The Ten Commandments in Public Schools

Sermon given January 28, 2000, by Rabbi Samuel M. Stahl

Last May, Darrell Scott's daughter, Rachel, was gunned down in the Columbine High School massacre in Littleton, Colorado. Recently, Scott spoke to a sub-committee of the House Judiciary Committee. In an excruciatingly painful testimony, he groped for reasons for the senseless murder of his daughter and eleven other students.

In his introductory comments, he mentioned that he is not a hunter nor a member of the National Rifle Association. Yet he admonished the group of lawmakers he was addressing not to point their fingers at the NRA for opposing stricter gun control legislation. He essentially absolved the NRA and other kindred organizations from any responsibility for this tragedy by asserting that weapons are not the problem.

Rather, he emphasized that the cause of these murders at Littleton, Colorado was a spiritual one. He wrote this poem to clarify his feelings:

Your laws ignore our deepest needs
Your words are empty air.
You've stripped away our heritage
You've outlawed simple prayer.
Now gunshots fill our classrooms
And precious children die.
You seek for answers everywhere
And ask the question "Why."
You regulate restrictive laws
Through legislative creed.
And yet you fail to understand
That God is what we need!

In short, Darrell Scott is saying that by removing God from the classroom, we become vulnerable to violence. Only by restoring God to our public schools will such wanton and senseless killings be prevented.

Darrell Scott has clearly articulated the basic philosophy of the Religious Right. To them, religion in schools is essential for character development. Religion is an antidote to classroom murders. Without religion, students are courting disaster. Such reasoning has led the Religious Right to initiate a new project called, "Hang Ten." It encourages public school authorities and other government officials to post the Ten Commandments in public buildings, supported by our tax dollars. In fact, the "Hang Ten" movement has spread wildly throughout the state of Kentucky, and the Religious Right wants to make it a national phenomenon.

On the surface, the suggestion to post the Ten Commandments in government-sponsored institutions seems innocuous and benign. After all, the Ten Commandments, which come from this week's Torah portion, is the chief code of ethical and moral conduct both for Christians and Jews.

Centuries ago, in fact, the Ten Commandments were read at every worship service in the synagogue. Later, the Rabbis banned this practice, since Jews might conclude that following the Ten Commandments is all there is to practicing Judaism. Indeed, there is so much more. There is a whole range of rituals and ceremonies that we must observe, as well.

But why not display such sound ethical wisdom in the classroom? Would not our young people benefit from an encounter with this remarkable listing of moral laws? In fact, some of our presidential candidates are now clamoring for the Ten Commandments to be brought into the public schools in their campaign speeches.

I believe their plan, however, is dangerously misguided. Whether it is in public schools, city halls, courtrooms, or other government arenas, displaying the Ten Commandments is wrong for several reasons:

First of all, the Ten Commandments is a religious document. Posting these words violates the separation of church and state. Promoting religious behavior is the job of the home and the house of worship, not the public school.

In addition, the federal court system has already ruled that requiring the posting of the Ten Commandments is illegal. The Supreme Court overruled a Kentucky law that demanded that public schools exhibit the Ten Commandments. Those school officials who choose to ignore the decision of the highest court of our land are asking for a lawsuit. This would involve their squandering thousands, if not millions, of dollars in legal fees taken from taxpayers' pockets to defend themselves in court.

Then, too, the Ten Commandments are sacred only to Christians and Jews. They are not part of the Sacred Scriptures of other faith communities. In fact, today, the United States is far more diverse than it was decades ago. There are hundreds of religious groups, besides Christians and Jews, who now make up America's spiritual landscape.

For that reason, the organization once known as the National Conference of Christians and Jews, founded in 1927, has recently changed its name. While keeping the same initials, its leaders now call their organization the National Conference of Community and Justice to reflect its broader religious and ethnic constituency. In fact, there are probably as many, if not more, Muslims than Jews in the United States at the present moment.

Because of this new reality, when we gather at the San Fernando Cathedral for our interfaith Thanksgiving service every November, we include not only representatives from the Jewish, Roman Catholic, and Protestant faiths, but also those that hail from the Muslim, Sikh, Buddhist, Hindu, and Native American communities. Because of this diversity, our United States government cannot play favorites among religious communities and choose one set of religious texts over another.

In addition, even among Christians and Jews, there is no one standard version of the Ten Commandments. We Jews number the Commandments differently from our Christian neighbors. We consider the first Commandment to be: "I am the Lord, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage." Christians start the first Commandment with the next verse: "You shall have no other gods before Me." At the end of the Ten Commandments, Christians consider: "You shall not covet your neighbor's house," to be Commandment Nine, while "You shall not covet your neighbor's wife," to be Commandment Ten. We Jews combine both of these into Commandment Ten.

Furthermore, which edition of the Ten Commandments should we post? The one found in Exodus or the one in Deuteronomy? Though quite similar, there are marked differences in some of their particulars. In Exodus, the commandment to mark the Sabbath begins with the word "Remember," while the Deuteronomy version commences with the word, "Observe."

Even among Jewish groups, there may be disagreements about the Ten Commandments. For instance, should we spell God with an "o" or with a hyphen? Should we post them in their original Hebrew together with English translation, or just in Hebrew or just in English translation? Those are issues for religious groups to settle among themselves, without government assistance or interference.

In addition, certain words, phrases, and concepts in the Ten Commandments are open to different interpretations. In Hebrew, we distinguish between "murder," which comes from the verb form "Ratzach," and "kill," which comes from "Harag." According to the Jewish understanding, the sixth Commandment which uses a form of the verb ratzach, means: "You shall not murder."

Judaism does permit taking a life under certain circumstances. Killing in self-defense or in authorized military campaigns is sanctioned within the Jewish tradition. However, as we know, some English versions of the Ten Commandments read, "You shall not kill," rather than "You shall not murder."

I am grateful to the Americans United for the Separation of Church and State for raising my consciousness about the monumental problems of displaying the Ten Commandments in the public arena. The Americans United, which was founded in 1947, is based in Washington, D.C. It is a watchdog group that protects our religious liberties, often through litigation.

In an outstanding editorial in its monthly publication called Church and State, Americans United issued the following admonition, which sums up the problem succinctly:

So, to any government official who is tempted to "Hang Ten" at the Religious Right's urging, we advise a little research into basic American Principles.

And remember, Americans United has litigated several of these cases before – and won them all.

In short, there's a big wave up ahead that will probably knock the Religious Right's "Hang Ten" scheme right out of the water. It's called the Constitution.

Amen.

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