Aseres Hadibros

לא תחמוד אשת רעך, “Do not lust after your fellow man’s wife!” Do not scheme to how bring about her divorce so that you can marry her. The translation of lo tachmod cannot be that you shall not kidnap her are otherwise force her to sleep with you. This prohibition was already included in the prohibition to commit adultery. The first five commandments were all in the category of לא מבעיא, there being no question of their being necessary. The need to accept G-d as Israel’s Master hardly had to be spelled out. Neither did the commandment not to worship competing deities or the need not to swear an oath by any other deity, or to observe the Sabbath, seeing that G-d Himself had observed a Sabbath; nor was there a need to decree to honour one’s parents. Every gentile does so without having been ordered to do so by G-d. Even the last five of the Ten Commandments did not need to be legislated as universal disregard of either of these commandments results in complete anarchy and the destruction of the human race by itself. In most of the Ten Commandments we find two cantillation marks per word (as opposed to only one on a word.). The symbolism that is represented by that fact is a reminder that we have two versions of the Ten Commandments in the written Torah. When the Torah is read in public on the festival of Shavuot, which is the anniversary of the revelation on Mount Sinai, we read the second commandment לא יהיה לך as well as the whole commandment commencing with the word: זכור using the major cantillation marks in order that each one of them be understood as a single verse. The 6th9th commandments are read on that occasion by using the minor cantillation marks, in order to understand them as separate verses. The reason is that although we never find a verse that has only two words, in this instance the Rabbis decided to remind us that we are dealing here with separate commandments. When the Torah is read on an ordinary Sabbath in the month of Sh’vat, however, and the Ten Commandments are read as part of the portion known as Yitro, we read the entire Ten Commandments using the minor cantillation marks as a result of which we make four verses of each one of them. The reason why on Shavuot we read the first and second commandment with the major cantillation marks is to remind us that they were uttered by G-d as a single continuous verse. [The author had explained there that these two Commandments were heard by all of the people from G-d’s mouth without Moses acting as an interpreter. Ed.] [In the second version of the Ten Commandments where the 7thh10th commandments are linked to one another by the prefix letter ו, it is clear that they are to be treated as separate commandments each. Ed.][The author proceeds to spell this out in greater detail. Readers familiar with the significance of each cantillation mark will be able to check this themselves. Ed.]