May 14, 2026
Life is complicated! Each day acquaints us with new complexities. Just when we think we have finally figured out what is going on in our world, we are bombarded with wave after wave of disturbing complexities that challenge our worldview. And this is the ever-enlarging reality for each of us as individuals. This is dizzying enough, but “Oy”—add to that family members and “Oy-vey” neighbors, our larger community, our nation and “Oy-yoi-yoi” all eight billion people on this planet! [Oy vey (אױ װײ) is Yiddish for “woe to me.”]
Of course, my default response is to dismiss any complication to my worldview that discomforts me. I suspect that may be your default response too. After all, there is no way we can be conscious of everything in every context. So, we turn to others to help us sort through the complexities. The first of those who can help us with this are our parents, teachers and other influencers. At some point, we have received enough instruction from them that we have enough intellectual tools to begin to accumulate specialized knowledge for ourselves. We research the thoughts of others, read books, watch helpful videos, all with the hope of catching glimpses of something that will make sense of things, explain it all—simply!!!
In the 1990s, I remember a television show that my daughter watched called “Clarissa Explains It All.” Needless to say, teenage Clarissa couldn’t explain it all, but it was a catchy premise. The teenage actress went on to play “Sabrina, the Teenage Witch”! So, since she couldn’t explain it all she turned to the supernatural???
Okay, yes, this was children’s TV, not real life, but illustrative of our dilemma. When we cannot make sense of our experience we often turn to the supernatural. We have been doing this since earliest history.
Let’s face it, you would have to be some supernatural-ultimate consciousness or “mind” to understand all of experience and then explain it all! Most of us are happy when we can understand or explain anything!
So, here is a thought: Imagine if there was such a supernatural consiousness/mind. For convenience, let’s call that ultimate consciousness/mind “God.” Then, what if this God was present when all things came into “being”? And, what if this mind wasn’t just a spectator, but the source of all that came into being, and actually took that action that brought all things into being? Do you think that this Creator-God could explain it all? Well, I don’t really need to understand everything. But,could this Creator-God (mind/consciousness) dumb-down things enough for me to understand what the heck is going on in my own life? And, just to make sure we have a clear record of the explanations—write it down!
I don’t think we have to imagine it. This is what Jewish tradition describes as the Torah. This Torah (תּוֹרָת – “instruction”) has been transmitted in writing by Moses as Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. These five books contain the Creator-God’s explanation of it all!
Yeah, but that is a ton of material with thousands of specific details. How do I sort through all of that complex material to find what I need? It seems to me that often such religious/philosophical discussions quickly become foggy with clouds of complications and details. Things become exponentially more complicated and foggy as time goes on.
Is there a table of contents for the Torah, some central station where all the trains of reality originate, connect and return—a central structure whereby I can connect to God’s instruction/guidance for each step in my own journey?
Fortunately, there is such a central train station—a central structure that serves as a table of contents for the Torah, God’s instruction manual. It is composed of ten statements (עֲשֶׂרֶת הַדִּבְּרוֹת Aseret Hadibrot). They are probably already familiar to you as the “Ten Commandments,” but Hebrew calls them “words-sayings-statements”—God’s declarations that explain it all!
God spoke all these words, saying:
- I the ETERNAL am your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, the house of bondage:
- You shall have no other gods besides Me. You shall not make for yourself a sculptured image, or any likeness of what is in the heavens above, or on the earth below, or in the waters under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them. For I the ETERNAL your God am an impassioned God, visiting the guilt of the parents upon the children, upon the third and upon the fourth generations of those who reject Me, but showing kindness to the thousandth generation of those who love Me and keep My commandments.
- You shall not swear falsely by the name of the ETERNAL your God; for GOD will not clear one who swears falsely by that name.
- Remember the sabbath day and keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath of the ETERNAL your God: you shall not do any work—you, your son or daughter, your male or female slave, or your cattle, or the stranger who is within your settlements. For in six days GOD made heaven and earth and sea—and all that is in them—and then rested on the seventh day; therefore GOD blessed the sabbath day and hallowed it.
- Honor your father and your mother, that you may long endure on the land that your ETERNAL God is assigning to you.
- You shall not murder.
- You shall not commit adultery.
- You shall not steal.
- You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
- You shall not covet your neighbor’s house: you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox or donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s.
[Exod 20:1-14, Revised JPS, 2023]
These 10 statements were originally written on two tablets of stone. Yes, they are “written in stone”! So, we can call them the “Tablets” of Contents for the instruction found in the five books of the Torah where God explains it all.
Yes, the Torah contains 613 specific instructions and applications that apply to every experience of every person that has ever existed or will ever exist. But, God has distilled all the complexity down to 10 statements of ultimate reality that connects all the complexities. If (or realistically, when!) you get lost in the complexities, just go back to the table of contents. God has simplified it for us so that we can all understand the explanations we need.
-Jeff-