Some commentators break down the Ten Commandments into two sections, five-and-five. The first group of five are laws detailing one’s relationship with God; the second set dealing with purely human relations. Does the Torah Portion Vayikra’s Ten Commandments’ moment dispel this assertion?
Vayikra includes the following passage relevant to the Decalogue: “And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “a person who will sin and make a breach against the Lord and tell a lie against his fellow in the matter of a deposit or something set in hand or by robbery, or has exploited his fellow or has found something that was lost and has lied about it or sworn to a falsehood-for one of any of these that a human will do to sin; it will be, when he sins and is guilty, that he shall bring back the thing that he robbed or the thing that he coerced or the thing that was deposited with him or the lost thing that he found or anything about which he swore a falsehood, and he shall pay it in its worth and add to it a fifth of it. He shall give it to the one whose it is on the day of his being guilty, and he shall bring his guilt offering to the Lord.” Leviticus 5:20-25.
Arguably, some of the passage’s fall within the Commandments. As this Vayikra passage lays out the terms of the punishment, i.e. return of the object and a twenty-percent penalty, it also require the guilty party to make a sacrificial sin offering. Thus, a party of these human-on-human crimes is God; And God demands that the offense is acknowledges as an affront towards him. Justice requires more; it requires righteousness via atonement.
God being a party of human-on-human offenses is most powerfully illustrated in Genesis. “What have you done? Your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground!” Genesis 4:10. The Creator of the Universe’s rage toward Cain’s murder of his brother Abel demarks the diety’s deep personal interest in the humanity’s affairs.
In sum, beyond merely righting one’s wrong, Vayikra impresses that an individual should also clean their moral slate; atonement. Thus, rather the separating the Commandments, five-and-five, diety interactions versus human-human ones, there must be an appreciation that the commandments involve two separate tracks to address violations. One of the practical justice and the other dealing with the sin on one’s soul in the eyes of the Lord.
Be well!!
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