#210: Choosing Morality When Culture Looks Elsewhere

This week, I’m talking about the Ten Commandments, and why I believe they are still a blueprint for human flourishing today. I share my thoughts on integrity, faith, and choosing what is right in a world that often celebrates the opposite.

If you’ve been feeling unsettled by what you see in the culture, this episode is an invitation to choose light, truth, and moral clarity — imperfectly, but sincerely.

Other Shabbat Episodes:

• #193: The Radical Gift of Sabbath
• #96: How and Why the Sabbath Balances Out Your Weekly Flow

www.daraboxer.com

Transcript

Welcome And A Change Of Plan

Dara Boxer 0:00

Hello everyone, and welcome to the Raw on the Cooked, a weekly podcast that provides simple routines around the home plus raw and honest book reviews. My name is Dara. I'm a Midwestern stay-at-home off to four young kids, and I thrive on simplicity. Hello everyone, welcome back to another episode. So I actually had something completely different planned for today's episode, but the more I sat with it, the more I felt called to share this episode today instead. Sometimes you just know when the timing is right, and this feels like one of those moments. So I wanted to share with you something that I have been sitting with spiritually, emotionally, and honestly, like as a mother and a woman, and just as a normal person trying to live with intention in a very noisy world. This episode really, really called to me. So, okay, for some backstory. In Judaism, we read the entire Torah, the first five books of Moses, every single year. It's broken down into 54 weekly portions called parsha in Hebrew. So when you say the parsha of the week, it's like saying the portion of the week, and it revolves around the Jewish calendar. Um, so it's basically the world's largest ongoing book club. And every week, Jews all around the world are reading the same section. Rabbis are teaching it, children are learning it, families are talking about it at the Shabbat table on Friday nights, and uh the portions sort of like reset, like every uh every Shabbat is another portion, and again, 54 versus 52 weeks in the Gregorian calendar. So there are some weeks where there are two portions. But anyway, we're all moving, Jews around the world are all moving through the same spiritual story together week after week. And this week we are in Parsha Yisro, uh, which is in the book of Exodus. So uh Yisro is the Hebrew word for Jethro. And so far, this is my favorite partia of the book of Exodus, uh, because this is the moment when God finally gives us the Ten Commandments. And why this feels so relevant right now, and this is what I've been sitting with lately, is morality. As the years go by, it is becoming more and more clear to me that we are living through a spiritual battle currently. This is not about right or left anymore politically. This is simply about good and evil, light and darkness, truth and confusion. And I deeply want, whenever my time comes for this, for me to leave this world, I want to be able to stand before God and say that I did my best. Definitely not perfectly, like not even close, but definitely sincerely. And I truly believe that we are here, put on this earth for three main reasons. Number one, to work on our spiritual fitness, number two, to refine our moral character, and number three, to learn over and over again that we are deeply loved by God. And so, and again, this is becoming very clear to me as the years tick by. There is no justice on this side of heaven, like at all. But there is meaning and responsibility and choice, and that's why this week's partia feels really powerful right now, especially if you've been paying attention to just what's been going on out there. So the power of the Ten Commandments, like this section in Exodus is honestly bone-chilling in its beauty. There's thunder, there's lightning, there is a shaking, trembling mountain, and an entire nation standing together, listening to God speak. And what does he give us? Not hundreds of complicated rules. I mean, that's definitely gonna come later, just stick around for Leviticus, but not impossible standards, just simple principles, a foundation for a moral life. And what stands out to me the most is that God spends more time on the Sabbath than almost anything else. Rest, pause, and holiness in an ordinary cyclical flow, right? Like every single week we are given a day that is carved out of time to be treated holy every single week, just like God's own rhythm. And we're gonna come back to that another time. I I'm just so pumped about Shabbat and the Sabbaths, and I have a couple of other episodes about Sabbath and how we do Sabbaths. So if you want, you can go listen to those. Um, but first I wanted to walk through the Ten Commandments together and then just sort of like go over each and every one with you. So, number one, you shall have no gods. Commandment two, no idols, no bowing down to false idols. Number three, do not use God's name in vain. Number four, remember the Sabbath and keep it holy. Commandment five, honor your mother and father. Commandment six, you shall not murder. Commandment seven, you shall not commit adultery. Commandment eight, you shall not steal. Commandment nine, you shall not bear false witness. And finally, commandment ten, you shall not covet. I mean, I am not gonna be able to cover each and every one of these in depth in the way I want within a reasonable time for this podcast. I'm gonna try to keep this like under 20 minutes for you guys. Um, but I just kind of wanted to give you like my overall bullet points on each of these commandments and then kind of talk a little bit more um about what it all kind of means uh with like living life. Because I mean we're here, we have no choice, right? Okay, so commandment one, you shall have no other gods. Our God is one. That's it. The most well-known Jewish prayer, you're supposed to teach it to your children. You say it first thing when you wake up and you say it uh right before bed. You also it is the prayer that is spoken on almost every dying Jew's lips the moment that they feel themselves slipping away. And it's Shema Yisrael Adonai Elohenu Adonai Echad. And in English, that means here, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one, and this is about loyalty and who we ultimately serve. One God. That's it. Commandment number two, no idols. So this really can be broken down into not turning into turning to money or fame or beauty or politics or a validation in whatever other god. It's simple, it's kind of hard, but it's pretty simple. Um, I think back in the day the idols were like literally like idols, but I think in today in modern society, that can get easily replaced with political ideology, it can get replaced with your career and ambition and a ton of other things. Um, but for the most part, it should be simple in principle. Commandment three, do not use God's name in vain. And I don't think this is about saying, like, oh my gosh, on a hard day, or or you know, like it's more about using God's name to lie, uh, to manipulate, to intimidate, uh, and to give false authority to something untrue, uh, because truth matters, right? Um, I think unfortunately we have a very corrupt world where people in pull in uh religious power uh leadership positions have taken advantage of vulnerable populations, especially children, in the name of God. And I think that is absolutely abhorrent, and that is the one sin that is explicitly stated by God that He will not forgive. So um I'm just thinking of rabbis and priests and a bunch of other people that got caught doing some pretty naughty stuff, and uh that's a pretty big one for God, I think. Okay, commandment four, my favorite, is remember the Sabbath because rest is holy, presence is holy, our family is holy, and this this commandment really deserves its own entire episode. Um, and I'm gonna dive deeper into that and what that really means and looks like in our modern world. Um, but for now, just remember the Sabbath and keep it holy. Commandment five is to honor your mother and your father. And what's interesting about this is that God doesn't say to love them, he says to honor them. And I believe that for some people that is easy, and I think for others that is deeply complicated, but it matters and it shapes who we become. And again, I think that could be an entire podcast that maybe we should do that. Maybe we should do an entire podcast episode on each and every one of the Ten Commandments. Um, but for now, I think it is interesting that it says to honor them and not to love them. And I think according to who your parents are and the kind of upbringing you had, that can look so different for so many people. Um, so yeah, I would love to have an entire episode on that. All right, um, number six, and the next five commandments are interesting because all of them are you shall not. So these are things you should not do to live a spiritually moral life. So you shall not murder. Um, so this is for intentional killing of first degree, you know, violence, dehumanization, like life is sacred. Uh, God does not want you to shed blood intentionally. And to back up that later on in Exodus, there are more commandments and a deeper explanation for uh what God deems acceptable, like if you had accidentally killed somebody, um, you know, or or whatever, right? Self-defense. But the big one is you shall not first degree murder. Commandment seven, you shall not commit adultery. Um, faithfulness matters. Um, and in a culture that treats betrayal just super casually, like how many books and television shows and movies and you know, all circling around infidelity, like like God does not want that. Like marriage is holy and trust is holy. And once you break that, you I mean, it's like it's like you can't put the toothpaste back in the tube, right? Like it's a again, a pretty big one. And I think what's just so unfortunate about our society today is it is marriage is just not treated like that anymore, which is just so sad to me. Commandment eight is you shall not steal. And this is not just money, this is time, uh, credit, energy, integrity. I mean, it's so much more than just you know stealing uh a loaf of bread at the the grocery store, right? Like there's so many different ways that you can steal. And so, really, again, just to be intentional and have integrity in your actions with other people. And there's more about this in Leviticus that kind of like backs up that. Um, but for now, let's move on. Commandment nine is to not bear false witness. So God does not want a nation of liars or people who bend reality, who rewrite stories, who manipulate the truth, right? Like your words matter. And something I love so much about the Jewish community here in St. Louis is March is clean speech month. And so every day we are encouraged to really pay attention to how we speak, what we're speaking about, and like, are we speaking with integrity? And it is just such a good reminder that our words are incredibly powerful. So I just love that. And then finally, commandment 10. And this is, I think, one of the most complicated ones is you shall not covet. Um, I it's okay to admire because I feel like admiring what your neighbor or your friend or your family member has, it can inspire you, aspire you to do better, to be better, to you know, obtain that thing. But coveting is very different, right? Like that's resentment and ultimately that's a form of ingratitude and forgetting what God has already given you, right? But but this can be tricky because like where's that line, you know? So again, to like really sit with that and think about coveting, right? And um another another part about this Parsha in Exodus is that after God gives these commandments, the people of Israel respond with nashe ve nashamah, which means that's Hebrew for we will do and we will understand. So after Moses explains and gives them all of these Ten Commandments, God gives like a little bit of uh, you know, explanation with each of them. The people don't say like, oh, well, we'll understand it first and then maybe we'll do it. But it's we will act first, we will commit first, we will live that life first, and then we will understand. The understanding will come. And I think there's so much wisdom in that because so often in life, like clarity typically doesn't come before obedience, right? It comes after, after you choose honesty and restraint and faithfulness and integrity. And it's I think I think I don't think this is like blind faith in a careless sense. I think it's faith with intention. It's saying the people of Israel are saying, I trust that God's wisdom is deeper than mine. I will walk this path with meaning and I will do it. And honestly, like I think that's also how motherhood works and marriage and being a friend, and that's how spiritual growth works, right? Like you show up, you try, you're probably going to mess up along the way, but you're gonna keep going. And one day you're gonna look back and think, like, oh, now I see, you know, I don't know, I just think it's just so powerful. What a response. And not to spoil anything if you've never read the story of Exodus, but it's kind of shocking how quickly the people of Israel screw that up, right? With the golden calf and you know, more to come. It's quite, it is quite the story. But um, yeah, anyway, back to why this matters today. So when when you step back, these commandments are not oppressive, they're just protective, they protect families and communities and us as human beings. And it creates, hopefully, it creates a world where people can trust each other, where children are safe, where truth exists and and love grows. And unfortunately, I think that when societies abandon these principles, I mean, we see what happens, right? Like confusion, loneliness, division, despair. Uh, Dennis Prager makes a really powerful argument that if all of humanity actually lived by these Ten Commandments, we would be living in a much safer, more harmonious world where there's less violence, less betrayal, less corruption, oh, the corruption, and just more trust. And when you really think about it, I I mean, I'm sold he's right, right? Like these are not restrictive rules. They're just simply a blueprint for human flourishing this side of heaven. So just in closing, I'm choosing light. I'm choosing light. That's it. I I don't share this from a place of perfection. I struggle, I fall short all the time. Um, I, you know, get overwhelmed and make mistakes, but I want, I want my life to point towards the light, towards truth and goodness, especially to model for my children and especially in this generation. Oh, 2026, my goodness. And again, we don't need to be perfect, but we do need to be sincere and show up with integrity, right? And I think that we all need to be brave enough to choose what is right, even when it is deeply unpopular and goes against the current culture, which is so hard. It is so hard to live that way. Counter culture. And I feel it all the time when we turn down birthday party invitations or joining friends, you know, to do whatever, if it's the Sabbath or whatever it may be. And again, even when it's inconvenient and even when it feels a little lonely at times, like this is what Parsha Isrow reminds me of that God believes that we are capable of moral greatness, we are capable of it, and He trusts us with responsibility and He invites us into that covenant. And it's not a small thing, right? So thank you guys so much for being here with me today. And if this episode resonated with you, I would love for you to share it, leave a review, or send it to a friend who you think could use it. And as always, thank you so much for listening to me and uh showing up here again and again each week. I really, really look forward to seeing you back here next week.