332: The Ten Commandments

This American Life

Society & Culture, News, Politics, Arts

4.6 • 88.8K Ratings

🗓️ 20 April 2025

⏱️ 60 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

For Easter weekend — and the end of Passover! — stories of people struggling to follow the Ten Commandments.

Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription.

Host Ira Glass reads from the Ten Commandments. Not the original Ten Commandments, but some of the newer, lesser-known ones. There's the Miner's Ten Commandments of 1853, the Ten Commandments of Umpiring, and the Ten Commandments for Math Teachers — just to name a few. (4 minutes)
Commandments One, Two and Three: As a boy in religious school, Shalom Auslander is informed that his name, Shalom, is one of the names of God, and so he must be very careful not to take his own name in vain. (9 minutes)
Commandment Four: Six houses of worship in six different cities, each with its own way of honoring the Sabbath. (3 minutes)
Commandment Five: When Jack Hitt was 11, he did the worst thing his father could have imagined. Neither Jack nor his four siblings will ever forget the punishment. (6 minutes)
Commandment Six: Alex Blumberg talks to Lt. Col. Lyn Brown, an Army Reserve chaplain who served two tours in Iraq. Brown talks about what "thou shalt not kill" means to soldiers on the battlefield. (6 minutes)
Commandment Seven: In the book of Matthew, Jesus says that looking lustfully at a woman is like committing adultery in your heart. Contributor David Dickerson was raised as an evangelical Christian, and for many years tried not to have a single lustful thought. (9 minutes)
Commandment Eight: Ira talks to a waiter named Hassan at Liebman's Deli in the Bronx about some audacious thefts he's witnessed in his years in the restaurant business. (3 minutes)
Commandment Nine: Chaya Lipschutz wanted to donate one of her kidneys to a stranger. But to save a stranger's life, she had to break the commandment against lying. And the person she had to lie to was her mother. Chaya talked to Sarah Koenig. (8 minutes)
Commandment Ten: Ira talks to seventh-graders about the things they covet most. (4 minutes)

Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org

This American Life privacy policy.
Learn more about sponsor message choices.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	So in 1853 during the California gold rush, a leafleteer out west published the Ten Commandments for gold miners who'd come out to prospect.
0:08.0	Commandment number four,
0:10.0	Commandment four in the traditional Ten Commandments tells you to observe the Sabbath Day to keep it holy.
0:15.0	Commandment number four reads like this, Thou shalt not remember what thy friends do at home on the Sabbath Day,
0:20.0	lest the remembrance may not compare favorably with what thou doest here.
0:25.0	For commandment number eight, the commandment about stealing in the traditional commandments,
0:28.2	commandment eight, thou shalt not steal a pick or a shovel, or a pan from thy fellow miner, or take away his tools without his leave,
0:34.7	nor return them broken, nor remove his stake to enlarge thy claim,
0:39.1	nor pan out gold from his riffle box.
0:42.7	There's the Ten Commandments of Unpiring, written in 1949 by the Commissioner of Major League Baseball.
0:48.7	Commandment number one, keep your eye on the ball.
0:52.8	Four different commandments on this list are basically about not getting mad at the players.
0:58.0	There are the Ten Commandments of Tractor Safety, number one.
1:00.9	Know your tractor.
1:02.2	It's implements and how they work.
1:05.1	The Ten Commandments of Paris Dining, as supported by Photos Travel Guides, which include number two.
1:09.6	That shall not be too familiar with a waiter.
1:11.6	Don't expect to hear.
1:12.6	My name is Gaston, and I will be your server tonight.
1:15.6	Also, number eight, that shall not assume that the customer is always right.
1:19.1	And number ten, that shall never use the term doggy bag.
1:24.6	Let's see what else.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from This American Life, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of This American Life and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.