Yitro

In this week's Parsha, called Yitro (Jethro, in English), the Israelites receive the Torah at Mt. Sinai. It has often been noted that this is not the name that we might have expected for what is, after all, the most important portion of the Torah. Yitro was Moshe's father-in-law, and was, as we are told at the beginning of the parsha, a priest of Midian - an idol worshipper. Why is this crucial portion of the Torah, containing the Ten Commandments, named after a relatively minor figure, who only came to the Jewish people late in life, after a long career in practical paganism?

Not only the name of the parsha, but Yitro's subsequent actions in the parsha as well, raise some difficult questions. The day after Yitro's arrival, Moshe sits in judgment of the people, who, all day long, approach him, demanding solutions to their arguments, litigations, and problems. He is inundated, "from morning until night", with people seeking justice from him. Yitro, seeing this, approaches Moshe and, speaking just like a father-in-law, says: "This is not good, this thing you are doing. You will surely be worn out, you and the nation with you, for this is too great a burden for you, you can not do it by yourself". Yitro goes on to outline a brilliant solution: he suggests that Moshe recruit suitable men - God-fearing, honest - appoint them as judges, and establish a system of upper and lower courts, with Moshe at the top of the pyramid. Moshe goes along with the idea, and the system is put into place, with only the most difficult cases being referred to Moshe. At this point, knowing when to make an exit, Yitro returns home, to Midian.

The strangeness of this story is obvious. For one, there is the naming of this auspicious parsha after a retired idolatrous priest. In addition, why is it Yitro, the stranger, the outsider, who comes up with a solution for this very basic problem; a judicial system which will more efficiently bring Torah and justice to the people? How can it be that this stranger makes such a seminal contribution to Jewish life and thought?

Well, let me tell you a story. Last night, I went to an engagement party for the son of one of my friends. The young man is a student at a Charedi (ultra-Orthodox) Yeshiva, most of the guests were his friends, and the event was run along Charedi lines, the most obvious feature of which was a very impressive mechitza - divider - which separated the men from the women. In fact, during the course of the evening, some vigilant fellow noticed that the panels of the mechitza had small openings in them, just about at eye level, and so a few of the waiters were dispatched to bring paper towels from the bathrooms and scotch-tape them across the offending openings, just in case. I kid you not.

A major feature of these events is the speakers, and the first one to address us was the venerable Rosh Yeshiva (head of the Yeshiva) of the well-known school that the groom-to-be attends. During his peroration, as he was summarizing 15 minutes of blessings and praises for the young couple, the Rabbi said "this is really a wonderful match: a real ben Torah (literally 'son of the Torah', a common phrase used to refer to a truly worthy and God-fearing scholar) together with a real bas Torah (the feminine equivalent, literally 'a daughter of the Torah)". Now, this 'bas Torah' is not a phrase one commonly hears, as in Charedi circles women are not seen as Torah scholars. As he finished the sentence, the Rabbi paused, apparently abashed at his slip of the tongue - in his world, you do not call a girl a bas Torah. After a moment, he seemed to gather his courage and continued: "Yes, that's right, that's a new phrase, we've innovated something new here, the concept of a bas Torah!"

It was all I could do to stop myself from laughing out loud. Here we were, in the very epicenter of pre-Feminist, anti-Feminist Judaism, the men and women physically separated by six-foot high dividers, with only the men allowed to speak in public, and yet, somehow, feminism had managed to sneak in. Even in this ultra-Orthodox setting, the Rosh Yeshiva, influenced, I believe, by an egalitarian zeitgeist which somehow managed to leap high mechitzas at a single bound, couldn't help but present the couple as equals, both sharing the essential quality of being b'nay Torah. He couldn't deny this girl her equal rights!

The Torah stresses the fact that it is Yitro, the Midianite, the outsider, with a background in idol worship, who brings a great new idea to the way the Torah is disseminated to the Jewish people, in order to teach us, at the crucial moment of the giving of the Torah, that, once we receive it, we are not meant to lock it up and throw away the key. The story of Yitro's contribution teaches us that the Torah is not, and cannot be, a hermetic, self-contained, inviolate system. Rather, this story is an illustration, right from the start, of the inevitable and inexorable permeability of the Torah. The Torah is meant to be influenced by outside ideas; it is in the world, part of the world, and will be influenced by the world. It is meant to be added to and improved by interactions with other cultures and civilizations. It is meant to be looked at by your father-in-law and criticized. It is not a closed book, it is an open, ongoing, living experience, waiting to be looked at with fresh eyes and willing to accept and integrate new ideas. No walls we build, no mechitzas we erect, should, or can, keep these new ideas out.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Shimon Felix The Bronfman Youth Fellowships in Israel www.bronfman.org For more parsha discussions - http://weeklyportion.byfi.org

This week's parsha begins with a visit from Moshe's father-in-law, the Midianite priest, Yitro. The Torah tells us that after Yitro heard about the miraculous events surrounding the exodus from Egypt, he took Moshe's wife and children, whom Moshe had left behind in Midian when he went to free the Jewish people from Egypt, and brought them to the Israelite camp in the desert. Moshe comes out to greet him, and then tells him about all of the tribulations the Israelites had gone through, and how God had, again and again, saved them. The Torah records Yitro's response to this miraculous tale - "va'yichad Yitro" - "And Yitro was happy for all the good which God had done for Israel, that he saved them from the hands of Egypt." Va'yichad is a rare word, which appears only a handful of times in the Bible, and apparently means to rejoice or be jubilant. Rashi, in his commentary says that that is, in fact, the simple meaning of the word here. The strangeness of the word, however, seems to prompt the Rabbis to see another implication here, which Rashi also quotes: "His flesh became chidudin chidudin [a play on the word va'yichad, and which means his skin was full of sharp points, i.e., he had goosebumps], as he was upset over the loss of Egypt. This is what people mean when they say 'Do not, even after ten generations, insult a non-Jew in front of a convert.'"  READ MORE »

This week's parsha, Yitro, contains the dramatic giving of the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai. This event is prefaced by a dialogue which takes place between God and the Jewish people, mediated by Moshe, in which the Israelites agree to accept the Torah and thereby become God's treasured, holy nation. It is followed by God communicating the rest of the Torah to Israel; immediately after the theophany at Mount Sinai, during which basic ethical and theological principles are delineated, our parsha, and in fact the rest of the Torah, goes on to tell us how God, through Moshe, gave the people the details of all of the Torah's hundreds of Mitzvot. After the people have accepted the offer to receive the Torah and thereby enter into a covenant with God, the presence of God was made manifest on the top of Mount Sinai, setting the stage for the divine communication of the commandments. The Torah prefaces the actual words of the Ten Commandments with a seemingly prosaic, and thoroughly predictable verse: "And God spoke all of these words, saying:" It is then that the actual commandments begin - "I am the Lord your God..." etc., continuing until the end of the tenth commandment. Rashi has a fascinating explanation to the apparently innocuous prefatory verse. He says: "'And God spoke all of these words' teaches us that the Holy One Blessed be He said all ten commandments in one utterance, something which is impossible for a human to say. If this is the case, why does it again say 'I am [the Lord your God]' and 'Thou shalt not have [any other Gods before me]'? Because he repeated, and said explicitly, each and every commandment separately."  READ MORE »

In Parshat Yitro, the Israelites receive the Torah at Mt. Sinai. Many Rabbis and commentators have begun their discussion of the parsha by noting that the name of the parsha, Yitro, is not, perhaps, what we would expect for what is, after all, the most important portion of the Torah. Yitro was Moshe's father-in-law, and was, as the Torah tells us at the beginning of the parsha, a priest of Midian - a priest of idolatry. Why is this crucial portion of the Torah named after a relatively minor figure, who, in fact, only came to the Jewish people late in life, after a long career in applied paganism? In fact, according to a Midrash quoted by Rashi, Yitro was somewhat ambivalent about the Jewish people, and his relationship to them. The Bible tells us that Yitro, hearing of the Exodus from Egypt, with its attendant miracles, took Moshe's wife and children, whom Moshe had left in Midian, apparently in order to spare them the rigors of life in Egypt, and, with them in tow, joined the Jewish people, encamped in the Sinai desert. Moshe greets him warmly and respectfully, sacrifices are offered to God in recognition of His miraculous care for the Israelites, and a celebratory meal is eaten. Moshe then takes him into his tent, where he tells him the marvelous details of the miraculous defeat of Egypt by God.  READ MORE »