Dvar Torah on Parshat Yitro

Parshat Yitro contains the giving of the ten commandments, the center-piece of the entire Torah. Interestingly, the giving of the Torah is prefaced by the arrival at the Israelite  camp of Moshe's father-in-law, Yitro. Accompanied by Moshe's wife and two sons, who had stayed in their native Midian rather than joining Moshe in Egypt during the ten plagues, Yitro is reunited with his now very successful son-in-law and his newly-freed people.  We are told that Yitro has heard of the exodus and the victory over Egypt. Once in the Israelite camp, he receives further details of the story; the crossing of the Red Sea and the Israelite's trip thus far through the desert. Yitro, we are told, reacts strongly: "ויחד יתרו על כל הטובה אשר עשה ה' לישראל אשר הצילו מיד מצרים" - "And Yitro was happy about all the good that God had done for Israel, that He saved them from the hand of Egypt." 

The word the Torah uses in this sentence for "happy"  - ויחד (va'yichad) - is a strange one, which rarely appears in the Torah, and it is curious that it is chosen here. Rashi, after telling us that the simple meaning is, indeed, happy, goes on to tell us what else is implied by this word.   Va'yichad  indicates that Yitro, upon hearing the news of Egypt's dramatic downfall, experienced goosebumps - "his flesh became all pointy" (in Hebrew, a play on the word "va'yichad"). Yitro's response, Rashi tells us, is an example of popular common wisdom: one should not disparage a non-Jew in the presence of a convert, even someone who is a descendant of someone who converted to Judaism ten generations ago. This is because of the sensitivity this person has about his ancestry, his non-Jewish origins; insulting a non-Jew in front of him will make him uncomfortable. Yitro, upon hearing of Egypt's downfall, had an ambivalent reaction. On the one hand, as a fan of the Jewish people, father-in-law of their leader, and apparent convert, he was, indeed, happy. On the other hand, his non-Jewish origins  made him sensitive to the plight of Egypt. He felt for their loss, and, perhaps, felt some sort of guilt by association, as a former non-Jew, for what they had done to the Jewish people. All of this was expressed, viscerally, involuntarily,  by the goose-bumps he felt upon hearing the news of Egypt's downfall and Israel's victory.

The fact that it is Yitro's body that gives him away, that it is an involuntary, unconscious reaction which indicates the complexity of his feelings about the exodus, says much to us about who we are and what we believe. Although Yitro's conscious decision is to learn the lessons of the exodus, believe in God, and identify with and join the Jewish people, underneath all that he has other feelings as well. Feelings of connection to the non-Jewish world, and of sympathy for Egypt. These do not exist on a volitional level, but they are there nonetheless, felt very deeply, and expressed, involuntarily, by Yitro's very body. Yitro - like all of us - could not simply make up his mind to take on a completely new identity and value system, to intellectually determine exactly who he was, what he believed, and how he felt.  Whether he liked it or not, whether he willed it or not, he was still connected to the old non-Jewish world he came from.

Interestingly, this is not seen as a problem, as something that in some way disqualifies Yitro from full acceptance into the Jewish people. Immediately after this incident, Yitro sees Moshe, alone, busy from dawn to dusk judging the people. He suggests a solution: a system of judges which will take much of the load off of Moshe and democratise the judicial system. Moshe accepts his father-in-law's advice, even though it comes from a very recent convert, who still has feelings of sympathy for and identification with Israel's erstwhile oppressor, Egypt. This is so because the Torah recognizes that people are complex. Our stated values, identity, and affiliations are often in conflict with elements of our background, history, and personality, elements which we may not conciously be aware of, but which lie deep within us and may, at times, bubble up and express themselves strongly, and this is not neccessarily a bad thing.

We are complicated beings, not always in full control of what we feel and believe. We can not always decide who we are, and where our sympathies lie. Our deeper feelings seem to be beyond our concious will, and may come to the surface and betray us at any time. It would seem that this complexity is not only acceptable, there is some value in it. Had Yitro somehow managed to root out completely any and all vestiges of his non-Jewish past and its old affinities and loyalties, he probably would not have been able to come up with the outsider's insight that he brought to Moshe and his difficulties with judging the people. Apparently, it took an eye which was not completely Jewish to see what the Jews could not see, and it took a wealth of experience - non-Jewish experience -  to come up with a solution to Moshe's, and the nation's, problem. Although that same not-fully-Jewish sensibility can cause some discomfort, and is something we should be sensitive to when dealing with someone with a complicated background and identity, it also brings a richness of experience, and a broadness of vision which, in this case, proved to be invaluable.

In the very parsha which contains the giving of the Torah, the ultimate touchstone of Jewish identity, we learn from Yitro just how complex identity can be, how easily it can be complicated by history and experience, how beyond our control it ultimately lies, and what a gift that fluidity and complexity sometimes is. 

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Shimon Felix