I have been devoting my recent columns to the Ten Commandments because we need a fixed moral anchor to solve the problem of evil. Nothing is as effective as the Ten Commandments.
Everything needed to make a good world is contained in these Ten Commandments.
Here is my commentary on the second commandment as enumerated in the oldest, that is, the Jewish, tradition. In Christian tradition, it is the first commandment.
The most common translation begins: “You shall have no other gods before me.”
The commandment then goes on to prohibit both making idols and worshipping idols.
Most people, when they think of this commandment, understandably think that it only prohibits the worship of idols and the worship of gods such as the ancient pagan gods of rain, of fertility, all the other nature gods, and chief gods such as the Roman Jupiter and the Greek Zeus.
However, there is a major problem with this understanding of the commandment. Since no one today worships these gods, let alone worships idols made of metal, wood or stone, most people think that this commandment is irrelevant to modern life.
The irony, however, is that this commandment is not only relevant to modern life, but also it is in many ways the mother of all the other commandments.
Why is it relevant today? Because today we have as many false gods as the ancients did. And why is it the mother of all the other commandments? Because if we identify false gods and avoid worshipping them, we will eliminate one of the greatest barriers to a good world.
Let’s begin by defining a false god. The point of biblical monotheism is that there is only one god and that only this G-d, the Creator of the universe who demands that we keep these Ten Commandments, is to be worshipped.
Why? First, because one G-d means one human race. Only if we all have the same Creator, or Father, as it were, are we are all brothers and sisters.
Second, having the same parent also means that no person is intrinsically more valuable than any other.
Third, one G-d means one moral standard for all people. If G-d declares murder wrong, it is wrong for everyone, and you can’t go to another god for another moral standard.
When anything else is worshipped, bad things result. Not only things that can obviously lead to evil such as the worship of power, or race, or money or flag. But also things that are almost always seen as quite beautiful — such as art, or education or even love.
Yes, any of these often wonderful things, when worshipped, can lead to terrible results.
Take art. Many of the cruelest humans in history loved beautiful music and art. As a music lover I learned early in life the sad fact that great music can be used to inspire people to follow evil just as much as it can be used to inspire people to do good.
The great Hollywood director Stanley Kubrick vividly made this point in his classic 1971 film, “A Clockwork Orange,” based on the Stanley Burgess novel. In it, men rape and murder while classical music plays in the background.
The Nazis had prisoner orchestras play classical music while Jews were led to gas chambers.
Take education. We all recognize how important education can be — from preparing people to join the modern workforce to understanding the world. But education in and of itself, divorced from the higher ends of G-d and goodness, can, and often has, led to great evil. Many of the best-educated people in Germany supported Hitler and the Nazis.
Prof. Peter Merkl of the University of California at Santa Barbara studied 581 Nazis and found that Germans with a high school education “or even university study” were more likely to be anti-Semitic than those with less education (Political Violence under the Swastika, Princeton University Press).
Almost all of the Western world’s supporters of the genocidal regimes of Stalin in the Soviet Union and Mao in China were highly educated. Education is morally useful when it is a means to the higher ends of G-d and goodness.
The same holds true even of love. Love, of course, is so often beautiful. But it, too, can lead to evil. In the 20th century, people who put above love of G-d and goodness the love of country or love of ideology — the love of an unattainable dream for humanity — often committed terrible evil.
Here’s a test for you: Imagine that the pet you love and a stranger — a person you don’t know and therefore could not possibly love — are drowning. Do you first try to save your pet or the stranger?
Well, if love is an end in itself, you save your pet.
But if you hold human life as a higher value than love, you won’t follow love.
The second commandment made the ethical revolution of the Bible and of the Ten Commandments — what is known as ethical monotheism — possible.
Worship the G-d of the Ten Commandments and you will make a good world. Worship a false god — no matter how noble sounding — and you will end up with evil.
