yitro
parasha yitro, Exodus chapters 18—20
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and thoughts…
yitro
Tzaddikim and scholars have long debated about whether Yitro brought his daughter and grandchildren to the Israelite camp before or after the giving of the Torah. There are excellent arguments for both positions.
But more interesting to me is, exactly who was this guy?
Let's think about Yitro for a moment. He's the High Priest of Midian and Moshe's father-in-law. Usually, people in power, no matter what their title may be, are also politicians. They tend to behave in such a way as to hold on to that power and generally avoid taking any stance that could threaten their status. Imagine the strength of character it would take for a distinguished religious leader to publicly acknowledge that the faith he has long guided is, at its core, flawed. Clearly, for Yitro, his position was secondary to his personal truth and integrity. How sincere and genuine must his spiritual quest have been for him to even entertain the thought of embracing Moshe's God and abandoning his own! Conversion typically affects only the individual convert and perhaps their immediate family, but Yitro's decision to embrace a new faith would have profoundly impacted his entire community. I think that makes him worthy of a parasha in his name.
But, let’s set the namesake of this Parasha aside because…
This is THAT PARASHA, folks.
The one that, if you allow yourself to let go of the present and traverse space and time in your mind, will leave you trembling and breathless.
Close your eyes. Can you see yourself among the people? It’s not so far-fetched. The Torah tells us that every Jewish soul was present at the foot of the mountain. Surely your soul remembers. Can you get there?
Feel the sand under your feet, the sand that sticks to your toes as it spills over the top of your sandals.
Smell the heat of the desert sun. Feel it against your skin.
Hear the cacophony of voices, the sense of wonder in all their words.
How amazing is this? Ein Sof. Unknowable, transcendent, all encompassing, chooses to descend through the higher realms, through the worlds to the place where a conversation can actually occur between Creator and creation.
Feel the thunder rumbling in your bones. Smell the lightning. Sense the trembling in every cell of your body, of everyone around you, and of the very air you’re breathing.
Feel the awe, the majesty, the fear, and the exhilaration.
Do you dare listen with your own mortal ears or is the revelation just too much to bear? Does it feel safer to step back and wait to hear the information second hand, through your prophet, your leader, or are you willing to open yourself up and allow yourself to become completely consumed by it?
Now open your eyes and return to our time.
As the person chanting the Torah on the bimah reaches the crescendo, we hardly need to have the rabbi motion for us to stand. We’re drawn to our feet like magic at the sound of the words,
“"I am the Lord, your God, Who took you out of the land of Egypt,
out of the house of bondage.
You shall not have the gods of others in My presence.”
In this moment, my soul cries out,
"All that the Lord has spoken I shall do!"
In this moment I long to be holy, as God is holy.
We, all of us, heard these first two sayings as clearly as hail shattering on glass, but the rest was unintelligible to most of us. How could we decipher the message when all the words were being spoken at once by The One Who Is, Was, and Shall Be?
The question that comes to mind is, why would HaShem have chosen to address us in that way?
We were being given a window through which to gaze at the mystery that is the nature of time. We were treated to a glimpse of the reality that exists beyond our three dimensional world.
All things are happening concurrently—but our frail human selves are designed to experience time sequentially. Only Moshe could truly transcend that and grasp the bigger picture.
And then…from the extraordinary we return to the mundane. The parasha lays out the details of how and where to construct an altar.
And then…we’re reminded to wear undies when ascending the bima…
Sounds kinda funny to the modern ear, it might even elicit a few giggles, but this concept of keeping your privates private, of rising above our animal souls and engaging with our higher, human souls, was in stark contrast to the morals of the time. And it lets us in on a secret: everything in creation, by its very existence, praises God in every moment. Kol ha nashamah t’hallel ya!
Everything. Even stones have consciousness.
It comes naturally to most of creation. We’re the only creature that struggles to grasp this reality. And when we do, when we manage to sustain that awareness, it changes the way we relate to our own existence; it changes the way in which we move through this world, through our lives.
So what shall we eat?
We were, all of us, together at Har Sinay (Mount Sinai). It would be a many, many centuries before the children of Israel would be dispersed throughout the world and insinuated into the cultures of all the lands in which we sojourn. And a result of that fracturing, what constitutes a normal Shabbat dinner looks very different to Jews who come from different backgrounds and localities.
If you tell me that we’re going to have a traditional Shabbat dinner, I’m expecting challah, gefilte fish, chicken soup, maybe a roasted chicken, a potato kugel, and a vegetable or two.
But, you may be anticipating something entirely different.
What’s exotic to me could be ordinary to you.
I’m thinking that this Shabbat, it could be fun to explore what this meal might be to another Jewish soul who was present at the foot of the mountain; one whose future generations ended up in a different part of the world than my family did.
But then again, if your family hails from West Africa, perhaps you should try something new, like gefilte fish and chicken soup…
This week, I’m going to embark on a culinary journey to the Shabbat tables of several lands, but particularly to the Bene Israel community of India. Please join me!