Shabbat Yitro

Written by Rabbi Dr Michael Shire Monday, 05 February 2007

This week’s Torah portion Yitro describes the revelatory experience that takes place between the Israelites and God on Mount Sinai.

This Covenantal relationship that forms the core of the Jewish religion gives us the account of the giving of the Ten Commandments:  Ten religious principles that have shaped not only Judaism, but much of Christianity, Islam and modern Western Civilization as a whole. So important is the Ten Commandments that the congregation traditionally will stand for this portion of the Torah reading.

You may think such an important portion of the Torah would be all about the experience of revelation but in fact, the portion begins with an apparently unrelated account of Jethro’s visit to his son-in-law Moses. Jethro (Yitro) was Moses’ father-in-Law, a Midianite Priest, who comes to visit the wandering Israelites in the desert. Only then follows the account of the giving of the Law on the mountain top. This record of revelation resulting in the formation of the Jewish religion is therefore contained within a portion that is named after a non-Jew!

“Jethro, the Priest of Midian, Moses father in law heard all that God had done for Moses and for Israel, God’s people..”
(Exodus 18:1)

What was it that Jethro heard that brought him running to Moses bringing with him Moses’ wife Zipporah and two sons, Gershom and Eliezer. Rashi (1040-1105 France) suggests he heard about the splitting of the Sea and the victory over Amalek which precedes this passage. Rashi sees Jethro as being won over to the Israelite cause by God’s miracles and consequently converting because of God’s triumphalism. Jethro is known as Moses’ father-in-law, which Rashi notes as giving honour to Jethro.

Ibn Ezra (1093-1167 Spain), however, sees Jethro very differently. First of all he points out the problems with the description of Jethro’s visit. The text says he comes to Moses on the mountain of God, to partake of a meal in God’s presence and to advise on adjudicating the law, none of which could have happened until after the giving of the Law. According to Ibn Ezra, Jethro’s visit has been added to the beginning of the parashah when it should come at the end, after the revelation. For Ibn Ezra, therefore, Jethro represents a different attitude – symbolized by the fact that the parashah in which the revelation takes place is named after this Midianite priest and that Jethro’s presence gives honour to Moses and the Jewish people, as Moses goes out to prostrate himself and kiss his father-in-law and greet him with shalom. For Ibn Ezra, Jethro comes in contrast to Amalek  and the view of the outsider as always a source of persecution.Jethro notices the strain upon Moses of all the people’s needs and offers advice on how to run things better. Moses had been answering all the people’s questions himself ‘from morning to night’ and was exhausted. Jethro suggests in good management consultant style that Moses get some help through delegation of responsibilities.  He advises Moses to appoint leaders to listen to the smaller questions while Moses deals with the larger issues. Jethro then leaves the Israelite camp and the People arrive at the foot of Mount Sinai for the giving of the Ten Commandments. The rabbis have often wondered, what is the connection between Jethro’s visit and God’s revelation? We inherit a tradition that places the core of our religious teaching within the context of a wider perspective. The Jewish people may have received the revelation experience at Mount Sinai but it took a non-Jew to teach Moses and the people how to administer and communicate its wisdom to all. This idea that no one religion can exist exclusively by itself, especially in a world torn by religious strife like ours, is perhaps the most important challenge facing us as members of a religious tradition and may be the defining factor in all of the global issues of our time.Religion is a hugely significant factor in global conflict. Hans Kung, the famous Catholic theologian, has pointed out that there can be no solution to the clash of civilizations without a corresponding religious reconciliation. Rabbi Bayfield has written ‘We have not made progress on what is best for the good of the globe because we cannot bring ourselves to acknowledge the limitations of our own theologies’.  Our tradition reminds us that Jethro represents the Other, the one who truly hears, the one who is not us, but with whom we need to fulfill our task. We can  exist only in relation to the Other. Rabbi Leo Baeck, survivor of Theresienstadt concentration camp, emerged from the nightmare of the Shoah having demonstrated that the power to overcome evil in the camps was through recognizing the humanity of the Other and thereby affirming the humanity of oneself.  

Rabbi Dr Michael Shire
Vice-Principal, Leo Baeck College