Here, they’re one people, and they all have one language, and this is what they have begun to do. And now nothing that they’ll scheme will be precluded from them
Genesis 11:6
One of Humans’ greatest strengths is language. The Book of Genesis’ Tower of Babel tale recognizes this power. Genesis 11:6.
In scripture, the voice is a force. The words “let there be light” evidences language’s creative capacity. See Genesis 1:3. With scientific advancement, even mere mortals can now light up a room by either verbal command or “hand clap.”
Sukkot, the Festival of Booths, offers a First Day Torah Portion addressing language. It protects the Lord ‘s name from human speech’s power. The commandment preventing the desecration of God’s name also includes a noteworthy rationale.
The Ten Commandments’ Connection
Before addressing the passage, the Decalogue’s Commandment prohibiting the use of the Lord’s name in vain must be appreciated. Exodus 20:7.
The Ten Commandments’ prohibition concerning God’s name protects its value as currency. The act of “swearing” in scripture is taken quite seriously. See the Book of Joshua 9:18 (The Gibeonite controversy) and the Book of Judges 11 (Jephthah’s daughter)
As noted in the citations, in antiquity, the Lord’s name, arguably, evoked value far beyond any other spoken word. Promises, protections and treaties were forged by the evocation of the Lord’s name. It was a guarantee. Thus, it was a most unique of words.
The Passage
In the Sukkot Portion, God commands as follows:
“And you shall not desecrate my holy name, so I shall be sanctified among the Children of Israel. I am the Lord, who makes you holy, who brought you out from the land of Egypt to be God to your, I am the Lord.” Numbers 22:32-33.
Sanctification means to set apart or declare as holy. Thus, this commandment demarcates a particular word from all others. The Lord’s name is a holy name. Its desecration would transform the Lord’s name into a mere ordinary or common word.
This passage impresses how humans can transform words. With language, word’s initial meaning can be lost. Likewise, words lacking substance can become substantial.
Beyond raising or lowering word’s meanings, names can be altered as well. One’s name can be transformed instantaneously With technology, the internet and social media programming, people’s names can be raised. Likewise, their names can be lowered. Innuendos, defamation, and lies can all be used to destroy legacies and reputations; praise and glazing can elevate others.
Sanctification was to protect the Lord’s name from this aberrant human behavior. It appreciated that humans’ capacity to “destroy” both names and words.
Graven Images
The Lord’s name’s sanctity is married to the Decalogue’s graven image prohibition. Humans’ ability to create (or destroy) exceeds language. It extends to the visual. As such, graven images can be masterpiece works of beauty, i.e. Michelangelo Sistine Chapel depicting God in the act of creation in a fresco. On the other hand, some graven images can be deplorable.
Conclusion
Two matters rise up from the Sukkot Torah Portion. Human language has the potentiality for both good and bad. The Sukkot commandment wants the Lord’s name to be removed from the human capacity of transforming language. Further, this Commandment serves as a moment of reflection as to what we, as humans, do with our words. With words’ great power, there is great responsibility.
Be well!!
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The Ten Commandments Project 
The difference between Torah as a Constitution of the 12 tribes of the Republic from Torah as the religion of the Jewish people established through the Middle Ages codes of the Mishna Torah and Shulkan Aruch. Classical lashon Chazal has Torah, dat, halacha, derech eretz, minhag—but not “Judaism” in the Protestant sense of private belief and Sunday rituals.
The medieval “religionization” of Torah—Mishneh Torah, Tur, Shulchan Aruch—does something different. But both Church and Islam have produced the fruits of genocide. Large swaths of their histories – indeed marked by forced conversions, inquisitions, or holy wars justified by pompous claims of universal truth. Xtian Europe under the Nazis, and Islam where the ’48 and ’67 wars — wars of genocide to throw the Jews into the Sea.
Torah defines the 8th Oral Torah midda — TRUTH — (which the church denies to this day) as “path”. Meaning that each person and/or people have their own true path destiny walk before their Gods. Since only Israel accepts the God of Sinai ipso facto Goyim worship other Gods. The local tribal god of Sinai does not compare to the Universal Monotheistic Gods of either Xtianity or Islam. Since only Israel accepted the Sinai, all non-Jewish God-talk is, by definition, “other Gods;” no where does the Xtian Bible or Muslim Koran once bring the שם השם revealed in the first Sinai commandment. Furthermore the false counterfeit religions fail to distinguish the fundamental concept of faith which discerns between the Divine Names יה, האל, אל, אלהים, אל שדי, איש האלהים from the Shekinah שם השם.
The Book of בראשית, the Avot called upon these Divine Names because the Torah in the Heavens; whereas at Sinai the revelation of the Torah upon the earth, expressed through the revelation of the שם השם. Thereafter in the Book of D’varim explicitly taught that Torah does not come from heaven. Goyim rejection of the Torah means that for them their God remain in Heaven and not within the Yatzir Ha’Tov within the bnai brit hearts.
Torah understands truth as path. Xtianity & Islam understand truth as set in stone a monopoly dictate. Truth as “Path” validates that many paths exist that a person him or herself can choose to walk therein. “Path” as a monopoly dictate means that the dominant Xtian or Muslim theology slaughters any and all heretics. The two definitions of “TRUTH” not at all the same. Torah revealed only to the Jewish people. We as a tiny tiny tiny minority of Mankind do not pretend to any psychotic notions of “Universal” anything least of all the local tribal god of Israel.
Its truly an honor to discuss with you the different “textures of languages”; cotton fiber feels different from wool or linen fibers. The Torah directly forbids mixing linen and wool in clothes. Linen a summer fabric whereas wool a winter fabric. The oversimplification of “Universal Monotheism” an utter abomination of faith. Rambam’s Mishneh Torah a comprehensive code of halacha perversion; its יד\14 arranged not around tribes and land allotments, but around abstract legal categories and mitzvah-topics. His halacha code designed to permit Jews in g’lut to learn and lived religiously obey. The subject becomes the yachid (individual) asking, “What is my chiyuv?” more than a polity asking, “What is our constitutional structure?” The national-constitutional elements subsumed and lost under the religion of Yidishkeit.
Certain strands of Jewish thought emphasizing particularism—the idea that the Torah originally revealed specifically to Israel alone; which excludes all universal pretensions. That other nations have their own valid paths because they refused to accept the revelation of the Torah at Sinai. For example the false Rambam opinion known as the 7 mitzvot bnai noach (primarily Sanhedrin 56a-60b) which he interpreted as 7 Universal commandments for all Mankind. The Book of D’varim classifies two types of Goyim residing in the oath sworn lands; the gere toshav and the Canaanite NaCree or Samaritan refugees who have no legal rights because they falsely claim themselves to be the “real Jews”; a claim taken up by both Xtian and Muslim replacement theologies.
Despite Rambam’s bombastic bunk claims, his code does not remotely resemble the revelation of Oral Torah at Horev because his code prioritized alien Aristotle deductive Order & logic over the kabbala of rabbi Akiva’s פרדס inductive Order & logic. The lights of Channuka testify that only פרדס logic explanes the revelation of the Oral Torah at Horev on Yom Kippur 40 days after the sin of the Golden Calf. Meaning the P’rushim catagorically rejected the assimilated Tzedukim/Karaite attempts to convert Jerusalem into a Greek polis and forget Oral Torah inductive logic.
The Aggadic source in mesechta Sanhedrin which address the subject of 7 mitzvot “bnai noach” strictly and only applies to gere toshav Goyim living within the borders of Judea. The Sanhedrin courts Capital Crimes mandate only applicable to within the borders of Judea when Jews rule the land as an Independent nation. The Sanhedrin court failed to correctly judge Herod, and put him to death for his Capital Crimes because Herod was appointed as king by the Roman occupiers!
Some want to argue that Nazi ideology was not “purely” Xtian because it blended pagan Germanic elements, racial pseudoscience that favored culling inferior races, anti-clerical tendencies etc. But this argument utterly fails to ignore the plain and simple fact that for 2000+ years the church has publicly boasted that Europe converted to Xtianity and accepted that faith. Hence the curse: “by their fruits you shall know them” applies equally to both Xtian Europe and Muslim Arab lands which make the same boast! That those Middle East lands converted to embraced Allah as God & Muhammad as the last prophet.
Arab propaganda has pulled a rhetoric rabbit out of its hat! Nakba originally referred to the defeat of 5 Arab Armies and their failure to throw the Jews into the Sea; the nascent Jewish state (as coined by Constantin Zureiq in his 1948 pamphlet, blaming Arab disunity and aggression).. Changed Nakba unto the Arab refugees, while ignoring the greater “Nakba” of Jews thrown out of Arab lands!
The Oral Torah stands upon the משל metaphor of Israelites making bricks through the medium of straw in ancient Egypt. The “bricks” נמשל, the logical middot taught by Rabbi Akiva’s 10 middot, Rabbi Yishmael’s 13 middot, and Rabbi HaGalilee’s 32 middot. The study of both Talmud and Midrashim – halacha and aggada builds the “construct” of understanding the intent of these texts through the basic building blocks of these 10, 13, and 32 respectively. The middot of Rabbi Akiva, Rabbi Yishmael, and Rabbi Eliezer HaGelili are literally paths of reasoning—ways we walk from text to halacha. Even inside Torah there are multiple derachim—Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai, Bavli and Yerushalmi—“eilu v’eilu divrei Elokim chayim.”
Rambam’s Universal God follows the Avoda Zara of Xtian and Muslim theology just as his Universal bnai Noach represents only his own personal opinion among Reshonim peer scholars! The Reshonim did not poskin halacha from aggadic sources as did the Rambam. Halacha follows the majority and not a single minority opinion. The Rambam supporters centuries later confuse the lone Rambam misinterpretation of 7 mitzvot bnai noach as applicable to all Goyim Universally – simply bat shit crazy.
The Rambam codification of halacha called Yad Chazakah as opposed to the false name Mishna Torah. Why the latter a false name for the Rambam halachic code? Because the Book of D’varim has the 2nd Name of Mishna Torah! Rabbi Yechuda Ha’Nasi named the 6 Orders of Sanhedrin courtroom rulings “Mishna” based upon the 2nd name of the Book of D’varim. Mishna Torah means “Common Law” – meaning law derived from courtroom common law precedent Case/Rule comparisons! The Rambam’s halachic code a Statute law that follows the model of Greek and Roman law imposed by governmental decrees rather than courtroom rulings. The two legal systems day and night different from one another.
The post Shoah term “Righteous Gentile” refers to Goyim who risked their lives to save Jews from barbaric European Xtian European Nazis. World to Come refers to the brit cut between the pieces wherein Avram cut a brit alliance concerning the eternal future born birth of the people having the status of “Chosen Cohen seed of Avraham, Yitzak and Yaacov and not the future born seed of Moshe Rabbeinu which forced HaShem to make “t’shuva” and remember the oaths sworn to the Avot. Even HaShem cannot annul a Torah oath. But even Man can annul vows!
The “Sanhedrin” under Roman authority compares to the “Sanhedrin” established by Napoleon. Both existed only as a rubber stamp – tits on a boar hog. Torah as constitution of a sovereign people vs Torah as religion of a powerless minority. Everything else—Rambam, Shulchan Aruch, Bnei Noach, Christianity, Islam, Nakba—fits into that split.
Torah as constitution vs Torah as medieval “religion”; A republic of tribes in its land, not individuals shopping for “salvation.” Torah, dat, halacha, derech eretz, minhag—never “Judaism” as a private Sunday-style faith. Rambam’s 14 books (yad) are arranged thematically, not by tribes, land, courts, or real political institutions. This latter g’lut “Earth-quake”: shifts from “How does the people govern?” to “What is my individual chiyuv?” These codes are optimized for galut Jews, to survive as a religious minority without sovereignty. This represents a “medieval religionization” of Torah—the turning of brit Sinai into a statute-based religion.
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