On This Side of History

On This Side of History: D’var Torah on Parashat Yitro
By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman
February 10, 2012

Last week’s Torah portion, B’shallach (Exodus 13:17-17:16), culminates with the parting of the Red Sea. It is THE Exodus. This scene of the Israelite people crossing the parted Red Sea is a magnificent image. We’ve read it, seen it or imagined it many times. In both Cecil B. DeMille’s “The Ten Commandments” and the animated “Prince of Egypt,” this is the climactic scene. But this image of the Israelites crossing from one shore of the sea to the other is more than just a scene in a movie. It is climactic, coming as it does immediately following the Ten Plagues, but it also represents a new beginning, symbolizing nothing less than Israel’s dramatic emergence into world history.

With this week’s Torah portion, Yitro (Exodus 18:1-20:23), the Israelites find themselves encamped on this side of the shore of history. They have shed their previous identity as slaves to Pharaoh. But who or what exactly are they now? Back in Egypt they were described with more than a hint of repugnance: “The children of Israel were fruitful and swarmed and increased and became very very strong, and the land became filled with them” (Exodus 1:7) Sounds more like a description of a throng of fruit flies than a glorious nation destined to hold God’s crown.

But that was then, when our spirits were crushed by oppression to the point where there was no room for faith. And really, what was our faith comprised of back then anyway? Some foggy stories of a hazy past and of gnarled ancestors who quarreled among themselves and with everyone around them. Yes, somewhere there a promise was given, an oath of redemption. But like the rest of those old stories, it vaporized away like early morning dew in the hot Egyptian sun, as the Israelites labored and anguished away. Finally they forgot all about it.

Even as this week’s parasha begins, the people still swarm. Free from the infinite yoke of slavery and the daily directives that defined their days and years, for once they find themselves purposeless and without direction. They swarm around Moses, calling out to him for guidance, seeking meaning in the exhausting wilderness. Yet this is the moment when they must rise from the dust and begin to assume the shape they were destined to become. Their faith restored by the miracle of Redemption they had so recently witnessed, their very restlessness is a sign that they were now ready for something new.

Helped by his father-in-law, Yitro, Moses first establishes a system of justice, assigning judges and magistrates to officiate among the people. A series of appellate courts enables the people to seek justice all the way to Moses, the ultimate arbiter and decider. This new organization frees the Israelites to attend to other routines; and as Moses only needs to judge the most serious cases, he can spend the rest of his time receiving God’s words and teaching them to the People.

Justice is the first value that raises the People of Israel from the dust, no longer a swarm as they become a community of communities.

But a nation needs more than a system of courts and magistrates. It also needs laws to guide them, laws that direct them ever higher in the pursuit of meaning, laws that eventually—hopefully—will raise them to a state once reserved only for God and the angels: holiness. “And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation,” exclaims God (Ex. 18:6).

Holiness is the goal God wants us to reach.

Holiness is a strange concept to us. Indefinable, powerful, it frightens us. The possible consequences of trying to reach it are beyond comprehension. (In hindsight from the 21st century, we weren’t all that wrong at that moment, standing at the foot of Mount Sinai, to feel that way).

And yet, that is what God was demanding of us.

The holy mountain began to shake and tremble. Thunder incessantly rolled in all directions while a shofar blast, announcing God’s presence, reached from one end of the world to the other, getting ever louder. In fright and anticipation, the people’s hearts must have been shaking as violently as the very ground they were standing on. Then, despite the hands clasped to their ears in a vain attempt to shield them from the waves of sound that crashed all around, through the indescribable noise, they heard the all-penetrating voice of God. Coming from the top of the fiery, smoke mountain, it resonated in the air and in their lungs and ears and hearts.

The Ten Commandments are the steps the people must take if they wish to attain the summits of holiness. In a way, they are the opposite of the Ten Plagues with which Pharaoh and the Egyptians were afflicted. With the Plagues, Egypt’s might was crushed. By accepting the Commandments, the Israelites proved themselves worthy of God’s trust and Redemption.

And what are those Commandments, that stairway to heaven? Three of them have to do with God and with the kind of respect we are to show the most powerful force in the universe. The fourth reminds us of the link that unites us with God: Shabbat.

But then, the next six commandments have nothing at all to do with God. Rather, they are rules for civil behavior, regulating our relationships with one another, people to people. They teach us to develop loyalty rather than mistrust, faith rather than despair. They remind us of familial and traditional duties and bonds; they call upon us to set boundaries to violence, to our desires and our cravings. They are the basic rules of living as part of a larger community.

The simplicity is awesome in itself: To be “a holy nation” means that we live with respect for one another, with faith, loyalty and justice as our guiding lights.

The yoke of moral responsibility that God wants us to accept—and which we do—feels good on our shoulders. Unlike the choking, heavy burden that Pharaoh had placed on us, this one feels as light as a shimmering robe woven with threads of starlight.

And thus begins the rest of our journey, a path we have been following ever since the seas of world events parted to give us our birth and our freedom. Wherever we go, remembering the Ten Plagues on the one shore and the Ten Commandments on the other, from this glorious moment onward, the goal we all strive for is nothing short of holiness, a state of being just a step, a word, a gesture, or a kind deed away.


©2012 by Boaz D. Heilman