Can a judge post the Ten Commandments in their courtroom? To the layman, the question has been whether or not the church belongs in the state’s business. And given that, across most religions for most of history, church law has been different than civil law, I can see that point.
But the Ten Commandments are different, because they are not Church Law. Instead, they are intended to be universal, understand to be eternal truths that apply in all times, for all peoples. It is not for nothing that both Jews and Christians claim the Big Ten as central to their canon. Indeed, I’d like to charitably suggest that there is a general misunderstanding among those who distrust religion about what “church” really means in terms of political power. They are thinking The Catholic Church, but that is not at all what most fundamentalist Jews or Christians have in mind.
You see, we Jews don’t really have religious institutions, per se. For the past two thousand years (and arguably even much longer than that), we have not had a central religious authority. And every assertion of faith or practice was subject to argumentation, hence the adage, “Two Jews, Three Opinions.” Which means that religion (for us) is not, and never has been, about the raw exercise of power.
As a result, Jews cannot imagine a country run by rabbis. I doubt Christians are very much different: while many of us may like, respect, and even follow our religious leaders, most of us would also freely admit that our pastor or rabbi would make a dreadful hash of building roads or ensuring the garbage is collected. Rabbis, like prophets, are not, and should not be, powerful in the conventional sense.
Instead, we see religion as being influential, guiding us and helping us to make better decisions – for ourselves, for our familial and communal relationships, and between each human soul and its origin, the Creator.
So the liberal accusation of “theocracy” is a boogeyman. We don’t want religious leaders to become political leaders. Instead we want our country to see itself as morally bound within a broad and agreeable set of religious principles – basic concepts like respect for life and liberty and property. The Torah calls for Rule of Law and Equality Under the Law, which are also core American founding beliefs. Underpinning all of these is the religious (though empirically unfounded) assertion that each person is deserving of respect because their soul contains a divine spark.
In this way, theocracy is not a threat of religious dictatorship (like an Islamist state). Religion is instead seen as providing the moral guardrails to keep the government of a country within the bounds of acceptable behavior.
This might help explain why there is a verse in the Torah in which civil judicial authorities are referred to as “elokim”, a name for G-d. Here is the verse (Ex. 22:8):
In all charges of misappropriation—pertaining to an ox, an ass, a sheep, a garment, or any other loss, whereof one party alleges, “This is it”—the case of both parties shall come before Elokim: the one whom Elokim declares guilty shall pay double to the other.
The above verse is a blanket assessment of any alleged loss of property. It is curious, because in practice, G-d/Elokim is not the judge in the obvious sense: justice is done by a human court, using a process.
But I think the Torah is trying to explain the seriousness of what justice means – because when we seek and execute justice, we are in fact acting as coercive powerful forces, analogous to the force that G-d exerted on the world at Creation (where Elokim is first found). Doing justice is meant to be a humbling and weighty burden!
So the essence of Jewish Theocracy is really Jewish Jurisprudence – Torah jurisprudence. It was a civil code, of course (“criminal law” was a later invention). Such a theocracy is entirely reliant on the recognition that our legal code must stand on a moral foundation. Hence the Ten Commandments in the courtroom of bible-thumping justices.
This specific verse is not there to suggest that man is all-powerful – but instead must always be mindful of the incredible responsibility of deciding guilt and innocence and determining the consequences for those findings. Posting the Ten Commandments in a court room is a reminder to all participants that to be called “good,” law must have a moral foundation. The players in the legal system need a constant reminder that what we do is as serious and important as the creation of the world. Ultimately, we all answer to a higher authority.