]Often when I read the weekly Torah portion, I find myself struggling over something that I’m usually pretty sure has a simple answer. Sometimes the question might be a little out there too, like when I found myself obsessing over the word “good” in Bereishit, the first chapters of Genesis. This week, in Parshat Yitro, the question that bothers me comes up right from the beginning: Why is it that the parsha starts at chapter 18 with the story of Jethro, rather than skipping ahead to chapter 19 and what seems like the main course– revelation at Mt. Sinai? Ramban, a medieval commentator that anyone who loves mystical nonsense would love, teaches on the first line of this parsha that there is an opinion that the story of Jethro really takes place after the receiving of the Torah. If so, why place it before revelation, and even if that weren’t true, wouldn’t it have made more sense to place it in last week’s parsha, a parsha that deals very much with the difficulties that Jethro has heard of?
You can’t deny that Jethro is pretty important— his story shows us the events that happened earlier were so awe-inspiring that even a gentile priest is compelled to convert, at least according to the most accepted tradition. It also enlightens us as to how Moses’ experience as leader of a people is not easy at all, giving us a lesson in leadership practice we can all take to heart. Jethro teaches Moses the important leadership skill of delegation, thus forming the first Jewish courts. These are pretty big events, and there’s no denying that they belong in the Torah (though if we’re going traditional every word belongs), but why do they belong where they are, just before the 10 Commandments?
The placement of Jethro’s stories point to the relationships between revelation and Jews. Even before we receive the divine laws, the Jewish people express an awareness that order and structure is necessary to their lives. If you go up to someone who thrives on chaos, on a rejection of rules, who believes that nobody should stop them from enjoying themselves, and you hand him a books of rules, what do you think will happen? He will laugh in your face. The fact that the people are coming to Moses to handle their problems lets us know that they believe in a higher authority and that, rather than taking “justice” into their own hands they agree to appeal to said authority. Whether or not this is actually pre-revelation, what this part of the parsha shows us is the receptiveness of the Jewish people to receiving divine structure to their lives. The fact that it is a plural people standing in front of Moses, and that Moses addresses them in the second person plural points to their status as a community, and this is further enhanced by Jethro’s creation of a governing structure, something only a community would require.
If it weren’t for this receptiveness–this need for cooperation with one’s fellow human– there would be a major issue in this parsha. The second half of the 10 Commandments, with its laws regarding relationships between humans, would mean nothing. The people would hear it, and they would laugh in Hashem’s face without any understanding. It would be like telling a person who never had friends as a kid and who never got along with others to be nice and never hurt anyone. Because this frame of mind was necessary for revelation to even occur, we need to be shown that it is there before we can even hear about revelation.
However, the parsha doesn’t start with the courts, it starts with Jethro hearing about what God did for the Jews and converting. Jethro’s conversion, and later development of a personal faith in God is no less connected to Mt. Sinai. You might have guessed already, but this is related to the first half of the 10 Commandments, the commandments dealing with the relationship between us and God. Just like receptiveness to communal structure is necessary for people to accept authority over their everyday interactions with one another, there has to be a desire to build a relationship with God in order for us to accept commandments regarding our treatment of God. The commands may exist, telling us that there is only one God, and this is our God, but God commands us to love God too. Until you have felt a moment of awe, you will find yourself closed to building such a relationship and unable to follow the command. Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses, probably knew of Moses’ God, and maybe even believed in this God, but until he was actually able to hear about God’s might he wasn’t filled with the necessary awe to have faith in God. Without this awe-inspired faith, even Jethro wasn’t ready to receive revelation.
I think there is something else being said in this parsha that most people don’t notice, and this is something many might disagree with me over. A parsha that discusses one of the most important events in the history of the Jewish people, an event that is considered to affect even us Jews alive today, doesn’t start out by discussing the Jewish people. It doesn’t start with Jethro reorganizing the justice system, or with Moses speaking to the whole of the people, it starts with a personal story about one vital but not exactly major character. This is because Torah is meant first for the individual. When you study Torah, it shouldn’t be about other people or making the world a better place. It should be about you, about your history and about your faith. We start the parsha with a story about an individual to show us that Torah was given to Jethro. Just before revelation the people partition themselves and face it all alone. They experience revelation separated and alone. The first words of Torah were given to each Jew independently. We are commanded to be an am kadosh, a holy people, but holiness can’t come from an entire people it must first come from you and me as holy individuals. We need to take Torah to ourselves, make it our own and draw our own meaning out of it, only then can we broaden it and share our own Torah with one another in order to work together in building that holy nation of holy individuals.
David Gutbezahl is a recent graduate of Ramapo College in Jersey.
