Musar for Makkot 47:4

The commandments: "I am the Lord your G–d," and "you must not have any other god," tell us that אנכי, "I am the Lord your G–d," is the source of all positive commandments, and לא יהיה לך tells us that the same G–d is the source of all negative commandments. Our sages teach us that Israel heard these two commandments directly from G–d's mouth (Makkot 24). This is why you find that G–d addresses Israel in the second person in these two commandments. When G–d introduces the third commandment, He switches half-way through the commandment (20,7) to indirect speech, i.e. כי לא ינקה, "For He will not consider blameless, etc." He also did not say "Do not utter My name in vain, but "do not utter the name of the Lord your G–d in vain." It was Moses quoting G–d who said these words; hence the change in style. The same applies to the remainder of the first set of the Ten Commandments.

And "[I have returned to Zion, and will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem:] and Jerusalem shall be called the City of Truth" (Zecharia 8:3) - to magnify its importance. And our sages of blessed memory said (Makot 24a): "'who speaks truth in his heart' (Tehilim 15:2), like Rav Safra..." To teach you just how far-reaching the obligation of truth extends.

I have alluded to the fact that the name אנכי may be understood as י אנ"ך the letter י describing the Decalogue, and the other three letters being the opening letters of the three words אורייתא, נביאים, כתובים. (short for the Bible) Since the letter י is considered the "highest" of the letters, it comprises all the other letters within it; it also includes within its essence the other letters forming the Ineffable Name, and especially the letter א. When the sages stated that the Ten Commandments were said בדבור אחד, as a single unbroken utterance, this meant that a single thought was subdivided into ten thoughts. The higher one ascends spiritually, the clearer one will perceive that all the variety of facets of the subdivided original parts which are a result of the original One subdividing, will once more coalesce and form the original One. It is perhaps easiest to understand the Ten Commandments as a single commandment to which G–d added nine amendments. This perhaps is the deeper meaning of Psalms 62,12: אחת דבר אלוקים שתים זו שמעתי, "One thing G–d has spoken, two things have I heard." First G–d made a single statement including all that He had to say; subsequently He fed Israel this message in smaller selfcontained doses. We ourselves heard only two statements directly from G–d, אנכי, and לא יהיה לך.

All of Israel heard the Ten Commandments in one single phrase without punctuation. G–d repeated the first two commandments so that they could be comprehended by everybody word by word. This makes a total of twelve that every Israelite heard from G–d directly. This in turn corresponded to the twelve tribes, two of whom were allocated special functions, as we have mentioned. When you add the fact that the commandments were inscribed on two tablets you have the figure 14. This also corresponded to the fact that the twelve tribes had extensions, תולדות, the sons of Joseph. The reason there were two tablets was to distinguish between the written and the oral law. The number fourteen symbolizes the יד (14) החזקה of Moses who was the recipient of the Torah (cf. last verse in the Torah).