Ten Commandments

The Ten Commandments are a Biblical reference point in Emma Harte’s conversation with Abraham Kallinski, who explains their place in Jewish history and links Judaism to Christianity. Their significance in the novel lies less in a list of particular commandments than in the exchange they prompt: Emma recognizes the name but discovers how much she does not know about the religious tradition from which Christianity developed.

Abraham Kallinski’s explanation

Abraham asks Emma whether she knows the Book of Exodus and the Ten Commandments. She nods, indicating familiarity with the reference, but does not know that, as he explains it, the commandments were given to the Jewish people by Moses when he led them out of Egypt and formed the Jewish nation. He adds that Christianity is based on Judaism. The exchange therefore turns a familiar Biblical subject into an occasion for Emma to learn about its Jewish context.

Abraham extends the explanation beyond the commandments themselves. He tells Emma that Jesus was Jewish and was also persecuted, and suggests that differences in customs, dietary laws, and worship can make Jewish people seem strange to others. Emma admits her ignorance rather than pretending to know, then responds by condemning the stupidity and ignorance that fuel prejudice. Her immediate comparison is with the class divisions in England, which she sees as another source of cruelty and inequity.

Religious practice in the Kallinski household

The conversation takes place within a broader encounter with the Kallinskis’ religious and family life. At sundown, Emma joins Abraham, Janessa Kallinski, David Kallinski, and Victor Kallinski at their table. She watches Janessa light two candles and say a prayer in a language Emma does not understand; Abraham blesses wine and a loaf of bread, and David explains that his father has recited the kiddush. The bread is the same loaf Emma had rescued from the street.

The meal is not presented as a recitation or enactment of the Ten Commandments. Instead, it gives the discussion of Judaism a lived setting: Emma observes unfamiliar practices and is welcomed into a warm family gathering. She comes away struck by the Kallinskis’ kindness and by the contrast between their hospitality and the hostility Jewish people face in Leeds. The commandments thus belong to a larger scene in which religious knowledge and personal contact challenge prejudice.

A recurring tension around belief

Emma’s later actions show that familiarity with religious language does not settle her own beliefs. After her mother dies, she rejects Jack Harte’s suggestion that the death is God’s will, blaming God for allowing her mother to suffer. Years later, although she calls herself an atheist, she worries that her daughter might one day resent not having been baptized. She will not approach a vicar because the child’s birth certificate could expose her illegitimacy, so Blackie O’Neill offers to baptize the baby himself, grounding his decision in his continuing faith.

When Laura O’Neill is dying, she asks Emma to ensure that Bryan is brought up as a Roman Catholic. During the priest’s arrival to administer Extreme Unction, Emma again inwardly protests the idea of God and resists the association of Laura with sin. These scenes do not show Emma applying the Ten Commandments as a personal code; they establish a continuing conflict between religious institutions, inherited forms of belief, and her own grief and judgment.

Significance

The Ten Commandments serve as the hinge of a conversation in which Emma’s partial Biblical knowledge is tested against Abraham’s account of Jewish history. Her willingness to listen, acknowledge what she does not know, and defend the people she has met makes the encounter part of her lasting opposition to antisemitism. Across the novel’s religious scenes, the commandments remain a point of reference rather than a stated rulebook for Emma: their importance is in the dialogue they open between traditions, and in the distinction between formal belief and the compassion she chooses to practice.