew directly from our sacred scroll – hoping to never see any version of it posted on the wall of a New York State public school.
