OU TORAH YU TORAH NAALEH.COM Interpersonal Injunctions By Shira Smiles

Adapted by Channie Koplowitz Stein Imagine a convention of the greatest Torah luminaries. The keynote speaker, THE Gadol Hador, rises and delivers his address: “Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not steal…” Is not this something every one of those scholars already knows and instinctively obeys without a second thought? Would they not consider this address insulting? Yet this is the metaphor Rabbi Svei z”l presents in Ruach Eliyahu as the scene for Ma’amad Har Sinai. We have the gathering of the most illustrious generation of all time gathered at the foot of Mount Sinai, and Hashem reveals Himself to them and commands them with Ten Utterances that appear to be self evident. But appearances are not always what they seem, and here too, we must expect that much depth and wisdom lies beneath the surface of these seemingly self evident commandments.