Rob McCoy and Shabbos Kestenbaum on the Ten Commandments, Family and Faith

Shabbos Kestenbaum welcomes Pastor Rob McCoy and asks why the Ten Commandments deserve special attention among the 613 commandments traditionally counted in the Torah. He notes that Jewish congregations stand for their reading and revisit the giving of the Torah at Shavuot.

McCoy starts with Genesis and the belief that God created the world. He recalls Charlie Kirk's formulation that there is a God and human beings are not God, then calls the Decalogue foundational to Western civilization.

In McCoy's retelling of Exodus, enslaved Israelites appeal for deliverance and Moses confronts Pharaoh. Pharaoh refuses; the plagues and the death of the firstborn precede the Israelites' departure.

McCoy continues the biblical account: Pharaoh's army pursues the departing Israelites, the sea parts, and they cross while their pursuers drown. In the wilderness, he says, God provides manna, water and quail.

For McCoy the giving of the commandments at Sinai is the central event of this story. He recites one God, no idols, honoring God's name and the Sabbath, honoring parents, and prohibitions on murder, adultery, theft, false witness and coveting.

McCoy argues that shared moral obligations made collective life possible and that religious accountability can support limited government. His account of the wilderness population and the historical influence of the Bible represents his interpretation, rather than an established demographic calculation.

He connects biblical passages about appointing leaders and divine judgment to American representative government and the separation of powers. These are McCoy's proposed parallels; he presents the Bible as a major influence on the founders.

McCoy credits the United States' inventions and prosperity to a culture of accountability to God and to other people. He argues that moral law restrains civil power and that civil law can become oppressive when detached from morality.

He cites California's COVID-era restrictions as an example of what he regards as unequal treatment of churches and other businesses. This is his political characterization of the rules, not a finding established by the interview.

Kestenbaum contrasts practical commands, such as keeping the Sabbath and honoring parents, with the first commandment. He asks what a person actually does to fulfill the instruction to know God: is internal belief enough?

McCoy answers through his belief that the world belongs to its Creator. He invokes Genesis and the Christian Gospel of John to contrast divine creation and order with the dangers he sees when human authority is treated as ultimate.

Kestenbaum presses the question: why do the first three commandments focus on God rather than explicitly naming harms such as rape or slavery? McCoy says they establish who has the authority to give the remaining moral rules.

McCoy describes God as creator, all-knowing and concerned for humanity, while humans have free will and live in a fallen world. In his interpretation, recognizing that difference is a foundation for understanding right and wrong.

To illustrate the distinction between creation and rearranging existing matter, McCoy tells a joke about scientists who challenge God to make a person. When they reach for earth, God tells them to get their own dirt.

He interprets the ban on idols as a warning against placing created things above the Creator. On misusing God's name, he broadens the discussion to the damage words can do, including the harm caused by parents belittling a child.

Kestenbaum links the importance of words to Kol Nidre at Yom Kippur. He describes the opening reflection on vows and asks why promises that appear mundane should matter at a moment of religious judgment.

His answer is that ordinary promises train a person to take words seriously. If someone treats everyday commitments as inconsequential, he asks, how can that person expect a promise of repentance to carry weight?

Kestenbaum recalls a lesson from his studies in Jerusalem: discussing the details of a house is pointless if its foundation collapses. For him, the first three commandments provide a comparable foundation for Sabbath, courts, family duties and the remaining rules.

The host turns to the Sabbath, noting that he was named Shabbos because he was born on that day. He contrasts the wording in Exodus, to remember the Sabbath, with Deuteronomy's instruction to observe or guard it.

Kestenbaum explains the distinction as positive actions and acts of restraint: attending synagogue, praying and sharing family meals on one side, and refraining from particular activities on the other. He cites Charlie Kirk's practice of putting away his phone.

Asked how a Christian pastor observes the Sabbath, McCoy says he takes a day of rest, though he does not follow the same restrictions as an Orthodox Jew. He contrasts the Jewish Friday-evening-to-Saturday observance with the Christian Lord's Day on Sunday.

McCoy regards rest as a way to put life into perspective and invest in family. He argues that time together helps children learn the habits underlying other commandments: fidelity, respect, honesty and gratitude.

From his Christian perspective, McCoy says the law points people toward Christ rather than saving them by itself. Everyone falls short, he says, so parents and children need to understand divine mercy as well as rules.

McCoy describes the first five commandments as concerned with the relationship to God and the second five with relationships among people. Kestenbaum adds a Jewish framework of duties toward God, oneself and other people.

Kestenbaum asks about McCoy's friend and mentee Charlie Kirk, who included a Shabbat dinner for Jewish participants at a Turning Point USA conference. Why, he asks, did Sabbath observance matter in Kirk's public events and personal life?

McCoy recalls that Kirk's calendar was intensely crowded and that he spent much of the year traveling. At home, Kirk set aside business messages and protected time with God and his family, although he did not put away every electronic device.

The family enjoyed watching football together, McCoy says; the important boundary was keeping outside business from invading family time. He remembers the practice as a source of clarity amid a demanding public life.

McCoy recalls Kirk staying to meet people even when exhausted and says the demands on him grew rapidly over the years. In McCoy's account, the weekly pause created a stable family rhythm despite those demands.

For McCoy, responsibility for one's spouse and children calls for time and attention, not only professional success. He says Kirk's example challenged him to resist what he calls the tyranny of the urgent.

Kestenbaum summarizes the Sabbath as a pause after six days of building and work: a temporary separation from physical activity to reconnect with spiritual life. McCoy adds that rest can renew humility and gratitude rather than treating success as entirely self-made.

McCoy describes beginning the week by acknowledging responsibility as stewardship and asking God for wisdom. Kestenbaum connects that thought to the Hebrew morning prayer Modeh Ani, whose opening places gratitude before the word for 'I.'

The fifth commandment, honoring one's father and mother, comes with a promise of long life, Kestenbaum notes. He asks how a person should honor parents when their demands conflict with religious obligations.

Kestenbaum describes a rabbinic reading in which a parent's instruction to violate Jewish law must not be obeyed. McCoy agrees in principle and says refusing a harmful demand can itself express care for a parent.

McCoy recalls growing up in a largely secular home. When he became a Christian, his father, whose own upbringing had left him with a bad experience of religion, initially reacted angrily.

A competitive swimmer through college, McCoy says he had little time for parties while training. After graduation, with a job, money and more free time, he says his girlfriend became pregnant; he went to tell his parents they planned to marry.

McCoy remembers that his parents disliked his girlfriend and his father thought he was unprepared for parenthood. His father suggested an abortion; McCoy told him that conflicted with his religious beliefs and argued against it.

According to McCoy, his father eventually gave him an ultimatum: if he married and had the child, he could never enter the family home again. McCoy describes being 22, frightened and physically shaking as he faced that choice.

McCoy says he told his parents he loved them and would miss them, then left. He interprets the decision as remaining faithful to his beliefs while still honoring them; he says his parents later came to faith and told him more about their own experiences.

Kestenbaum asks what advice McCoy would give young people whose new religious convictions are difficult for their parents to accept. McCoy recommends listening, speaking respectfully and being prepared to hold one's ground when conscience demands it.

McCoy invokes Winston Churchill's and Ronald Reagan's family histories as examples of people he believes did not dwell publicly on their fathers' shortcomings. The biographical details are his own recollections; his broader point is that people can choose the kind of parent they become.

He says family pain need not determine the rest of a person's life. In his view, belief in a heavenly father can provide guidance when relationships with earthly parents are difficult, including when a person refuses a parent's demand.

Kestenbaum returns briefly to Sabbath ritual: the challah is covered while the wine is blessed. He describes the explanation he learned as a lesson in sensitivity—if one practices consideration even toward an inanimate object, one may learn to show it to people.

McCoy recounts learning more about his paternal grandfather, who struggled with alcohol, and his father's difficult background. Despite those experiences, he says, his father became the first college graduate in his family and gave his children a better start.

He describes a family dispute over naming a son Daniel. His mother initially objected because the name reminded her of a painful relationship with her own grandfather; after the child was born, McCoy says, she formed a special bond with him.

McCoy says he does not know everything his mother endured as a child, but remembers her as a good mother who cared for his father through years of Alzheimer's disease. He wants to offer his own children similar care.

Kestenbaum turns to the commandment commonly translated 'do not kill' and asks why the distinction between killing and murder matters. McCoy understands the commandment as prohibiting murder rather than every taking of life.

McCoy connects his view to the Declaration of Independence and its language about rights endowed by a creator. He puts the protection of life first and argues from his religious perspective that unjustified killing violates it.

He becomes emotional while recalling his father's Vietnam service. His father commanded vessels that fired rockets before troops secured an area and later saw women and children among the dead; McCoy says his father struggled to believe God could forgive him.

McCoy describes trying to reassure his father that he had acted under orders without knowing who was at the other end. That is McCoy's personal and theological assessment of his father's experience, not an independent determination about wartime conduct.

Kestenbaum describes a Jewish legal tradition in which preserving life overrides many religious rules, but names three categories in which the obligation is different: idolatry, murder and certain sexual prohibitions, including adultery.

He asks why adultery belongs among such serious prohibitions. McCoy answers that broken trust between spouses reaches beyond the couple, affecting children and the wider family; he presents this as a reason fidelity matters.

McCoy turns to the biblical story of David, Bathsheba, Uriah and Ahithophel. He recounts David's betrayal, the rebellion against David and the rival advice offered by Ahithophel and Hushai.

In McCoy's telling, Ahithophel had a family connection to Bathsheba and Uriah and therefore a personal reason to feel betrayed. McCoy uses the story to explore vengeance, forgiveness and the need to acknowledge wrongdoing.

McCoy argues that mercy should lead people toward repentance rather than denial. As an analogy, he describes a parent responding to a child's honest confession with forgiveness while still taking the underlying conduct seriously.

Kestenbaum asks whether the later commandments protect civil order, mentioning a Jewish interpretation that understands the theft prohibition as kidnapping. McCoy says either reading concerns the security of what belongs to people, including their children.

McCoy links family accountability to his argument for limited government: police and prisons, he says, cannot substitute for conscience and values taught at home. He also stresses giving children the opportunity to learn from mistakes.

From his Christian perspective, McCoy says people obey the law because they have been saved, not as a way to earn salvation. Kestenbaum responds with a rabbinic interpretation that treats theft as a source of social breakdown in the generation of Noah.

Kestenbaum relates that teaching to his support for the 'broken windows' theory, arguing that tolerating small violations can lead to wider disorder. The speakers present this as a political view, not evidence that every small offense causes serious crime.

The host moves to false witness, especially testimony in court, and asks why truthfulness belongs in a short foundational code. McCoy responds that a person's word is essential to trust and that a reputation can be destroyed quickly.

McCoy invokes the biblical story of Achan, contrasting voluntary confession with admitting wrongdoing only after being caught. In counseling couples, he says, establishing an honest account of what happened is often the hardest step toward repair.

Kestenbaum says many young people distrust political and media institutions and offers his criticism of pandemic-era decision-making. McCoy agrees that trust has been damaged and worries that blanket suspicion can give way to conspiratorial thinking; these are their opinions.

Kestenbaum asks about the final commandment, against coveting. He cites the Jewish commentator Abraham Ibn Ezra and suggests that envy can be strongest when a neighbor's slightly better house or car seems within reach, unlike a billionaire's distant wealth.

McCoy distinguishes coveting from simply admiring someone else's possessions: he describes it as wanting something so intensely that one resents its owner and is willing to take it. He sees that attitude as destructive of relationships.

McCoy illustrates his economic view with a farmer and baker who trade, reinvest their profits and hire workers. He credits entrepreneurs with creating wealth and argues that workers can negotiate for a share of the gains.

He then argues that government redistribution, socialism and communism violate the commandments against theft and coveting. This is his contested political interpretation; the interview does not establish that all public spending or redistribution is theft.

McCoy offers a classroom analogy in which a teacher transfers grades from a high-performing student to a low-performing one. He argues that the arrangement would reduce both students' incentives, using it to explain his objection to enforced equality of outcomes.

To make the commandments memorable, McCoy demonstrates hand gestures: one finger for one God, a bent finger against idols, three fingers over the mouth for God's name, a pillow for Sabbath and a salute for honoring parents.

He continues with gestures for murder, adultery, theft, false witness and coveting. Kestenbaum enjoys the mnemonic; McCoy says he also teaches it in a children's book.

Kestenbaum asks why internal jealousy matters if a person never acts on it, and extends the question to behavior when someone is alone and believes nobody is affected. What practical difference does belief in God make in private?

McCoy answers that, in his faith, God sees private conduct. He distinguishes secret sins, matters affecting a small circle and public wrongdoing, saying that confession should be made to those affected and that honesty should come early.

He applies this view to pornography and marriage, arguing that self-centered habits can undermine a relationship he understands as mutual sacrifice. His account is moral and pastoral advice rooted in his beliefs.

McCoy reflects on his marriage, children and grandchildren with gratitude and attributes the direction of his life to God's goodness. Kestenbaum says he finds McCoy's sense of being a vessel for God inspiring.

For a final question, Kestenbaum asks what eleventh commandment McCoy would add. McCoy jokes, 'Obey the ten'; when pressed, he says that someone who falls short should confess, move forward and return to the existing commandments.

Kestenbaum notes a biblical prohibition on adding to or subtracting from the commandments. He proposes that failing to observe the Sabbath can itself mean missing a gift, rather than requiring a separate visible punishment.

McCoy compares commandments to laws intended to protect people and reiterates his belief that honoring God is beneficial. The host thanks him for the conversation and for offering an Orthodox Jewish listener moral and spiritual clarity.