There is one thing missing from the siddur that we would certainly expect to find there: the Ten Commandments. This is especially mysterious considering that in the Temple in Jerusalem the Ten Commandments were routinely recited before the Shema!
So where did they go?
The short answer is that they were hidden in plain sight.
Rabbi Daniel Landes points out (My People’s Prayer Book, Vol. 1, pp 98) that while reading the Shema, one can find within it links to each of the Ten Commandments. He writes as follows:
“From paragraph 1: “A-do-nai your G-d” = 1st commandment “(I am A-do-nai your G-d”); “A-do-nai is One” = 2nd commandment (“You shall have no other gods before Me”); “You shall love” = 3rd commandment (“Do not take A-do-nai’s name in vain”); “Your house” = 10th commandment (“Do not covet your neighbor’s house).”
From paragraph 2: “Gather your grain” = 8th commandment (“Do not steal”); “You will quickly perish” = 6th commandment (“Do not murder”); “That your days and your children’s days…may be numerous” = 5th commandment (“Honor your father and mother that your days may be numerous”).
From paragraph 3: “And not follow your mind and eyes” = 7th commandment (“Do not commit adultery”); “Thus will you remember” = 4th commandment (“Remember the Sabbath Day”); “I am A-do-nai your G-d” = 9th commandment (“Do not bear false witness”—the Midrash explains, “G-d knows when we lie”).”
What is the point of this exercise? Why is the link between these two seminal documents so essential?
One explanation would be that the Ten Commandments are (literally) monumental. They symbolize an almost pristine other-worldly divine moral authority. The Shema, on the other hand is (literally) down to earth: “You shall speak of them when you sit in your homes and when you walk on your way, when you lie down and when you rise up….”.
The combination thus creates a wholeness that links our ordinary prosaic lives with the commanding voice of the Master of the Universe.
It is of such stuff that a meaningful life is made.
Rabbi Robert Wolkoff