DEUT96 The Decalogue As Evidence Of The Centrality of Morality. It cannot be the case that the significance of the Decalogue lies simply in its being the revelation or even the very first revelation of God's will. The theophany at Sinai, which resulted in the Decalogue, is immediately followed by a series of detailed laws and commandments that seem to constitute the main legislation of the Torah (Exodus 21). For what reason, then, were these Ten Commandments (if there be ten; commentators differ as to the number of actual mitzvot contained in the Decalogue) or ten statements given separately as a unit before the others, given publicly to the people without intermediaries, and recorded in a different manner than the others? The Bible itself provides the answer. On several occasions the Decalogue is referred to as "the words of the covenant" or "the tablets of the covenant" [this verse, Exodus 34:28. See also I Kings 8:9 and 8:21]. That is to say, the Decalogue represented the conceptual expression of the covenanted-relationship that was now being entered into between God and a group of people who are now committing themselves to become a covenanted community called Israel. Once Israel has come into existence, the legislation follows through the mediation of the prophet. But the act that establishes the covenant is the giving by God and the accepting by Israel of the two tangible and permanent tablets of stone inscribed with the words which promulgate the unified common life which must now characterize Israel (M. Buber, Moses (Oxford: East & West Library), p. 130. "It is both legislation and promulgation.") It is in this sense that the Ten Commandments are "the words of the covenant," and the tablets, "the tablets of the covenant," and the ark where they were stored, "the ark of the covenant," a sense which does not apply to the other Commandments. Thus considered, recitation of the Decalogue can be seen as a "speech act" which reenacts the covenant at Sinai and constitutes a reaffirmation of its terms and conditions by the individual. This explains why the Decalogue was often associated with the Shema and with the tefilin as a Jewish affirmation of faith (Talmud, Berakhot 12a. It was discontinued out of fear that the Decalogue might tend to replace the other commandments).