I was watching a great show on TV a few days ago, one that covered the Bible from the perspective of the Jews, Christians and Muslims. There was a lot of stuff I never knew, such as the fact that Moses not only has a starring role in the Jewish and Christian faiths, but also the Muslims religion. Who would have thought.
I can’t tell you exactly how the whole show panned out. I started to get a little sleepy by the time Moses finally made it to the mountain to fetch the tablets. By the time he had set his people free, I was pretty much out of it, missing the parting of the Red Sea, which it turns out, may have not been the Red Sea after all, but some shallower body of water filled with reeds that Charlton Heston crossed.
It was during this part of the show that I came to realize that I will never ever make it to Heaven. Well, at least if we’re supposed to follow and adhere to all the commandments. I’ve written about the 10 Commandments before and all the fine print. What I didn’t know until this show is that there are actually 603 more Commandments we’re supposed to be following.
If Moses had an Apple tablet instead of the ones made of stone, I suppose he would have brought all the Commandments back from Mount Sinai. Instead, he had to pick and choose, and if I were Moses, I would grab the lightest tablets I could find and cart those back down the mountain. I certainly wouldn’t make the hike with all the Commandments in tow, at least not ones chiseled into rock. I would just grab 10 or so, use some “RockOut” to renumber them, then call it good with I through X.
As you can imagine, the presence of 603 more Commandments really makes it difficult to meet all of God’s expectations. Hell, I can’t even make it through a day without breaking a manmade law.
This is not entirely my fault. A friend of mine, Jerry Ceis, once told me that there were so many laws on the books that no one can make it through a day without breaking one or more of them. There were just too many.
I used to think that the Commandments would be easier to master. There were, after all, only 10 of them. How hard that could be? Sure, coveting thy neighbor’s wife turned out to be a real bitch for me, in more ways than one. And I didn’t do so well with not using God’s name in vein.
But back to the bigger problem at hand. The Commandments only started the whole “we have way too many laws” problem. Think about the world around you. There are laws telling you where and how you can travel in your car, and even whether or not you can drive your car at all. There are corresponding laws to tell you what you can and can’t drink at what age, who and who you can’t marry (sheep are still verboten, sorry), and then there are all sorts of laws that can send you to jail or at the very least, result in a humungous fine, including but not limited to dropping garbage on the ground and not picking it up, letting your dog poop where it wants to, parking front-in in a back-in only stall, driving on the inside lane of the freeway when you’re the only one in the car – the list goes on.
It is still illegal to drive a car with an uncaged bear in it in California and in Maine you can’t have Christmas decorations up after Jan. 14. On Jan. 1, 2013, it finally will be legal for Floridians to blink their lights at other cars to warn them of a speed trap ahead. I broke that law for eight years, by the way, never knowing it was illegal in the first place.
Florida is hardly alone. Some 400 new laws take effect Jan. 1. This includes making it illegal in Oregon for a company to advertise for a job if they aren’t willing to consider unemployed people for the position. In Illinois, you can’t dress up in a costume or give out candy on Halloween if you’re a sex offender. And what the heck, back to Florida for a moment. Beginning tomorrow (Jan. 1), swamp buggies will no longer be classified as motor vehicles.
Why not continue on with this hit parade of laws that you could break at any moment without even being aware of it. California has a very wise law, making it illegal to drive a car over 60 miles per hour without a driver in it. In Alaska you’re breaking the law if you spot a moose from an airplane. In Arkansas there must be a lot of people breaking the law. Dogs aren’t allowed to bark after 6 p.m., but as we know, it’s illegal for dogs to wear wristwatches there.
Delaware is not a place to celebrate New Year’s Eve or any other eve for that matter. While I’m not sure if it’s also illegal to race tractors on a levee, you definitely can’t serve alcohol at a place where there is dancing. This is known as the Footloose Amendment, by the way. And yes, I am making that up.
Jerry guessed that we all break about 10 laws a day whether we know it or not. This shouldn’t come as a surprise, given that an estimated 40,000 laws took effect in 2012. No, the comma’s not misplaced. You read right: 40,000!
If you think about it, 613 Commandments should be a cinch to remember, at least compared to the 40,000 laws that took effect last year alone. I couldn’t even keep the Big 10 straight, so I already know I’m screwed.
If only my neighbor hadn’t been such a hotty, and I hadn’t met her in a place where there was dancing and alcohol. If I had lived in Delaware, none of this would have happened and at least one of those 10 Commandments would have still been in play at the pearly gates.
In the Emerald City, racking up citations here on earth as I am in heaven,
– Robb