Post by Rabbi Neil on Feb 2, 2024 18:18:47 GMT
The parashah of Yitro is the pivotal parashah in the whole of Torah because it contains the Revelation at Sinai. This is the moment when God first speaks to entire Jewish people who, only a few chapters before, had been a rag-tag bunch of refugees fleeing for their lives. Now they find themselves communicating with the Creator of the Universe and literally no greater communication exists. So, what is the transformation that allowed for such Revelation and, particularly, how come God didn’t speak to them while they were in Egypt but, rather, spoke to them only once they had escaped?
It could be suggested that the Hebrews were so engaged in miserable labor in Egypt that they were simply not interested in communicating with God. This would be an interesting theological statement if true. It would suggest that in order to connect with God we have to be calm, we have to be at peace. While those who engage in meditation might be inclined to agree, that’s different to saying that if you’re enslaved you can’t receive Revelation, though. 13th century Rabbi Jacob ben Asher (Tur HaArokh , Exodus 20:2:1) writes of “the taking out of a completely assimilated nation such as the Israelites from the midst of another nation” as a proof of God’s might. That he, and many other sources, talk of the Israelites being almost totally assimilated into Egyptian life could also be important here – maybe God couldn’t or didn’t talk to them in Egypt because they wouldn’t have even recognized God since they were so assimilated. Maybe there needs to be a minimal awareness of Judaism or of God before there can be any form of Revelation.
Another possible reason why God might have waited for the Revelation could be that the Israelites didn’t yet have a leader ready to receive the Revelation. Midrash (see Rashi) tells us that when God spoke to the Israelites originally, they were literally blown away by what was said. It says that the effect of God’s speech was so powerful that their souls left their bodies and God had to essentially resurrect them or reconstruct them before having Moses act as intermediary. The people needed someone who could relate all of God’s words to them and Moses was clearly reluctant at the beginning of his journey. It is only through the Ten Plagues and his encounter with Pharaoh that Moses grows into the leadership role. Perhaps only after the Exodus was Moses able to truly act in this role, which is why we have the subsequent Revelation at Sinai.
A third suggestion has to do with Sinai itself. There are a number of midrashim (e.g. Midrash Sifri, Deuteronomy 343) that say that Torah was given specifically on Sinai so that all could participate in the Revelation had they wanted to. In those midrashim, God literally offers Torah to every other people first, but they all refuse it, so in the end God forces Torah onto the Israelite people. The location of the Revelation therefore makes an important statement not about the people receiving it but about the act of Revelation itself which is that it has the potential to be universal. Or, perhaps put another way, we didn’t receive Torah because we are in any way better than any other people but because it needed to be taken by someone and we were the last people left. The grandeur of Sinai therefore leads to a humble perspective about our people.
All of these are possibly true but there is at least one more reason why the Revelation had to be at Sinai and not in Egypt, which is similar to the earlier reason of the Israelites not being ready. Before, I said that they might not have been ready because they were so assimilated, but another possible reason is because they were not appropriately organized in order to receive the message clearly. This is where Moses’ father-in-law, Jethro, comes in. Now that Moses has successfully led the people out of Egypt, Jethro finds him and asks the most extraordinary thing – “What is this thing that you are doing to the people? Why do you act alone, while all the people stand about you from morning until evening?... The thing you are doing is not right; you will surely wear yourself out, and these people as well. For the task is too heavy for you; you cannot do it alone.” (Ex. 18:14) Jethro sees a disfunctional organizational structure and seeks to reorganize it all. Jethro is the world’s first management consultant.
Take note of the language used. Jethro doesn’t say to Moses, “Look at what you’re doing to yourself” because he knows what Moses’ response will be – “I’m fine, I’m tired but I’m fine…” But focus on the community and Moses can’t give the same answer because every religious leader knows that the old maxim of “If you want something done properly you’ve got to do it yourself” actually doesn’t work in a religious community. For a religious community, the maxim should say something like “If you want something done properly you’ve got to make sure that everyone who wants it done feels some ownership in implementing it.” Not as catchy, I grant you, but ultimately more effective. Moses has got caught up in that great trap faced by all religious leaders, of taking on too much. So, Jethro shows him how to delegate. The major decisions still come to Moses but the minor, everyday matters can be dealt with by lesser judges. So, Moses still acts as the intermediary between the people and God but it’s a different kind of intermediary to how he envisaged it. It’s not an all-or-nothing affair. Instead, delegating some of the responsibility frees Moses up to be a more effective intermediary between the people and God. If God revealed Godself to a badly organized people, the message would get lost. Once Jethro restructures the people, the message can be more effectively passed through them.
So, why does God wait until Sinai to talk to the Israelites? It’s either because of the location or because of the people. It could easily be because God wants a large public arena for the Revelation so that all peoples could have participated had they wished. But it could also be because the people needed to be ready – they needed not to be assimilated, they needed a leader and they needed to be well organized.
I think this all points to an important message for us today. Our encounter with God depends not just on God but on us. Of course there can be individual encounters with God – the Bible is full of those, including Moses at the burning bush. However, a communal encounter with God takes two things – place and preparation. The place has to be right, it has to be open and available to all. And the people have to be ready – the community needs to be organized in such a way that God’s voice can be heard and implemented effectively throughout the community.
The difficult question is what that looks like in 21st century Santa Fe? For the Hebrews it was easy because their theology was united – a belief in a personified, revealing, top-down patriarchal God, a warrior Who fought for them, Who rescued them from trouble, Who subverted the laws of nature in front of their eyes, and Who spoke clearly to them. That is not the God that we experience. There is no unifying theology in our community. Some experience God as the King Who rules over us, others experience God as the Divine Presence Who meets us, some experience God as the silence that welcomes and confronts us, some experience God in and off everything around us, and some don’t experience God at all. How can there be a communal Revelation when there are so many differing models of God, including those which by necessity exclude the possibility of revelation? And if there is no revelation then the theophany at Sinai is reduced to a mere historical event, a one-off moment that doesn’t live within our souls.
Perhaps the answer, then, is not to create some unifying revelatory moment bur, rather, that we need to organize the community in such a way that those who wish to meet God can do so. That involves place – maintaining our Sanctuary in particular – and it also involves organizing the community so that there are a variety of spiritual opportunities. Perhaps that means creating spiritual experiences that are more than Shabbat and festival services… certainly something for us to consider moving forward. Maybe it means communally exploring the question asked in the Bible – “What does the Eternal your God require of you?” (e.g. Deut. 10:12, Micah 6:8) That means a focus not on the act of revelation but, rather, on how we respond to it, focusing away from theology and moving instead more into practical action.
If there is to be spirituality at the very least, then, we need to follow Jethro’s footsteps and reflect on whether the current arrangement of place and of people is the most conducive to that spirituality. It’s a conversation that I believe is essential as we move forward together as a community. May that conversation lead us to ever greater spiritual heights, and let us say, Amen.
It could be suggested that the Hebrews were so engaged in miserable labor in Egypt that they were simply not interested in communicating with God. This would be an interesting theological statement if true. It would suggest that in order to connect with God we have to be calm, we have to be at peace. While those who engage in meditation might be inclined to agree, that’s different to saying that if you’re enslaved you can’t receive Revelation, though. 13th century Rabbi Jacob ben Asher (Tur HaArokh , Exodus 20:2:1) writes of “the taking out of a completely assimilated nation such as the Israelites from the midst of another nation” as a proof of God’s might. That he, and many other sources, talk of the Israelites being almost totally assimilated into Egyptian life could also be important here – maybe God couldn’t or didn’t talk to them in Egypt because they wouldn’t have even recognized God since they were so assimilated. Maybe there needs to be a minimal awareness of Judaism or of God before there can be any form of Revelation.
Another possible reason why God might have waited for the Revelation could be that the Israelites didn’t yet have a leader ready to receive the Revelation. Midrash (see Rashi) tells us that when God spoke to the Israelites originally, they were literally blown away by what was said. It says that the effect of God’s speech was so powerful that their souls left their bodies and God had to essentially resurrect them or reconstruct them before having Moses act as intermediary. The people needed someone who could relate all of God’s words to them and Moses was clearly reluctant at the beginning of his journey. It is only through the Ten Plagues and his encounter with Pharaoh that Moses grows into the leadership role. Perhaps only after the Exodus was Moses able to truly act in this role, which is why we have the subsequent Revelation at Sinai.
A third suggestion has to do with Sinai itself. There are a number of midrashim (e.g. Midrash Sifri, Deuteronomy 343) that say that Torah was given specifically on Sinai so that all could participate in the Revelation had they wanted to. In those midrashim, God literally offers Torah to every other people first, but they all refuse it, so in the end God forces Torah onto the Israelite people. The location of the Revelation therefore makes an important statement not about the people receiving it but about the act of Revelation itself which is that it has the potential to be universal. Or, perhaps put another way, we didn’t receive Torah because we are in any way better than any other people but because it needed to be taken by someone and we were the last people left. The grandeur of Sinai therefore leads to a humble perspective about our people.
All of these are possibly true but there is at least one more reason why the Revelation had to be at Sinai and not in Egypt, which is similar to the earlier reason of the Israelites not being ready. Before, I said that they might not have been ready because they were so assimilated, but another possible reason is because they were not appropriately organized in order to receive the message clearly. This is where Moses’ father-in-law, Jethro, comes in. Now that Moses has successfully led the people out of Egypt, Jethro finds him and asks the most extraordinary thing – “What is this thing that you are doing to the people? Why do you act alone, while all the people stand about you from morning until evening?... The thing you are doing is not right; you will surely wear yourself out, and these people as well. For the task is too heavy for you; you cannot do it alone.” (Ex. 18:14) Jethro sees a disfunctional organizational structure and seeks to reorganize it all. Jethro is the world’s first management consultant.
Take note of the language used. Jethro doesn’t say to Moses, “Look at what you’re doing to yourself” because he knows what Moses’ response will be – “I’m fine, I’m tired but I’m fine…” But focus on the community and Moses can’t give the same answer because every religious leader knows that the old maxim of “If you want something done properly you’ve got to do it yourself” actually doesn’t work in a religious community. For a religious community, the maxim should say something like “If you want something done properly you’ve got to make sure that everyone who wants it done feels some ownership in implementing it.” Not as catchy, I grant you, but ultimately more effective. Moses has got caught up in that great trap faced by all religious leaders, of taking on too much. So, Jethro shows him how to delegate. The major decisions still come to Moses but the minor, everyday matters can be dealt with by lesser judges. So, Moses still acts as the intermediary between the people and God but it’s a different kind of intermediary to how he envisaged it. It’s not an all-or-nothing affair. Instead, delegating some of the responsibility frees Moses up to be a more effective intermediary between the people and God. If God revealed Godself to a badly organized people, the message would get lost. Once Jethro restructures the people, the message can be more effectively passed through them.
So, why does God wait until Sinai to talk to the Israelites? It’s either because of the location or because of the people. It could easily be because God wants a large public arena for the Revelation so that all peoples could have participated had they wished. But it could also be because the people needed to be ready – they needed not to be assimilated, they needed a leader and they needed to be well organized.
I think this all points to an important message for us today. Our encounter with God depends not just on God but on us. Of course there can be individual encounters with God – the Bible is full of those, including Moses at the burning bush. However, a communal encounter with God takes two things – place and preparation. The place has to be right, it has to be open and available to all. And the people have to be ready – the community needs to be organized in such a way that God’s voice can be heard and implemented effectively throughout the community.
The difficult question is what that looks like in 21st century Santa Fe? For the Hebrews it was easy because their theology was united – a belief in a personified, revealing, top-down patriarchal God, a warrior Who fought for them, Who rescued them from trouble, Who subverted the laws of nature in front of their eyes, and Who spoke clearly to them. That is not the God that we experience. There is no unifying theology in our community. Some experience God as the King Who rules over us, others experience God as the Divine Presence Who meets us, some experience God as the silence that welcomes and confronts us, some experience God in and off everything around us, and some don’t experience God at all. How can there be a communal Revelation when there are so many differing models of God, including those which by necessity exclude the possibility of revelation? And if there is no revelation then the theophany at Sinai is reduced to a mere historical event, a one-off moment that doesn’t live within our souls.
Perhaps the answer, then, is not to create some unifying revelatory moment bur, rather, that we need to organize the community in such a way that those who wish to meet God can do so. That involves place – maintaining our Sanctuary in particular – and it also involves organizing the community so that there are a variety of spiritual opportunities. Perhaps that means creating spiritual experiences that are more than Shabbat and festival services… certainly something for us to consider moving forward. Maybe it means communally exploring the question asked in the Bible – “What does the Eternal your God require of you?” (e.g. Deut. 10:12, Micah 6:8) That means a focus not on the act of revelation but, rather, on how we respond to it, focusing away from theology and moving instead more into practical action.
If there is to be spirituality at the very least, then, we need to follow Jethro’s footsteps and reflect on whether the current arrangement of place and of people is the most conducive to that spirituality. It’s a conversation that I believe is essential as we move forward together as a community. May that conversation lead us to ever greater spiritual heights, and let us say, Amen.