It’s been a few weeks since we’ve done work on our commandments hierarchy project. This week, we we’ll be mapping commandments related to brotherhood. And at the end of this post, a little bonus for all you fine blog readers: some interesting stats tallied from the biblical commandments we’ve mapped thus far.
But first, a recap: What is the Greatest Commandments Project?
Imagine all the commandments in the law arranged in a visual tree, where each commandment hangs on another. For example, “love the sojourner” is a branch hanging on the “love your neighbor as yourself” commandment.
This is what we’ve done, and you can see our work here.
The project is inspired by Messiah’s words:
“Hear, Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord is one; love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Torah and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
That’s what the Greatest Commandments Hierarchy project is all about. Read past commandments mappings, or have a peek at the latest snapshot of our work! If you’re technically inclined, you can even contribute to the project through the open source Greatest Commandments software project.
With that covered, let’s begin!
No destroying objects associated with God’s name
These are the decrees and laws you must be careful to follow in the land that the LORD, the God of your fathers, has given you to possess—as long as you live in the land. Destroy completely all the places on the high mountains and on the hills and under every spreading tree where the nations you are dispossessing worship their gods. Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones and burn their Asherah poles in the fire; cut down the idols of their gods and wipe out their names from those places.
You must not worship the LORD your God in their way.
-Deuteronomy 12:4
Commandment #8 (the bolded part above) is an interesting one, where the Christian translations and interpretations is different than Judaism’s.
Many Christian interpretations: “Do not worship as they [the pagans] worship.”
Many Jewish interpretations: “Do not do so [wipe out the name, the places of worship] unto the Lord.”
Looking at different translations, and looking at the surrounding texts, I find the Jewish interpretation correct. With the literal text of, “You shall not do so unto the LORD your God”, the preceding statement of “wipe out the name of false gods”, and the following statement of “seek the place where God puts his name among you”, I’m thinking this is more about honoring God’s name.
Accepting the traditional Jewish interpretation, I deem this commandment deriving from the “Do not profane God’s name” commandment:
No Hating Others
Do not hate your brother in your heart.
-Leviticus 19:17 (part 1)
Like the issue with “love the convert”, Judaism traditionally interprets this commandment as a Jew-specific commandment. In fact, Maimonides summarizes this commandment as “Do not hate other Jews”.
This argument can be made: “brother” and “neighbor” would most likely be other Israelites, as the Torah was given to Israel.
On the other hand, it may also be argued that neighbor could mean even the sojourner. Indeed, we read last week the commandment “be kind to the sojourner among you”. Additionally, the text does not explicitly specify this commandment as applying only to Israelites.
And finally, Messiah himself mentions this commandment while amplifying it:
I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to his brother, 'Raca,' [Aramaic term of contempt] is answerable to the Sanhedrin.
-Matthew 5:22
I would argue that Messiah’s words here (and by extension, the commandment not to hate your brother), are applicable to all God’s people, including those gentiles brought near through Messiah.
So I break with the traditional Jewish interpretation here and summarize this commandment as the general “Don’t hate others”, rather than the limited “Don’t hate other Jews”.
I deem this commandment as deriving from the golden “Love your neighbor as yourself” commandment:
Reprove the sinner
Rebuke your neighbor frankly so you will not share in his guilt.
-Leviticus 19:17 (part 2)
The next sentence after “do not hate your brother” commandment in Leviticus 19:17, is the commandment to rebuke your [guilty] neighbor, rather than share in his guilt.
Maimonides’ interpretation of “reprove the sinner” seems correct to me, as the text implies that the neighbor to be rebuked is guilty, and that you must reprove, rather than hate him, so that you don’t share in his guilt.
Given the locality of these commandments in the text, and their inter-related nature, I deem this commandment as deriving from “no hating others” commandment:
No embarrassing others
But wait, we’re not done with Leviticus 19:17. Maimonides extracts yet another commandment from this same verse: “no embarrassing others”.
Here is the whole verse again, this time in literal translation:
You shall not hate your brother in your heart; you shall surely rebuke your neighbor, and not bear sin because of him.
-Leviticus 19:17
Where does “no embarrassing others” come from?
An educated guess might be “do not bear sin because of him”. I would argue against Maimonides here, honestly; I just don’t see this interpretation as legitimate, not bearing sin here seems to be part of the “don’t hate your brother” commandment, not a new commandment about embarrassing others. If you fine blog readers have any thoughts, I’d like to hear them.
Like the previous commandment, I deem this related to not hating your brother:
Closing thoughts: Maimonides’ double standard?
Today we mapped 3 commandments from Leviticus 19:17:
Do not hate your brother in your heart. Rebuke your neighbor frankly so you will not share in his guilt.
-Leviticus 19:17
Now note how Maimonides splits this verse into 3 commandments:
- Do not hate other Jews.
- Rebuke the sinner.
- Don’t embarrass others.
Maimonides sees 3 parties here: Jews, sinners, and others. Yet the text mentions neither Jews nor sinners nor others.
Why does Maimonides feel “do not hate your brother” applies only to Jews, but “embarrassing others” and “rebuking others” are not limited in this way? A consistent interpretation would seem to be “Do not hate other Jews, rebuke sinning Jews, and don’t embarrass other Jews.” Instead, Maimonides interprets each of these as pertaining to different groups. Is it a double-standard, or just a matter of interpretation? You fine blog readers have any thoughts?
The Big Picture
Behold! In all its glory, the current snapshot of the commandments hierarchy project:
(Click for full size)
Beautiful!
Note that Kineti reader and project contributor Nathan Tuggy has modified the source code to spit out “can’t be carried out today” commandments as red. Thanks, Nathan! Click the picture to see our 2 mapped commandments that cannot be carried out today: both of them are related to the Levitical priesthood and the tabernacle offerings.
Nerd Notes
I’ve modified the Commandments Hierarchy generator program to output some interesting stats about the commandments mapped thus far:
Some statistics to tingle your nerdly id
- 27 commandments have been mapped thus far.
- 11% of them are from Exodus.
- 41% of them are from Leviticus.
- 4% of them are from Numbers.
- 44% of them are from Deuteronomy.
- 93% of them can be carried out in modern times.
- 63% are positive commandments.
- 37% are negative commandments.
- 63% are observed by Christians.
- 89% are observed by Messianics.
- 89% are observed by Jews.
- The average commandment length is 123 characters.
- The average summary length is 27 characters.
Interesting stats indeed! Looking forward to seeing how these stats evolve as we progress into more commandments.
There it is, folks! I hope you’ve enjoyed this installment of the Greatest Commandments Project. Enjoy your shabbat!