Parsha Themes Archive

Our parasha splits neatly into two parts. It’s easy to guess which part has all the action, and therefore usually gets all the attention:

There’s no question that the Decalogue has all the action: it’s not every day that Hashem descends on a mountain amid flashing lightning and rolling thunder to deliver life-instructions to three million people! Besides the drama of the scene, this part of the parasha is the “fireworks” in other senses: theologically, religiously, and nationally, Matan Torah (the giving of the Torah) changes our nation and the course of world history.

You’ve got to feel some ‘sympathy’ for the other half of the parasha, the half for which the parasha is named, which tells a story with no “fireworks”: no juicy story of conflict, no dramatic divine revelation, no eloquent speech. The story of Yitro’s visit doesn’t excite us much. It doesn’t even seem very important. Distracted by the fanfare of the revelation, we tend to neglect Yitro’s visit. Perhaps the parasha is named after Yitro just to remind us that this part of the parasha exists!

As parasha-contrarians, always looking for neglected areas of the Torah, we will be looking away from the dramatic scene of the giving of the Torah to see what we can learn from the story of Yitro’s visit.

We will focus on the last of these themes: Yitro’s suggestion to set up a system resembling a government. At this point, it is crucial to read through the text of the section:

The next day [i.e., the day after Yitro’s arrival at Bnei Yisrael’s camp], Moshe sat to judge the people. The people stood before Moshe from morning till night.

Moshe’s father-in-law saw what he was doing to the people and said, “What are you doing to the people? Why do you sit alone, and all of the people stand before you from morning till night?”

Moshe said to his father-in-law, “The people come to me to seek Hashem [”Elokim”]. If they have a matter, they come to me; I judge between man and his fellow, and I teach the laws of Hashem and His instructions.”

Moshe’s father-in-law said to him, “What you are doing is not good. You will tire yourself out -- you and the people with you, because it is too much for you. You cannot do it alone! Now, hear me, let me advise you, and may Hashem be with you: you should represent the people before Hashem and bring matters to Hashem [when necessary]. Warn them of the laws and instructions, teach them the path they should follow and what they should do.

“Choose from among the entire nation men of valor who fear Hashem, men of truth, haters of ill-gotten profit, and appoint them as officers of a thousand [men], a hundred, fifty, and ten. They should judge the people at all times; they should bring all important matters to you, but they should judge all minor matters.

“Lighten your load -- they will bear it with you! If you do this, and Hashem commands you so, then you will be able to stand, and all of these people will get to where they are going in peace!”

Moshe listened to his father-in-law and did all that he said. Moshe chose men of valor from among the whole nation and placed them as heads of the people -- ministers of a thousand, a hundred, fifty, and ten. They judged the people at all times; they brought the difficult matters to Moshe and judged the small matters themselves. Moshe sent off his father-in-law, and he went to his land.

If you’re familiar with the business world, you may recognize Yitro as a “management consultant” and Moshe as the CEO (of a not-for-profit organization, of course). The consultant is supposed to be an outsider to the company, just as Yitro is not a member of Bnei Yisrael. The Torah notes Yitro’s outsider status at the beginning of the parasha by referring to him not just as Moshe’s father-in-law, but as the “Kohen Midyan,” the Priest of Midyan; his own loyalties are elsewhere. This is important: sometimes it takes an outsider to notice things insiders don’t notice. Once you’re part of an environment, you begin to see its problems as part of “the way things are around here.” It can take an outsider’s fresh perspective to awaken insiders to problems which can be solved and otivate them to act. Also, insiders are often part of the problem! And an outsider can be more effective as a consultant because he or she may feel more comfortable offering criticism (and will not suffer consequences later from vengeful coworkers or superiors).

Just to string the “corporate metaphor” along a bit further, Sefer BeMidbar (10:29-33) tells us that Moshe invites Yitro to join Bnei Yisrael in the march to Eretz Yisrael. Moshe promises that if he joins them, he will share in all the benefits Bnei Yisrael receive from Hashem. In corporate terms, this is what happens when the CEO is so pleased with the management consultant’s work and so impressed with his insight that he offers him a permanent job at the company. The CEO promises that the consultant will enjoy all the benefits that the most privileged company employees receive. Yitro’s decision not to join Bnei Yisrael is the management consultant’s demurral to change loyalties and tie himself to the company for which he has consulted. He does his job and goes home; he is impressed by Bnei Yisrael’s support system -- Hashem and His miracles -- but he doesn’t want to join the team. (Note, however, that some commentators assume that Yitro does accept the offer in the end and does join Bnei Yisrael.)

Yitro, the “management consultant,” opens the conversation reported above. He ‘interviews’ the ‘CEO’ and asks him how he would describe his job:

“Moshe’s father-in-law saw what he was doing to the people and said, ‘What are you doing to the people? Why do you sit alone, and all of the people stand before you from morning till night?’

One way for the consultant to understand the organization and its problems is to hear conflicting understandings of the roles individuals are supposed to play. What does the executive, the leader, think his job is? What are the needs of the employees, and are they being met?

Yitro observes Moshe judging the people and asks what he is doing. Well, obviously, Moshe is judging the people -- so what does Yitro really want to know? There seem to be two components to his question:

Here we come to the central problem in this story: Is Moshe somehow unaware that things are running very inefficiently? Can’t he see the mob of people clamoring for his attention from dawn to dusk? Can’t he figure out himself that appointing more judges would alleviate the problem? Abravanel articulates this question sharply:

“Concerning the advice of Yitro to Moshe about appointing judges: certainly, Yitro’s words were good and correct. But even the simplest [intellect] should have understood that it was foolish to have one person judge from morning to night, for the judge and the judged would surely grow faint and fatigued! How could Moshe Rabbeinu and all the Elders of Israel not have realized that appointing [more] judges over the people would have lightened the load?”

This question makes Yitro’s question particularlyproblematic: what is his assumption? If it’s so obvious thatthe present way of organizing the judicial system is not good for either Moshe or the people, what does he think Moshe has in mind? Does he think Moshe so egotistical that he believes no one else can do an adequate job? Does he think Moshe so power-hungry that he refuses to share authority?

The Torah tells us in Sefer BeMidbar (12:3) that Moshe is the humblest person walking the face of the Earth. Could Yitro have missed this quality in his son-in-law? Many stories throughout the Torah demonstrate Moshe’s willingness to share power, as well as his general humility. Yitro may not know all of these stories, and some of them haven’t even happened yet, but they say something important about Moshe’s character, something Yitro could not have missed.

For instance: Yitro could not have missed the humility which made his son-in-law attempt to reject Hashem’s command to serve as His messenger in taking Bnei Yisrael out of Mitzrayyim. He could not have missed that Moshe was the kind of person who felt able to approach Paro only if he could share that role with someone else, with Aharon, because of his belief in his inability to express himself properly. He could not have missed the quality that enabled Moshe and Aharon to cooperate perfectly as a team in performing the plagues in Mitzrayyim without even a hint that Moshe resented Aharon’s taking part of the spotlight or that the brothers were competing for supremacy. He could not have missed the quality which made Moshe wish (BeMidbar 11:29) that all of Bnei Yisrael could share with him in the gift of prophecy, the quality that made him dismiss a threat to his virtual monopoly on communicating with Hashem.

Well, how does Moshe *himself* understand Yitro’s question? We can tell from his answer. It seems that Moshe understands that Yitro has asked him, “What is it about the way you think about your role as a leader, your responsibility to the people, which makes you believe that things can *only* be this way, and that you can’t share the burden with others?” This question prompts Moshe to describe what he believes is his role.

The first thing Moshe says is that the people come to him to seek “E-lohim.” In some contexts in the Torah, “Elohim” does not mean “God,” it means “judges.” For example:

Is this what Moshe means by “Elohim” in this context? On the one hand, it is tempting to think that he is using “Elohim” to mean “judges,” since this whole discussion centers on his function as a judge. Moshe would be saying, “People come to me to seek judgment [’Elohim’].” But there is evidence that Moshe probably does not mean “judges,” and that “Elohim” means “Hashem”:

After telling Yitro that the people come to him to seek Hashem, Moshe goes on to explain that when people have a dispute, they come to him and he does two things: he judges them and he teaches them Hashem’s laws (the Torah).

Yitro had asked Moshe why he felt compelled to sit alone to judge the people. Moshe’s response tells Yitro that Moshe does not see himself as just a functionary of a judicial system; he does not see himself as just a judge. Moshe sees himself as the intermediary between the people and Hashem. The way he sees it, the people come to him seeking not just justice, not just a judge -- they come seeking “E-lohim” -- seeking Hashem! The reason no one else can do this job is because Moshe does not want to turn the people’s encounter with Hashem into an encounter with a judicial system. The current system is a religious one: people bring their problems and questions to Hashem’s closest representative. Yitro is suggesting that Moshe turn the system into a judicial one. Instead of walking into the presence of God -- into shul, so to speak -- the people will now walk into a courtroom. Instead of meeting an intermediary to Hashem, people will bring their troubles to legal scholars who have studied law codes. This is what Moshe wants to avoid, why he feels he is the only one who can do the job, for Moshe is Hashem’s right-hand man.

Yitro does not try to argue with Moshe. He agrees that the legal system should be a bridge to Hashem rather than a set of static statutes. And he does not tell Moshe to stop his work -- “You should represent the people before Hashem and bring matters to Hashem.” All he says is that Moshe is being too religiously ambitious. It is simply impossible to try to turn every legal question and dispute into an encounter with Hashem’s chief representative: “You will tire yourself out . . . it is too much for you!” Moshe must relinquish this goal of continuous Matan Torah, this continuous Mosaic revelation. He must appoint others to judge along with him.

It would be great if the CEO himself (or herself) would answer the customer relations phones at IBM or Microsoft or GM or Merck to help you figure out why your modem or your word processor or your mini-van or your hypertension pills weren’t doing what you needed. You’d be very impressed! In seconds, the CEO would cut through all the red tape and solve your problems with no delay. But the reason no CEO answers the public relations phones is that “navol ti-bol, gam ata, gam ha-am ha-zeh”: he would sit from morning till night answering customer calls, ignoring larger and more important responsibilities, like deciding where the company is headed in the future and what its role is in the global market . . . and how to make money from the Internet. Also, customers would have to wait for weeks on “hold.” No one would be happy.

The same is true here: Moshe wants to give everyone his attention and provide a direct line to Hashem. But he can’t handle the sheer volume himself, and even if he could, he would have to ignore the more important duties of leading the nation. Meanwhile, the people would wait in lines winding around the block ten times.

Ultimately, Moshe remains the source of revelation: Yitro encourages him to continue to be the one to teach the people the laws of the Torah; he remains “Moshe Rabbeinu,” “Moshe, our Teacher,” but he gives up most of the day-to-day functions of “Moshe, our Judge.” This does not mean that from this point on, the Jewish legal system has nothing to do with approaching Hashem. Since Torah law is divinely given, one who submits to Torah law and the Torah’s courts submits to Hashem. But more immediately, Hashem Himself maintain a presence in court. One manifestation of Hashem’s presence in a Jewish court is that the Supreme Court -- the Sanhedrin He-Gedola -- meets in the Beit HaMikdash (Temple) itself. We all know that Hashem is present in the Mikdash as a focus for worship, but the fact that the Supreme Court meets there means that Hashem is also there in order to meet the people who come to seek His instructions.

In addition, the Midrash understands the pasuk, “E-lohim nitzav ba-adat e-l,” “E-lohim stands amonthe congregation of God,” to mean that Hashem is present in Beit Din (Jewish court). Rashi and Ramban also develop this idea in several places (see Rashi Bereshit 18:1 and Tehillim 82:1, Ramban Shemot 21:6 and BeMidbar 11:16).

Nowadays, many of us think of court as the domain of slick lawyers, biased juries, and crooked or inobjective judges. Maybe we think of it as Judge Wapner’s territory, or material for a nighttime soap opera, or the forum for a celebrity murder trial, or the stage for a tawdry Presidential scandal. But ideally, Jewish court is something like shul -- it is a place to meet Hashem and bring our problems to Him. (When I say “shul,” I mean what shul *should* be, not the place some people go to yak with their friends and see what everyone is wearing.)

Often, the Torah reports several different versions of an event. The most common location for repeated stories is Sefer Devarim, “Deuteronomy,” the “Repeated Torah,” called “Mishneh Torah” by Hazal (the rabbis of the Talmud). Our story -- the story of Moshe’s appointment of judges to serve under him -- appears just nine pesukim (verses) from the beginning of Sefer Devarim. Moshe narrates the story to Bnei Yisrael, who are assembled to hear their leader’s final speech before his death and their entry, without him, to Eretz Cana’an:

At that time I said to you, “I cannot carry you alone -- Hashem, your Lord, has increased you, and you are today numerous as the stars of the sky. May Hashem, Lord of your fathers, add to you a thousand times your number, and bless you, as He said [He would]. But how can I alone carry your troubles, burdens, and disputes? Select for yourselves wise and understanding men, known to your tribes, and I will appoint them as your heads.” You answered me and said, “What you have said to do is a good idea.” I took the heads of your tribes, wise and well-known men, and made them heads over you: officers of a thousand, a hundred, fifty, and ten, and police for your tribes. I commanded your judges at that time, “Hear [disputes] between your brothers and judge justly between each man and his brother, and between the stranger. Do not ‘recognize faces’ in judging: listen to the small as to the great. Do not fear any man, for justice is Hashem’s. Whatever is too hard for you, bring to me and I will hear it.” I commanded you at that time all the things which you should do.

[By the way, “anshei hayyil,” literally, “men of valor, does not mean “brave warriors” or “fearless heroes,” it means “judges who will be strong and brave enough to remain honest [=valor] even when it is difficult to do so” -- like when they are threatened or bribed by the litigants, or when they feel emotionally inclined to sympathize with one side. Perhaps some judges currently on the bench might be described as “cowboys,” but it seems to me that the Torah is not advocating swashbuckling jurisprudence.]

The above discrepancies between the two versions leave us with two questions:

Now we come to our second question: granted that we can reconstruct what actually happened [either my version above, or one you might propose] -- but why does the Torah give us two different versions? Perhaps another way to ask this question is, what is the focus of Sefer Shemot and what is the focus of Sefer Devarim?

Sefer Shemot traces the development of Bnei Yisrael into a nation and Moshe Rabbeinu into a leader. Sefer Devarim’s narrative section reviews the trip through the desert and makes explicit the lessons to be learned from the journey. Since Moshe knows he is to die soon, he must prepare the people to 1) keep the Torah without his guidance and 2) function as a nation without his guidance.

Since Shemot is partly about Moshe’s development, the focus of the visit with Yitro is how *Moshe* reacts, not how the people react. The Torah tells us nothing about the people’s role in selecting the judges and nothing about their approval of the whole process because the focus is on Moshe and his developing role as of the nation. But since Devarim is about Moshe’s attempt to strengthen the people’s commitment to the Torah and the authority structure so they can “mit” religiously and politically without him, the Torah focuses in Devarim on Moshe’s interaction with the people in putting the new system into play:

The comparison between the two versions, then, reveals the purpose and character of Sefer Shemot and Sefer Devarim, as well as teaching sophisticated strategies for leadership and diplomacy.

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