Yitro
Jethro advises Moses to delegate chiefs to judge legal cases. The Israelites encamp by Mount Sinai and the 10 commandments are proclaimed. God commands them to build an altar of earth and to bring sacrifices.
Marc Rosenberg
Marc Rosenberg works for Nefesh B'Nefesh - an organization revitalizing Aliyah from the UK and North America. He is currently pursuing a PhD in literature at Bar-Ilan University and lives with his awesome wife and family in Jerusalem.
Where was Moshe standing when God spoke?
The most famous moment in monotheism has to be the giving of the Ten Commandments. Aside from the dramatic influence that this revelation has had on world religions, it has also given expression to the unique relationship between God and mankind. Notably it is the only claimed religious experience of mass revelation of its kind. But rather suspiciously, we may have been overlooking an important detail.
In this week’s reading, Moses cements his reputation as one of the greatest leaders of the Jewish people. But where exactly was Moses standing during the giving of the law? According to the text in Exodus 19, Moses commuted up and down Mt. Sinai in order to deliver the preparatory instructions for the receiving of the divine communication, and concludes with him advising the people at the mountain’s basecamp. Exodus 20 explodes with the divine voice - without further indication of Moses' movement. Only afterwards do the Israelites express a fear and humility from their awe-full experience and suggest Moses to go up to represent them, "lest we die". Moses' accession as the messenger, or rather, mediator, marks a significant shift in the spiritual aspirations of the people. Indeed Moses' elevated status allows them the comfort and distance away from the Heavenly Presence as the Israelites clearly feel that Moses has a deeper spiritual status which allows him a dynamic relationship with God.
To ignore the actual description of the events is a terrible misreading of the importance of agency and the Jewish communal attitude towards leadership and responsibility. Setting Moses atop Mt. Sinai for the revelation permits a double standard for spiritual and moral excellence and displaces the responsibility for transmitting God's message to others. But since the text specifically states that Moses was listening and standing shoulder to shoulder with every other Jew, it is clear that Moses was there as one of the people and we must appreciate the potency of this prophecy.
There is a tendency to elevate our leaders to a (perhaps unrealistic) status of moral superiority and enhanced spirituality. We insist that our Rabbis stand in front of God as our representative because we assume that they are holier, more righteous, than us, the average Jews. However, we cannot ignore that all of the Jewish people are ennobled with that same spiritual agency to connect to the divine and create a strong and spiritual connection with God. No one Jew is more capable at doing that than another. What is required from each individual is the willingness to invest in that relationship, and accept the responsibility to learn and grow to meet the challenges of our day. While we need worthy and just leaders - the Tanach reminds us that leaders only possess the same potential, holiness, and significance as the larger following. Let us seize this message and help spread the sparks of learning and yearning to greater circles of Jews in the basecamp.
Another Voice - Jennifer Krause
Jennifer Krause is a Limmud NY past presenter and ongoing volunteer. The author of The Answer: Making Sense of Life, One Question at a Time, Jennifer serves as an adjunct lecturer in Jewish Studies at the City College of New York and as the High Holidays rabbi at Manhattan's 92nd Street Y.
The eyes see their materials for building,
See the difficulties, too, and the obstacles.
The hand seeks tools to cut the wood,
To till the soil, and harness the power of the waters.
Then the hand seeks other hands to help,
A community of hands to help—
Thus the dream becomes not one man’s dream alone,
But a community dream.
Not my dream alone, but our dream.
Not my world alone,
But your world and my world,
Belonging to all the hands who build…
“Freedom’s Plow,” Langston Hughes
Parashat Yitro details the genesis of a People in its eternal attempt to receive Torah. Yitro's assessment of Moshe’s communal structure even echoes the language of Bereishit 1:31: God saw all that He had made and, behold, it was very good (Vayar Elohim et kol asher asa v’hinei tov m’od). In Parashat Yitro (Exodus 18:14): Moshe’s father-in-law saw all that Moshe was making (Vayar choten Moshe et kol asher hu oseh)... But Yitro does not deem Moshe’s product "tov m’od", rebuking him for what he "is doing to the people" with his top-down approach to leadership.
Although Moshe quickly diversifies authority, he still must play an intermediary role in God's pyrotechnic revelation of Torah - a spectacle so terrifying that everyone remains at a distance (meirachok). As such, their chorus of acceptance also issues from a distance essentially through Moshe.
Pesach asks that we see ourselves "as if" we went forth from Egypt. Yet a free People, we are trapped in metaphor. Shavuot liberates us from the "as if" because we still are bridging a gap. The more we learn to care for, and resolve conflicts in, relationships between ourselves and others (bein adam l’chavero) and between ourselves and God (bein adam l'Makom) without a mediator, the closer we get to the mountain.
Eventually Moshe's own time comes to stand at a distance. This week we glimpse the beginning of Torah moving from one hand to other hands to a community of hands. We see the start of a People's project, which through learning and action, belongs to all those who build.