By Rabbi Shawn Zevit
This week’s Torah portion is Yitro: Exodus 18:1 – 20:23
In Torah time — both timeless and this week — we gather at Sinai once again to receive the foundational values and directives upon which to move from scarcity/slave mentality and behavior to organizing ourselves as an emerging liberated people filled with possibility.
We have crossed over a sea of uncertainty and entanglement to the other shore, almost immediately moving from celebration of freedom to embarking on a decades-long journey into the open, uncharted unknown towards a place of promise. Moshe’s father-in-law Yitro, or Jethro, brings his daughter, who is Moshe’s wife, Tzipporah, and their children to reunite with him in the desert, and gives him some unsolicited advice about how to realign his leadership style and structure based on the new circumstances the people are now in.
We gathered for three days at the foot of Mt. Sinai, where God’s Presence is experienced in the form of Ten Utterances (often referred to as the Ten Commandments). Through this event, a “right way,” a path of sacred directives or mitzvot, enters the life of our mixed multitude of a newborn people, and lays the foundation for the future of the Jewish people and informs or affirms the holy principles and practices of many religions, nations and cultures to come.
It is so compelling and natural to focus on the asseret dibrot, the Ten Utterances, that Yitro’s suggested refinement and adaptation of Moshe’s leadership style and the structures needed to self-govern and navigate the unknown is usually overlooked.
Ex. 18:19-23: “Listen now to my voice, I will give you counsel, and God shall be with you; Represent the people before God, that you may bring the causes to God; And you shall teach them ordinances and laws and shall show them the way where they must walk, and the work that they must do. And you shall choose out of all the people able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating unjust gain; and place such over them, to be rulers of thousands, and rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens. … If you shall do this thing, and God commands you so, then you shall be able to endure, and all these people shall also go to their place in peace.”
Here we are in a time of unending and intensifying challenges to our personal well-being and health, and sociopolitical upheaval and at times assault to the many uttered “self-evident truths” on which our nation’s democratic vision was based. The death, oppression and suffering in Gaza and the West Bank, and the distress of those Israelis still held captive, their families and the tensions in the entire Middle East cry out to us. The earth thunders its own living response to our ecological impact. Trans and LGBTQ+ persons, immigrants and refugees wake every day (if sleep has even been available) to wonder what threats to their identity, well-being and even lives will be added to the pile of assaultive regulations or repealing of rights attempts. Anti-Jewish and anti-Muslim attitudes and acts globally continue to increase.
These dynamics and more are all present in the mix of our current Jewish peoplehood and human condition. How do we continue to gather around the mountain and organize, claim and align our own souls to core values and actions our ancestors experienced? If we were at Sinai now (which the Torah claims we all were and always are, past, present and future generations), how would we care about and commit to each other to hold together as a people for the sake of a greater, transcendent and palpable rules of “right living?” Would we want any additional commandments added in our time, and what would the additions or footnotes to the originals be?
What roles and ways of leading do we inhabit in our family and professional lives? What structures do we have in place or need to adapt or replace, so we can support ourselves and others to carry the mantle of leadership?
When Moshe recounts this time in Deuteronomy 1:9-14, he restates what is written in Yitro, and also adds elements not in Exodus: “And I spoke to you at that time, saying, I am not able to bear you myself alone; Your God has multiplied you, and behold, you are this day as the stars of heaven for multitude. … How can I alone bear your weight, and your burden, and your strife? 13. Choose wise and understanding men, known among your tribes, and I will make them rulers over you. 14. And you answered me, and said, the thing that you have said is good for us to do.”
Given the active dismantling of our national structures, dubious choices for leadership positions and attacks on the rights of many who comprise our present day “mixed multitudes,” we are all being asked to stay awake and gather together as a society around our Jewish and American core values, so that we do not abrogate them to those whose view of leadership and the people do not reflect or honor the most sacred and foundational principles we hold dear. Will we say, “hinei” — here I am and will be?
Rabbi Shawn Zevit (www.rabbizevit.com) is the rabbi of Mishkan Shalom in northwest Philadelphia. The Board of Rabbis of Greater Philadelphia is proud to provide diverse perspectives on Torah commentary for the Jewish Exponent. The opinions expressed in this column are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the view of the Board of Rabbis.