YISRO 1990

In the Torah portion Yisro we learn about the Ten Commandments.  We also learn how Yisro heard the priest of Midian, the father of Moshe, "all which G‑d had done to Moshe and to Israel, His people, that G‑d had brought His people out from Egypt, that Yisro took Zipporah, Moshe's wife, and Moshe's children and he came to greet the Jewish people."  This first sentence is a very difficult sentence in the Torah portion Yisro.  The rabbis ask, what does it mean "and Yisro heard"?  Why does it say "all which G‑d did to Moshe and Israel"?  And why is the name of G‑d here "Eloheem", which means that aspect of G‑d which has to do with strict justice, which has to do with G‑d's attributes, for example, like the laws of nature, that are immutable, that only He can change.  Why does it say that He brought out G‑d Yud Kay Vav Kay, the word Adonai, the way we pronounce it, Israel from Egypt.  Why did we change the name of G‑d here?

It seems very strange the way this sentence is set up, and, what's more, when Rashi explains "and Yisro heard" Rashi explains that it means that Yisro heard about the splitting of the Red Sea and about the war of Amalek, but later on Rashi says that when it says "all which G‑d did for Moshe and His people, Israel" Rashi explains that that refers to the manna that came down from heaven to feed the Jewish people and the well of water which accompanied them and the war of Amalek.  Why does Rashi, in the first part of the sentence when it says that Yisro heard, explain that what he heard was the splitting of the Red Sea and the war of Amalek when just a few words later he said that all which G‑d did to Moshe and Israel refers to the fact that G‑d provided them with manna and water and the war of Amalek?  What's more, why does Yisro give that advice that he gives to Moshe, that Moshe should choose men of valor, successful people, G‑d-fearing people, men of truth who hate bribes, and he should upon them as officers of thousands and as officers of hundreds and officers of fifty and officers of ten.

Also, at the end of the Torah portion we learn that all the people saw the thunder and the lightning and the voice of the shofar in the mountain smoking.  It says they saw the thunder.  What does it mean to "see" the thunder?  To my mind, all these questions seem to be related.  All these questions explain why Yisro came to the Jewish people, what motivated him to attach himself to the Jewish people.

We have to understand that Yisro was one, according to the Medrash, of Pharaoh's three advisors when Pharaoh had decided to kill all the Jewish young men, to cast them into the Nile.  He had three advisors, Pharaoh.  He had Bilam, who thought it was a very good idea, Job, who kept quiet and did not say yes or no and did not want to endanger his job, and Yisro, who said it was a terrible idea and protested and he left Egypt.  Yisro was a man who tried all the religions of the world, according to the rabbis.  What caused Yisro to come to the Jewish people was that he heard something very strange, and what did he hear that was so strange?  He heard that G‑d was doing wonders for the Jewish people, that G‑d had saved the Jewish people, that the Jewish people were an eternal people.  When he left Egypt he thought that the Jewish people were through, that Pharaoh would destroy them, but G‑d made sure that the Jewish people survived.  According to the Medrash, only a fifth of them survived.  Four-fifths of them perished, but the Jewish people survived.  G‑d has made sure that no matter what calamities befall the Jewish people a remnant will always survive, that the Jewish people will always survive.  Yet, at the same time, he heard about the war of Amalek, that the Jewish people, even though G‑d has promised them that they will survive, always seem to attract enemies, that the Jewish people are always attacked but, yet, they always survive.  This seems to be a paradox.  Why are the Jewish people always attacked?  Of course, in the rabbinic tradition we know why because the same word that means "Sinai", means the Ten Commandments, means receiving the Torah, also means "Siva", hatred, in Hebrew, that because we Jewish people received the Torah, the Ten Commandments, the nations of the world attacked us, not because every Jew observes the Ten Commandments and the Torah but the Jews are a symbol of G‑d's morality in the world, and the nations of the world do not want to live under that morality.  They bridle under that morality.  They chafe under it.  They would like to throw it off.  That is, of course, exactly what Hitler said.  He said, "I hate that semitic G‑d with His 'thou shalts' and 'thou shalt nots'.  I hate that semitic G‑d Who gave the world the Ten Commandments."  The nations of the world do not want to observe the Ten Commandments, and when they do not want to observe the Ten Commandments they attack the Jew because the Jew is the symbol of the Ten Commandments even though many Jews, individually themselves would not like to live by the Ten Commandments, and even if many Jews are not worthy of the Ten Commandments, but we are the symbol of the Ten Commandments.

The same thing is happening this week in South Africa when the conservative party has a rally.  At the rally Nazi flags were displayed and they yelled "Kill the Jews" because the conservative party in South Africa wants to pursue discriminatory policies.  They claim that not all human beings are created in the image of G‑d so they attack the Jew because the Jew stands as a rebuke against these policies.  The Jews stood as a rebuke against Hitler's policies.  Hitler called us sentimental.  Stalin, when he wanted to enforce terrible inhumane policies in Russia, attacked the Jew, too, and if Stalin would not have died when he died there would have been another holocaust in Russia.  They were already rounding up the Jews to kill them, and in eastern Europe today when many nationalist forces want to take revenge and do things they know they should not do they attack the Jew, because the Jew is a symbol of G‑d's morality.

Yisro heard this.  He could see things that strangers from afar cannot see.  There are many Jews who are negative Jews, who feel that we Jews are attacked because we deserve it, that if we Jews would speak better English or give money to this fund, if we Jews would have better p.r., if we Jews would not have any scoundrels then we would not be hated.  The mark of true tolerance is when you allow another nation, another group to have scoundrels.  Those scoundrels should be punished, but every group is entitled to have some scoundrels.  We hope that the Jewish people have less scoundrels than others, but there are going to be scoundrels among all groups.  We do not say to destroy America because there are criminals in America.  We do not say to destroy Great Britain because there are criminals in Great Britain.  Why should people say we have to destroy the Jews because there are criminals among the Jews, but they say that.  It is not our fault that we are hated.  It is because of what we stand for that we are hated.  Many Jews do not understand it.  They are negative Jews and they cringe because they think that we deserve to be hated.  It is like the victim feels that they deserve to be victimized.  How often is the rape victim accused of inciting the rape because she wiggled the wrong way or wore the wrong dress?  The victim many times is blamed, and here, too, many people blame Jews because we are the victim, but the reason we are hated is because we stand for something.  We stand for G‑d's moral law.  We stand for the Ten Commandments.  We stand for principles that many people that many people in the world do not want to live under, especially the powerful.  That is what Jethro heard.  He heard something remarkable.

He also heard Hall which G‑d did to Moshe and to Israel, His people".  He saw about the water and the bread, and the war against Amalek here had a different meaning.  He saw that Jews bore their burden positively, that they wanted to help the world, that they wanted to give people bread and water because G‑d gave them bread and water.  He also saw the war of Amalek, and what was the war of Amalek about?  That was when Jews went to the aid of stragglers, to Jews who were weak in faith.  The rabbis say that the Tribe of Dan were heretics, that they worshipped idols, but, yet, the Jewish people did not stop aiding them because they were renegade Jews.  This was unheard of.  In Jethro's time if someone stopped believing a particular religion, they kicked him out or killed them.  They did not help them.  We Jews are commanded to help all Jews no matter whether they believe or do not believe, that we have to always remember that we have to be positive, that no matter what the world does to us we still have to stand for upright moral values.

That is what Jethro could see.  There are some Jews who may chafe under this burden and Jethro saw this.  He said, "You, Moshe, just cannot bear this alone.  Every Jewish person should be proud of who he is, and that the obligations of the Jew to the world should be a mark of pride upon all of us, that we should be willing, each of us, to give bread and water and to clothe the naked, to feed the hungry, to be examples to the world of how people should act.  Therefore, Moshe don't bear it yourself.  Spread it around all the people.  Make sure they are officers of tens and fifty and hundreds.  And what kind of people should you choose?  Successful people.  Jews do not say we should help the poor because they, themselves, are poor.  That would be almost self-serving.

There is, however, nothing wrong with a poor person demanding help, but you are successful men.  You get people that are successful, and the successful people agree that they must tax themselves and help the poor, not like you have people today who claim that they have no responsibility to society except to themselves.  We should be G‑d-fearing men.  What does G‑d-fearing mean?  It means people who do not take advantage of their power.  You can have power and get away with doing things and you do not do those things because you know there is a G‑d, then you are G‑d-fearing.  It is not that you pray all day.  You could pray all day and be G‑d-fearing, but G‑d-fearing means that when you have the power to do something, like you are a professor who has graduate students and you do not make them babysit and mow your lawn for nothing because they are afraid they will not be given their Ph.D., or an employer who knows that your worker cannot quit his job because he has a sick wife or sick children so you lower his salary and do not give him medical benefits.  You are not G‑d-fearing, or you are a merchant who takes advantage of the plight of the people in emergency.  You know that there is a shortage of flashlights or blankets, and you gouge the people out of profits.  Then you are not G‑d-fearing.  You need successful people who are G‑d-fearing, people also of truth.  People can be G‑d-fearing but be afraid of the truth, like we have people today who surround themselves with high walls and are afraid of the truth.  Judaism has nothing to fear from the secular truths of the world.  Judaism can stand up to these truths.  I just read a book recently called The First Three Minutes by Weinberger, who explains the Big Bang Theory.  This theory actually vindicates the Book of Genesis.  Of course, there may be a change in the theory, but we have nothing to fear from science, from anything.  Our religion can stand up to truth.  We have to be men of truth.  We can face the truth and not run away from the truth.  They also have to be people who hate bribes.  You can have great people who are G‑d‑fearing and successful but they do not hate bribery.  Bribery is not just with money.  In Israel there used to be a terrible disease called protexia, where a person favored his relatives and his cronies.  That is also a form of bribery where the best person did not get the job, where people felt that they were victims of favoritism and of terrible bureaucracies.  That is one of the reasons why communism failed, too.

Jethro saw something.  He said, "Jew, be proud of who you are even if you attract the hatred of the world.  G‑d will always save you, but be proud of who you are.  Be successful in life.  Be G‑d-fearing.  Don't be afraid of the truth, and don't accept bribes and you will see that you will have a great impact on the world."  We are fortunate that we have had many great people like this who make wonderful contributions to the world, but what is it that they require?  They require to see the thunder, each have a mind's eye, and in our mind's eye we hold certain values dear.  Those who hold these values dear can sustain themselves against all the rebuke and criticism that the world may heap upon them, but those who do not have this vision will not be able to be this type of a positive Jew.  We have wonderful Jews who are beautiful successes, doctors, lawyers, accountants.  Some of them, unfortunately, have succumbed and are not G‑d-fearing.  They take advantage of their power.  Some are afraid of the truth.  Some are involved in bribery.  That is wrong.  That is not how to be a positive Jew in the world.  We need positive Jews, and, thank G‑d, in our community we have many positive Jews.  May we continue to have these positive Jews so that we will influence the world, I am reminded of the story about a doctor who came out of the operation and said, "Oh boy, that was close.  That was really tough."  The nurse asked what was close and what was tough.  He said, "Well, an inch either way and it would be out of my specialty."  Our specialty is not just our profession.  Our specialty is to help the world.  Our specialty is to be positive role models for the world even if we are attacked.  G‑d has promised us that we will survive, but He has also promised that if we will be positive role models to the world the world will be improved and we will have a great part in helping perfect it.  May we all do so so the Mashiach will come.  Amen.