Finding the Joy · Parashat Yitro
The One Who Heard
The One Who Heard
The parsha that contains the Ten Commandments — the foundational moment of Jewish civilization, the voice of God at Sinai, thunder and lightning and a mountain on fire — is named for a Midianite priest.
Not Moses. Not Aaron. Not God. Yitro. The father-in-law. The outsider. The one who heard what had happened and came anyway.
וַיִּשְׁמַ֞ע יִתְר֨וֹ כֹהֵ֤ן מִדְיָן֙ חֹתֵ֣ן מֹשֶׁ֔ה אֵת֩ כׇּל־אֲשֶׁ֨ר עָשָׂ֤ה אֱלֹהִים֙ לְמֹשֶׁ֔ה וּלְיִשְׂרָאֵ֖ל עַמּ֑וֹ Jethro priest of Midian, Moses’ father-in-law, heard all that God had done for Moses and for Israel—God’s people: how the ETERNAL had brought Israel out from Egypt.
He heard. Vayishma. Rashi cites the splitting of the sea and the war with Amalek as what Yitro heard. Others add the giving of the Torah itself. The point is the same: a lot of people heard. Yitro moved.
I think about that distinction more than I should. Wednesday morning I was at a coffee shop in Dunwoody — and the barista, making conversation, asked what I was reading. I had a Chumash open on the table. I said it was the Torah. She said, “Oh, are you studying to be a rabbi?” I said no, I’m just Jewish. She paused. “You just… read it? Like, on a Wednesday?” I said yes. She said that was cool. And that was it.
It was a nothing interaction. Ten seconds. But it caught the strangeness of what Yitro did and what anyone does when they hear something and actually go toward it.
Parashat Yitro covers a lot of ground: Yitro’s arrival and his advice to Moses about delegating judgment, the Israelites’ arrival at Sinai, and then the main event — the aseret hadibrot, the Ten Utterances.
But before the thunder, before the commandments, there is a verse that carries more weight than its handful of Hebrew words suggest:
וַיִּסְע֣וּ מֵרְפִידִ֗ים וַיָּבֹ֙אוּ֙ מִדְבַּ֣ר סִינַ֔י וַֽיַּחֲנ֖וּ בַּמִּדְבָּ֑ר וַיִּֽחַן־שָׁ֥ם יִשְׂרָאֵ֖ל נֶ֥גֶד הָהָֽר׃ Having journeyed from Rephidim, they entered the wilderness of Sinai and encamped in the wilderness. Israel encamped there in front of the mountain,
The verse uses two different verb forms for “encamped.” The first — vayachanu — is plural. The second — vayichan — is singular. Rashi catches it: k’ish echad b’lev echad. As one person with one heart. Every other encampment in the desert was marked by murmuring and dissension. This one was different.
The Ten Utterances begin with a sentence that is not, technically, a commandment:
אָֽנֹכִ֖י֙ יְהֹוָ֣ה אֱלֹהֶ֑֔יךָ אֲשֶׁ֧ר הוֹצֵאתִ֛יךָ מֵאֶ֥רֶץ מִצְרַ֖יִם מִבֵּ֣֥ית עֲבָדִ֑͏ֽים׃ I the ETERNAL am your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, the house of bondage:
No instruction. No prohibition. Just identification. I am. I brought you out. The relationship is established before the rules arrive.
I drove to shul last Shabbat. Sat in the car for a minute or ten waiting for the doors to be unlocked. There is a moment I have almost every Saturday morning — small, not dramatic — where I notice that this is my week now. Not because it feels unfamiliar. Because it still feels chosen. Every single week, it still feels chosen.
There is a midrash that says when God spoke at Sinai, every soul that would ever be Jewish was present — the ones already born, the ones not yet born, and the ones who would one day choose it.
The parsha is named for the outsider who heard and came. The people arrived at the mountain and for once — for the only time in the wilderness — stood as one. The first words spoken were not a rule but a declaration: I am your God. I brought you out.
The joy in Yitro is the quiet kind. A lot of people hear. Some of them move. The ones who move find out the mountain was waiting.
Shabbat shalom.
— Uriel ben Avraham