Parashat Yitro (Exodus 18:1 - 20:14)

by Rabbi Pete Tobias, The Liberal Synagogue Elstree

Summary
Yitro (usually translated as Jethro) is the name of Moses’ father-in-law, a Midianite priest, whom we have already briefly met (it was Jethro’s flocks that Moses was tending when he encountered the burning bush).  Moses tells Jethro everything that has happened since he last saw him (‘So what’s been happening, son?’ ‘Well, Pop, I went to see Pharaoh a few times and there were all these plagues and I led the people out and we saw the Egyptians drown in the sea of Reeds’ – not quite the everyday family conversation!).  We then see Moses sit as a judge for the people and Jethro suggests to him that he might consider delegating some of the responsibility – and the first Jewish committee is established.  But the real focus of the portion is the revelation at Mount Sinai: God descends on the mountain and Moses goes up to receive the Ten Commandments.

Commentary

This moment of revelation is unique in the Torah – and indeed in the Hebrew Bible.  It is the only time that God is revealed to the whole community.  Not that the community is terribly appreciative of the fact – they are terrified and tell Moses to go up the mountain and meet with God on his own – they’re quite happy to wait at the foot of the mountain and have Moses tell them what God has to say when he gets back.

Orthodox Jewish tradition would have us believe that this was the moment at which the entire Torah was revealed.  The Liberal view of revelation and the gradual development of the document that came to be called the Torah is very different, but there can be little doubt that something quite extraordinary occurred at this moment in the wilderness.

The description preceding the giving of the Ten Commandments is intriguing and inevitably leads to much speculation about what actually happened at Sinai.  There is fire and smoke, the ground is shaking, there is the sound like a horn blowing.  I have had some interesting discussions with my bar and bat mitzvah students about this incident.  Most of them seem to think that what happened at Mount Sinai was some kind of volcanic activity but I tend to doubt that Moses would climb to the top of an active volcano.

Our conversations invariably come round to the possibility that what we’re reading about in Exodus chapter 19 is the arrival of an alien spacecraft at the top of a mountain.  That may seem ridiculous – even sacrilegious – but the description of what happens there, and some subsequent details, are resonant with such an event.  In addition to the flames and the smoke and the shaking ground of Exodus 19, we read in Exodus chapter 24 that when Moses (along with Aaron and his sons and 70 elders) are invited to meet with God, the floor beneath God’s feet ‘was like a pavement of sapphire, like the very sky for purity.’  And we also know that after Moses has emerged from his encounters with the Divine, his face is radiant and glowing (Exodus 34:30).

So was this moment of revelation a Close Encounter of the Third Kind?  And, more importantly, if it was, does that undermine the event and damage our understanding and appreciation of God?  In truth, I don’t think it matters what actually happened at Mount Sinai.  The real essence of this moment in human history is that as a consequence of whatever happened there, a new faith was shaped and moulded, which had at its heart a sense of respect for others and a yearning for justice.  And it doesn’t matter whether the seeds of this human growth were planted as a result of a mysterious alien encounter or a no less mysterious manifestation of God – what is important is that the teachings offered at Mount Sinai were noted by those who received them.  They became the basis of an emerging civilisation (which still had quite a lot of emerging to do) but in many ways the essence of the teachings given at Sinai underpins the structure of our society more than three thousand years later.

Rabbi Pete Tobias

The Liberal Synagogue Elstree

You can hear Rabbi Pete’s Pause for Thought on BBC Radio 2’s ‘Wake up to Wogan’ at 9.15 am on Tuesdays in March 2007.