Do Not Murder! A Return to Basics!
Adapted from Rabbi Braun’s sermon in 5775
There were times when I used to look at the 10 commandments and wonder: That is it? This is the great revelation! This is supposed to blow me away. Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not kidnap!
I want to focus today on don’t murder. It seems too basic to impress anybody! So basic that many of the commentators don’t offer a word of commentary. And I would wonder – why is this one of the 10 commandments?
It might be this very question that leads the Eben Ezra to offer the following explanation. He writes that “do not murder includes via hand and speech. If you testify falsely and that leads to the death penalty or you encourage someone to commit murder, or you don’t share information that will save someone from death – if you do any of these you are like a murderer.” אתה כמו רוצח
It can’t simply mean don’t murder because that would be too simple and thus it must include these other items. The problem is that even the Eben Ezra acknowledges that it is not actual murder, it is just like murder. You certainly would not be put to death for committing any of those sins.
Why does the Eben Ezra then teach us these extensions? Because there is nothing to say about murder. It is so clear that it need not be discussed!
I would like to offer another approach this morning, one that argues for the absolute necessity of including do not murder in the 10 commandments.
Some of the commentators do try and explain the commandment.
The Rashbam, Rashi’s grandson writes that retzach, or murder means הריגה בחינם, senseless murder.
The Meshech chochmah, Rabbi Meir Simcha of Dvinsk, in a fascinating piece argues that the different cantillation marks offer different definitions of murder.
The 10 commandments have 2 different sets of cantillation notes. There is the regular trup and then there is a special version which is the one that we read this morning. According to the regular trup, do not murder is connected to and read together with the rest of the verse which includes do not participate in illicit relationships. According to the version we use, do not murder is a standalone verse.
Rav Meir simcha explains that there are two types of murder: there is murder to achieve a purpose, to get something specific. You love another man’s wife so you kill him to be with her. That is the regular reading where the two are read together.
Our reading, the standalone, is murder for nothing in particular. It is murder for the sake of murder.
Others note that the term murder, retzach must be distinguished from two other words that also mean to kill, hereg and mitah.
Rabbi Chaim Paltiel, 13th century France, explains that the critical distinction between these terms is their relationship to the system of justice.
Hereg and mittah can occur within a judicial system and thus be of some value. Retzach occurs outside a system of justice and judicial process and indicates wild lawlessness.
Hirsch seems to make the same point in defining murder as an evil that breaks through and destroys law and justice.
The last idea that runs through some of the commentators is the rationale for the commandment. It is not simply that we prohibit murder because society works better that way.
The Mechilta, an early Midrash, in an attempt to explain the structure of the commandments writes that the first 5 are a parallel to the last five. In that construction the first commandment “I am Hashem your God” parallels the 6th “do not murder”
How does that work?
The Midrash offers an analogy. There was a king who came to a country and put up statues and other items representing him in the country. They even minted stamps in his honor. After some time they covered the icons, broke the statues and got rid of the currency thus diminishing the honor of the king! So too, one who commits murder diminishes the honor of God by destroying those things ie people that represent God in this world.
Most commentators (see alshich) don’t believe that this goes far enough. A murderer does not simply diminish God by destroying a representative. A murderer actually destroys a being created in God’s image!
To bring the definitions together, God is prohibiting murder that is senseless and murder without due process, murder that represents lawlessness in an extreme.
And we are made aware that such murder is an affront to God and it diminishes God’s honor and stature in this world!
It seems to me that some 3500 years later that message is not as clear as we think. We live in a world where murder, in the name of God is being perpetrated constantly, with absolute senseless and no sense of justice.
It seems to me that the 10 commandments are the basic requirements for a just society, respect for God, family, law and humanity and that those are lessons that our world desperately needs to hear and learn.
Sometimes the basics are the most fundamental and still need to be taught!
That is the message of the 10 commandments and it is as relevant today as the day we left Egypt!
