'A Sermon Preached at the Ohel Rachel Synagogue on the first day of Pentecost, May 21, 1923, by Rabbi W. Hirsch We celebrate to-day the anniversary of the Revelation. On this day, according to tradition, the liberated Israelites stood around Sinai and heard the divine voice proclaim law and order in the world. Trumpet-blast and carthy quake accompanied the Ten Commands which were spoken to a referent and awestruck population, and which have become since then the basis of every civilized religion. For, these Ten Words are a programme of human life. They define the relations of man to God, and of man to man. The first four teach us to regulate life so that our duties and obligations to God might be ever present in the mind. The remaining six enforce the more immediate responsibilities we owe tg our fellow man. And the fact that nearly two-thirds of these commands turn on our human relationships is in itself sufficient evidence that Judaism does not, as it is often alleged, concern itself only with God, and heaven, and the rewards of a future life. Its principal object is to blend the divine and the human sufficiently so that the difference between God and man, and heaven and earth, might be less striking. This was the will of the Creator who, on the day fashioned this universe out of; Chaos, shaped.man in the image of God. And this purpose is also reflected in the fifth commandment with which we are all so famifgar: Honour thy father and thy m
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