The 10 commandments as depicted in art - 4 controversies

Rembrandt van Rijn - Moses with the Ten Commandments 1659

Look closely at this picture - what comments would you make about Rembrandt's choices from a Jewish cultural and halachic standpoint.

There are about 14 things to spot. (There are other artistic issues like the move to realism, colour palette, contemporary clothing, lack of aesthetic perfection which are a bit off topic for this Shiur)

Scroll down for answers

1. Moses as a Jew has not been portrayed in a negative fashion, as was the norm in medieval and early baroque times.

2. Moses does not have very obvious horns.

3. His face is radiant.

4 The luchot are two separate tablets.

5. The luchot are curved at the top

6. The commandments appear 5 and 5.

7. He is showing the last 5 in front of the other.

8. The Hebrew text is very accurate, copying the technique of a Sofer.

9. The text is Ktav Ashuris

10. No miraculous suspended letters obvious.

11. You can see the last 2 letters of Anochi

12. The summary text to some of the commandments is very wordy e.g No 10.

13. He seems to be following the Rabbinic tradition for certain aspects of the work?

14. He looks like he is doing Hagbah - did Rembrandt visit shools?

Looks like he may have had some guidance from someone of a Rabbinical persuasion?

Answers and more to come.

The Luchot are a very Jewish symbol. We see this from very early on in History.

In England during the reign of Henry 3rd they passed a law that Jews had to wear aspecial badge that contained an image in fabric of Luchot. This was the first time that Jews were forced to wear distinguishable symbols and interestingly it wasn’t a Magen David or other Jewish symbol – but luchot,

1. Decree of Henry III (1218) (11 year old boy at the time)

This followed a similar degree from the Church

You can see in the following pictures some Jewish characters (including Aaron son of the devil) who has the demonic Jewish face, hooked nose etc. They are all wearing the sign of the Luchot.

In art up to Rembrandts time Jews were portrayed in an antisemitic, unflattering way as devils with hooked noses and horns, and animal appendages etc

Upper margin of the Exchequer Receipt Roll, Hilary and Easter Terms, 1233

15th Century Frankfurt

1) Steven Nadler – Rembrandt’s Jews

In Medieval and Renaissance art “the Jew is not merely morally degenerate, but of a sinister different nature altogether” …“bulging, heavy-lidded eyes, hooked nose, dark skin, large open mouth, and thick, fleshy lips,” …“more like cartoon characters than natural human beings.”

“we come to 17th-century Dutch art, where we find . . . nothing; utter plainness. . . .. Ugliness and deformity are there, but they represent the common sins and foibles of all of humankind. . . . More than a century after their political emancipation in the Netherlands, the Jews experienced there an unprecedented aesthetic liberation”

So Rembrandt (1606-1669) was around during the Golden age of Dutch Art. It was a time of major change to the techniques of art. Art was taking on a more human and ethnic form. Up to now most characters were painted in an angelic, perfectly formed, soft focus form. Now artists started to paint our heroes, secular and biblical, in a more realistic manner – warts and all. You can see that Moses looks quite real. He does not have the negative portrayal of Jewish faces. He has a normal Jewish face, not too ugly – not too pretty …

In this picture he also corrects another Jewish anachronism i.e. Jewish Horns.

We will look at 4 areas of controversy about Moshe and the Luchot –

Controversy No. 1. Horns

This is looked on as antisemitic nowadays, but at one time it was simply a reaction to Biblical peshat.

We see an example of these horns in Michelangelo’s Moses (1475 - 1564) and in Philipe de Champaigne‘s Moses (1648).

There are two versions of Champaigne's 10 commandments. One is in the Hermitage and the other is in Musée de Picardie, Amiens.

Version 1

Version 2

Many words have 2 meanings, says Rashbam.

Rashbam is lambasting the Christians who have mistranslated the word “Keran” as “Keren” and stuck with that mistake for centuries.

In Modern Hebrew, Keren also means a horn of light.

In the Vulgate Latin translation of the Bible it says horns -which had grown out of his skin

Chabad: Moses did not know that the skin of his face had become radiant

Sefaria : Moses was not aware that the skin of his face was radiant, since he had spoken with Him.

Latin Vulgate:

Vulgate, (from the Latin editio vulgata: “common version”), Latin Bible used by the Roman Catholic Church, primarily translated by St. Jerome. In 382 Pope Damasus commissioned Jerome, the leading biblical scholar of his day, to produce an acceptable Latin version of the Bible from the various translations then being used. His revised Latin translation of the Gospels appeared about 383. Using the Septuagint Greek version of the Old Testament, he produced new Latin translations of the Psalms (the so-called Gallican Psalter), the Book of Job, and some other books. Later, he decided that the Septuagint was unsatisfactory and began translating the entire Old Testament from the original Hebrew versions, a process that he completed about 405.

29. Cumque descenderet Moses de monte Sinai tenebat duas tabulas testimonii et ignorabat quod cornuta esset facies sua ex consortio sermonis Dei

And when Moses came down from the Mount Sinai, he held the two tables of the testimony, and he knew not that his face was horned from the conversation of the Lord.

The confusion in the translation may be connected also with another linguistic similarity in the verse – עור and אור

In our case it means עור – skin, but a mistranslation would come out as “horn of light”.

Is there any precedent for this?

Amazingly – Yes! Bereishis 3, 21

Now to a homiletical approach. In Bereshit Rabbah 20,29 the copy of the Torah in the possession of Rabbi Meir, had the word “OR” כתנות עור spelled אור, “light.” The meaning of this comment is that G-d dressed Adam and Chavah in clothing consisting of different degrees of “light.” This “light” was a derivative of the אור העליון, “light in the celestial spheres,” similar to the rays of light which Moses’ forehead emitted when he came down from Mount Sinai (Exodus 34,29). In Gan Eden such light still prevailed. The quality of the clothing given to the person so clothed relates in some degree to the quality of He who provides such clothing, in this instance G-d Himself. It was G-d’s intention for this clothing to exist indefinitely and for the wearers to be similar in stature to the angels.

The above drosha implies that man's purpose is to bring spirituality into the world despite the fact that we are flesh and blood with skin. We can turn the physicality of עור into the holiness of אור. This Rabbi Meir darshened from a girsa that he had that read כתנות אור.

You could make the same drosha by עור פניו. The Torah which Moses was bringing down could transform our lives from pure physicality to a physical life imbued with spirituality.

אור is connected to sight. A blind person is Iver עור.

So if you look once more at the Moshe by Rembrandt you will see that his face appears lit up and there are no proper horns just some bright tufts of the hair.

He seems to follow the Rabbinic interpretation? How come?

Rabbi Manasseh ben Israel lived around the corner and historians have postulated that they were acquaintances.

Manoel Dias Soeiro (1604 – November 20, 1657), better known by his Hebrew name Menasseh ben Israel (מנשה בן ישראל) was a Portuguese rabbi, kabbalist, writer, diplomat, printer and publisher, founder of the first Hebrew printing press (named Emeth Meerets Titsma`h) in Amsterdam in 1626.

One of his sefarim is Piedra gloriosa - with four engraved etchings by his acquaintance Rembrandt, who is also thought by some to have painted his portrait.

A portrait etching by Rembrandt probably depicting a son called Samuel Menasseh ben Israel,

It is thought that Rabbi Menasseh advised Rembrandt on many issues in his Biblical paintings, including the Hebrew in his "Belshazzar’s feast" .

Controversy No 2. – The 5 and 5 division – and the choice of which commandments to include in the count.

5/5 is the traditional Rabbinical idea but it’s not so straight forward.

There is a difference of opinion in the Medrash. Rav Yehuda says 5,5, - Rav Nechemiah says 10,10?

The 10:10 is explained like 2 contracts – original and copy,

It also looks like uneven billing to have 5:5 as going by length of text the first 5 win outright – 12 verses for the first luach and only 2 for the second. See text below.

The Jewish cocept of 5 and 5 is based on 2 concepts –

1 - Ramban quoting a cocept brought in various places by chazal.

and

2- Textually aware Pshat idea.

And now the second reason for 5 and 5 based on peshat reading of text –

Hashem is referred to as Hashem Elokecha in every one of the first five – not mentioned at all in the second five which is thus a natural division. I have emboldened the important phrases in the text.

Also, if you look there are reason’s given for the first five – see emboldened text ki …. lema'an .... asher. This is another obvious divide.

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How Rembrandt was influenced by different religious ideas is discussed in a scholarly work entitled Beyond the Yellow Badge. Anti-Judaism and Antisemitism in Medieval and Early Modern Visual Culture.This consists of a collection of academic articles on various topics. The one that interests us is called -

Between calvinists and Jews - The Ten Commandments in Rembrandt’s Art and the Portuguese Synagogue by Shalom Sabar - Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Once Rembrandt moved to Amsterdam in 1632, his use of Hebrew inscriptions changed dramatically. From the beginning of this period he lived in the vicinity of the Jewish neighbourhood, and in 1639 he settled on Breestraat, known today as Jodenbreestraat, where he acquired the large house that became the centre of his artistic activity until his insolvency in 1656. Living on the Jewish street, in close proximity to the community’s rabbis, intellectuals, and the leading Sephardi families
(e.g., Pinto, Belmonte, and Rodrigues), exerted a crucial influenceon Rembrandt’s use of Hebrew script, and in the course of years his approach became more original and meaningful. It is not surprising that he would turn to his neighbours for help when he wished to amplify biblical characters and stories by the usage of Hebrew script.

Rembrandt’s use of Hebrew culminated and found its most sophisticated artistic expression in his painting of 1659, Moses Holding the Tablets of the Law.

That his guide or collaborators were Jews becomes evident by the way some of the letters are written—for example, the final bet of לא תגנב (“You shall not steal”) is considerably dilated in order to create an even left margin,exactly as a traditional Jewish scribe would do. A further connection with Jewish culture arises from the suggestion that the unusual way Moses holds the tablets above his head was influenced by the artist’s visit to the synagogue, where he could see the customary Jewish ceremony of hagba (raising of the Torah scroll) done in a like manner.

Obviously the artist made a great effort to make the letters clear, sharp and legible even from a distance. At the same time, the second tablet covers most of the first, and thus only the ends of the lines in the first group of commandments are actually visible. The exact text of the commandments on the first, partly eclipsed tablet can be deciphered by evidence provided by an earlier painting Rembrandt’s Hannah and Samuel at the Temple, dated circa 1650.

Therefore, the inscriptions on the first (right) tablet in Hannah allows the reconstruction of the missing parts in Moses, thereby providing the full version of the Ten Commandments as they must have crystallised in Rembrandt’s workshop.

A problematic issue is how the ten were actually divided on the biblical tablets.
Jewish and Christian theologians who coped with this issue offered, according to their respective beliefs and religious inclinations, several methods of dividing the text. Three major systems of division and enumeration developed over the ages:
1. The traditional rabbinic division, in which “I am the Lord your God” is the first commandment, while “You shall have no other gods . . . You shall not make graven image . . . You shall not bow
down to them . . .,” together make the second. In this tradition the
rabbis explained that each tablet contained the same number of commandments, namely five.

2. The division of St. Augustine, in which “I am the Lord . . . You shall have no other gods . . . sculptured image . . ... bow down to them” constitute the first commandment (Ex. 20:2–6); while the second begins with “You shall not take in vain the name of the Lord your God” (20:7). In order to maintain a total of ten, Augustine suggested that the commandment, “You shall not covet,” be divided into two: “your neighbour’s house” (as the ninth) and “your neighbour’s wife . . .” (as the tenth). On the first tablet, according to this method, appear three commandments, while on the second (starting with “Remember the Sabbath”), seven. St. Augustine’s method has been accepted by the Roman Catholics.

3. John Calvin’s method deviates from the other two. Calvin claimed that the assertion “I am the Lord . . .” is not a commandment but rather a “preface to the whole law.” This distinction actually harks back to Hellenistic-Jewish authors, notably Josephus and Philo, whose writings were highly valued by the Church Fathers of later generations. Calvin, therefore, defined the first commandment as “You shall have no other gods . . .”; the second is the commandment concerning graven images, while the two parts of “You shall not covet” constitute the tenth. In Calvin’s enumeration, then, there are four commandments on the first tablet (“other gods” through “Remember the Sabbath”), and six on the second.

Rembrandt’s Moses does not follow any of the three systems. It is closer to the rabbinical division, since it opens with “I am the Lord” and contains five commandments on the second tablet. On the other hand, the aforementioned separation of “other gods” and “graven images” into two commandments does not follow the rabbinic system but rather Calvin’s.

As we said above some denominations need to divide the Lo sachmod into two. Therefore they keep Wife and House separate. In the Augustine tradition the wife is mentioned first (see Champaigne's pictures). In the Lutheran tradition the House is mentioned first. Why is this?

The difference relaltes to whether the text is taken from yitro or vaetchanan. The prohibition “Thou shalt not covet” (number 10) in the Exodus version says “Do not covet the household of your neighbor” and provides a list of what the household contains: “your neighbor’s wife, his servants, his ox and his donkey.” Significantly, in Deuteronomy, the text is somewhat different. Here, we read, first and foremost, “Thou shalt not covet your neighbor’s wife”, and only after that “thou shalt not covet the household of your neighbor,” and in the detail, we find the servants, the animals, the possessions.

Both of the Champaigne pictures follow the Augustine tradition but they differ in the way the commandments are distributed. The Hermitage painting is 3 and 7 and the Musee de Paradis is 5 and 5.

Hannah and Samuel at the temple - 1650

You will notice at the back of this picture is a snake object on a stick (or a cross) - What is that?

It was the bronze serpent on a pole. It was not kept in the ark but was kept in the mishkan up until the time of chizkiyahu who destroyed it as it was leading to idol worship. It was called at that point the Nechushtan.

In the Books of Kings (2 Kings 18:4; written c. 550 BCE), the Nehushtan נחשתן, which is the derogatory name given to the bronze serpent on a pole first described in the Book of Numbers which God told Moses to erect so that the Israelites who saw it would be protected from dying from the bites of the "fiery serpents", which God had sent to punish them for speaking against him and Moses (Numbers 21:4–9). In Kings, King Hezekiah institutes an iconoclastic reform that requires the destruction of "the brazen serpent that Moses had made; for unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it; and it was called Nehushtan".

There is only one shool in the world which follows Rembrandt's methodology of portraying the 10 commandments?

The Esnoga shul in Amsterdam does this - they have adapted the 10 commandments to that way.

6 ostensibly on the first (as anochi text is in there as well) and 5 in the second –

May have been influenced by Rembrandt who died a few years before it was opened.

The Portuguese Synagogue, also known as the Esnoga, or Snoge, is a late 17th-century Sephardic synagogue in Amsterdam, completed in 1675. Esnoga is the word for synagogue in Ladino, the traditional Judaeo-Spanish language of Sephardic Jews.

The Amsterdam Sephardic community was one of the largest and richest Jewish communities in Europe during the Dutch Golden Age, and their very large synagogue reflected this. The synagogue remains an active place of worship and is also a popular tourist attraction.

3^rd controversy – shape – arched or not?

We are very used to the curved idea –

Bnei Akiva'niks will remember growing up with the BA semel.

Look at Bevis Marks in London.

Pondering the background for this Shiur whilst eating breakfast, even my humble piece of toast was machriya.

Luchot = 6 tefach x 6 x 3

So they fitted in exactly and they were square.

The idea probably came from German diptychs, which were hinged devotional pictures of biblical scenes and saints –

1499 Berlin Diptych

These are hinged and together and that’s usually how they are portrayed in our shools.

The Rabbinic tradition is they were separate and Mosheheld one in each arm.

The fact that there was extras left over implies that it may have been curved (or maybe not – could still have been square).

Shloh (Shnei Luchot haBrit) – his sefer shows square shape.

And the Zohar

The great synagogue in Jerusalem

Chagall is curved

The Chief rabbinate logo

Originally it was curved.

In 2015 Rav Lau changed it to the more Jewish way – square.

Rav Sternbuch was asked a sha'ala about removing curved luchot from shools because maybe it was chukas hagoy. He ruled that it wasn't. It is simply an artistic beautification and not indicative of goyish custom or culture.

There is one occurrence of the curved top luchot which is quite fascinating and spine chilling at the same time. Theresienstadt was a hybrid concentration camp and ghetto established by the SS during World War II in the fortress town Terezín, located in a German-occupied region of Czechoslovakia. Theresienstadt served two main purposes: it was simultaneously a waystation to the extermination camps mainly Auschwitz, and a "retirement settlement" for elderly and prominent Jews to mislead their communities about the Final Solution. Its conditions were deliberately engineered to hasten the death of its prisoners, and the ghetto also served a propaganda role famously visited by the ICRC in 1944. A propaganda film was made by a Jewish prisoner and Czech film-maker and was intended to discredit reports of the genocide of Jews reaching the Western Allies and neutral countries, but it was only screened four times and did not achieve its objective.

The Jewish self-administration or self-government nominally governed the ghetto. The first of the Jewish elders of Theresienstadt was Jakob Edelstein, a Zionist leader. Edelstein and his deputy, Otto Zucker, initially planned to convert Theresienstadt into a productive economic centre and therefore avoid deportations; they were unaware that the Nazis already planned to deport all the Jews and convert Theresienstadt into a German settlement.

AS part of its semblance of self rule it had it's own currency. The money came into circulation in March 1943. Peter Kien, an inmate of Theresienstadt designed the notes, but unfortunately his design was warped to suit Nazi aims. When Kien submitted his original design, Reinhardt Heydrich rejected it. Though Heydrich had specifically instructed that Moses and the Tablets of the Law should appear on the Theresienstadt notes, he felt that Moses needed to be changed. He ordered that Kien redesign the notes, featuring Moses with a hooked nose, curly hair and long claw-like fingers, in order to align the image with a stereotypical Nazi portrait of a Jew. He also commanded that Moses's hand be arranged so as to cover the phrase “Thou shalt not kill” that appeared on the Tablets of the Law.

Controversy No 4 – What script was it written in ?

Was it original Hebrew script?

The Radbaz also mentions that there is a chance for miraculous letters in the Ktav Ivri as well because the Ayin is a meshulash - triangle and would also be a suspended letter.

.Charlton Heston in the film The Ten Commandments in 1956 under the direction of Cecil B. DeMille used Ktav Ivri.