Conservative or Liberal, Religious or Secular, White, Black, Red, White, Green, Purple, Jewish……. Everyone these days seems a bit on edge. There is no constituency that doesn’t feel as if its rights are potentially or at the moment, under attack. As if everyone’s way of life is challenged and in danger. Conservative Christians feel the country’s losing its moral focus. Liberal Jews believe that the very protections that made it possible for us to so fundamentally succeed as Jews and Americans are at risk. Poor blacks feel as if the establishment cares about them only at election time. Secularists, humanists, atheists, environmentalists, peace activists perceive a tightening grip on their ability for their voices to be heard in the mainstream media. Muslims perceive a growing and vehement distrust of them and their religion. Hollywood, the recording industry, even theatre seems to be inverting inward, afraid anything but tepid messages will not play amidst an ever-judgmental status quo.

No wonder the Ten Commandments is such a hot topic. They seem to be this utter symbol for many of all that we hold true and good and just. Now, we in Alabama are veterans regarding the Ten Commandments in the news. Our golden boy, former Chief Justice Roy Moore, brought the issue to the forefront of our country’s news media, and gave us Alabamians yet another proud moment to share with the world. The good news is that every court that reviewed the case ruled against Moore, and the Supreme Court didn't even bother to accept it. It was clear that Moore’s 5,300 pound Ten Commandments monument was nothing more than the fulfillment of all that the first amendment stands against. The first part of the first amendment of the Bill of Rights to the US Constitution states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” In other words, the US government must be non-sectarian at least within the realm of the role of governance. To place a religious symbol within no historical context in the midst of the lobby of a state’s judicial building is an establishment of religion. And what made matters worse was that Judge Moore made no qualms that this is exactly what it was meant to be. A court governed not by laws of the Constitution and Bill of Rights, first and foremost, but by the laws of Moses as passed down through the generations in Judaism and Christianity.

Recently in the US Supreme Court there are two cases being tried regarding the legality of publicly displaying the Ten Commandments on the grounds of the Texas capital in Austin and in two courtrooms in Kentucky. The argument in favor of the government-sanctioned display on public grounds goes essentially like this, “The Ten Commandments” are symbolic of the religious underpinnings of our country’s system of law and governance. They belong in the courtroom, it is argued, because they make the claim loud and clear that to be an American is to understand that the Judeo-Christian values are the firm and fundamental support of the law. In order to discern whether or not that is true, there are several issues we need to address: the original texts and documents of the founding of our country, what behaviors indeed the Ten Commandments do seek to legislate, the theology the Ten Commandments seek to engender, and the role that they have or have not played in guaranteeing the rights of US citizens.

Point #1: There is a presumption amongst many Christians and non-Christians alike that the US was founded on Judeo-Christian principles. That George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and the like were regular worshippers of God, the creator, the revealer, the redeemer and the guide of history as understood through primarily a Christian lens. Many are aware, however, that for most of the founders, framers of our constitution, our country’s forefathers, God understood in only one particular context was precisely what drove the tyranny of the English government. Furthermore, as I learned from Al Franken a couple of weeks ago, surrounded by the several thousand of us who attended the Alys Stephens Center to hear him speak, the US entered into a Treaty of Peace and Friendship with Tripoli in 1796 that states

"As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Muslims; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Muslim nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries."

As the government of the US is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion. Thomas Jefferson, himself wrote, “The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury to my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.”

If indeed, the answer to our country’s problems is the need for a transformation of the original intent of the Founding Fathers, allowing government to play a much more significant role in legislating laws based upon religion, then let’s have that debate. Let our political leaders be honest about their intentions to transform the very nature of our governmental process, and then let the people decide. For one, I’d like to start with the requirement that every Jew should be guaranteed undeterred access to a genuine mile high corn beef on rye. Oh, and while I am at it, that all the Jews in Birmingham must attend my adult education classes.

Point #2: How can laws that command a recognition of Adonai as God, proscribe idol worship, insist upon the honor shown to one’s parents as well as the strict observance of Shabbat (4 of the 10 commandments) be understood as foundations of American law? Even Roy Moore admitted to Chris Matthews last night on Hardball, that there is a difference between what he would prefer and what could be legislated. How then could a Hindu or a Buddhist or an atheist for that matter be provided with a fair trial if his very religious principles stand in contrast to the foundation of the law to be employed in judging him? How could you or I be judged fairly as well? For we have to remember that there is no standard, single version of the Ten Commandments. There are at least three: Jewish, Catholic and Protestant. We Jews open our Ten Commandments, the first ones, by the way the world knows of, with commandment #1: I am the Lord Your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt. The Protestant version opens with commandment #1: Thou shalt have no other gods before me, followed by commandment #2: Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image. The Catholic version opens with commandment #1: I am the Lord thy God. Thou shalt have no strange gods before Me. So if I am Jewish, I am first commanded to recognize God as my redeemer; if I am Protestant, I am first commanded to recognize God and to not place other gods before God; if I am Catholic, I am commanded first and foremost to not have other gods before God, but I can have graven images, as that is not proscribed by Catholicism. By the way, even in the arena of the laws that guard human behavior towards each other, the Jewish Ten Commandments state, “Thou shalt not murder,” yet the other two versions state, “Thou shalt not kill.” Many varied and challenging interpretations based upon the intent of those two truly distinct words still take place to this very day within religious contexts. So, having nothing to do with those who do not observe their faith within the context of Judaism or Christianity, how is it possible to fairly and universally apply these laws in our courts? How is it possible to even call them its fundamental basis?

Point #3 is simply this: American Jews have little to gain and much to lose within an ever expanding partnership between religion and government. Our educational, occupational, and creative successes as Americans rely solely and completely upon an understanding that the best form of government is one free of sectarian promotions or proscriptions. It is precisely that which has made religion such a powerful force and influence within our country, for Jews and non-Jews alike. The freedom from legislated bigotry, from religious litmus tests for public office, from private organizations with faith based hiring practices – these freedoms are what the public display of the Ten Commandments as the final and true foundation of American jurisprudence stand against.

Finally, let us not forget that for the Jewish people, the Ten Commandments are not even properly called “The Ten Commandments,” but the “Ten Utterances,” referring to the 10 of the 613 commandments that God spoke orally to the Jewish people at Sinai. They are not the 10 most important, but 10 of 613. That for honoring one’s parents, the same reward of a long life, is promised for shooing away a mother bird before taking her hatchlings. Our Ten Commandments are the ones we heard when all of us stood at Sinai, receiving the revelation from God. And yet, that revelation never did, never has, and never will cease to be revealed completely and fully as God is the only Chief Justice that truly exists. And yet, God’s role as chief justice must stand in the shadow of human, non-coercive judgment. Otherwise, that which makes humans in part divine, our free ability to choose, decipher, interpret and legislate would cease to be unalienable to us. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all people are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among the people, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed….”