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Justice or Peace?

The sedra of Yitro, which contains the account of the greatest Divine revelation in history, at Mount Sinai, begins on a note that is human, all too human. Yitro, priest of Midian, has come to see how his son-in-law Moses and the people he leads are faring. It begins by telling us what Yitro heard (the details of the exodus…

A Nation of Leaders

…to both episodes, to Yitro and to the revelation at Sinai, namely the delegation, distribution and democratisation of leadership. Only God can rule alone. The theme is introduced by Yitro. He arrives to visit his son-in-law and finds him leading alone. He says, “What you are doing is not good.” (Ex. 18:17) This is one of only two instances in…

Mount Sinai and the Birth of Freedom

The Parsha in a Nutshell The parsha of Yitro (Jethro) is divided into two episodes. In the first (chapter 18), Israel receives its first system of governance – delegated to leaders of thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens – at the advice of Jethro, Moshe’ father-in-law, whose name the parsha bears. In the second episode (chapters 19-20), Israel receives its eternal…

From Pain to Humility

…2:18), a second time when Yitro sees Moses leading alone and says: “What you are doing is not good.” (Ex. 18:17) We cannot live alone. We cannot lead alone. As soon as Moses sees the seventy elders share his spirit, his depression disappears. He can say to Joshua, “Are you jealous on my behalf?” And he is undisturbed by the…

The Sound of Silence

…the silence, we can hear the kol demamah dakah, the still, small voice of God, telling us we are loved, we are heard, we are embraced by God’s everlasting arms, we are not alone.[6] [1] Mechilta, Yitro, Bachodesh, 1. [2] Ibid., 5. [3] Ibid. [4] BBC television, first shown 1977. [5] Koren Shalem Siddur. [6] For more on the theme…

God’s Nudge

First in Yitro there were the Aseret Hadibrot, the “Ten Utterances”, the Ten Commandments, expressed as general principles. Now in Mishpatim come the details. Here is how they begin: If you buy a Hebrew servant, he is to serve you for six years. But in the seventh year, he shall go free, without paying anything . . . But if…

Mount Sinai and the Birth of Freedom

The revelation at Mount Sinai – the central episode not only of the parsha of Yitro, but of Judaism as a whole – was unique in the religious history of humankind. Other faiths (Christianity and Islam) call themselves religions of revelation, but in both cases the revelation of which they spoke was to an individual (“the son of God,” “the…

Leadership

…Joseph mentions the Egyptian priests, whose land was not nationalised during the famine (47:22). Yitro was a Midianite priest. In the ancient world there was nothing distinctive about priesthood. Every nation had its priests and holy men. What was distinctive about Israel was that every one of its members was to be a priest; each of its citizens was called…

The Curse of Loneliness

…blessing. Being alone, from a Torah perspective, is not a good thing. The first time the words “not good” appear in the Torah is in the verse, “It is not good for man to be alone.” (Gen. 2:18) The second time is when Moses’ father-in-law Yitro sees him leading alone and says, “What you are doing is not good.” (Ex….

From Priest to People

…as a whole, whose land Joseph did not nationalise; and Yitro, Moses’ father-in-law, a Midianite Priest. The priesthood was not unique to Israel, and everywhere it was an elite. Here for the first time, we find a code of holiness directed to the people as a whole. We are all called on to be holy. In a strange way, though,…

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