Outtakes from the Ten Commandments*

עשרת הדברות

2(a) “Graven Images” include, but are not limited to, smiley faces constructed from parentheses and colons and all manner of emoticons in the firmament as well as in the hard-to-reach places under the firmament.

4(a)  Notwithstanding the foregoing, and without limitation thereof, if you are a rabbi or a cantor, what, exactly, are you doing on  Shabbat if not working? Ironic, n'es pas?

9(a)  Even if your neighbor bears false witness against you, resist the urge to return the favor. Instead, build a fence.  Good fences usually make good neighbors, but if not, there’s always adverse possession.

10(a) And when I say: “Do not covet anything that is your neighbor’s,” this includes fences.

10(b)  “Its” is possessive; “it’s,” a contraction. If you can’t keep this straight while walking around your neighbor’s fence in a garment of mixed fibers, just keep right on walking to banishment in the Wilderness of Zin, because if there are two things that really set me off, it’s mixed fibers and people who say things like: “The country is full of wild beasts, and it’s people are warlike and on a hair-trigger, and kind of ugly.”  

10(c) And speaking of adverse possession, let’s say you have borrowed something from your neighbor and have failed to return it for so long that now your neighbor has forgotten who owned it originally and starts coveting it (even though it was really your neighbor’s to begin with), then both you and your neighbor will be forgiven. But not your neighbor’s maidservant.

10(d) Don’t covet your neighbor’s plans for building a fence.  Are plans even really necessary?  How hard is it to build a fence?

10(e) Don’t covet the way your neighbor says “covet.”

10(f) Don’t fence me in.

10(g)  :)

10(h)  J

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* In the original, of course, the word is really “utterances,” not “commandments,” but a busybody scribe thought there would be less slacking if everything was framed in the imperative. Some time ago, the film version of “The Ten Utterances” enjoyed a brief lifespan as an honorable mention at the Minsk-Pinsk Film Festival (held semi-annually in the Second Class cars of the Minsk to Pinsk rail express), until the train broke down and the passengers were required to sign confidentiality agreements before they could disembark. Thus, no one was allowed to make any reference to the film.  This is where the phrase “Don’t mention it” comes from, in an instant transforming an “honorable” mention to a “don’t.”  Ever since then, the film has enjoyed a well-deserved obscurity.