This week’s parshah, Parshas Yisro,
contains the most important event in history, the giving of the Torah. Chazal
teach us that if Bnei Yisrael had not accepted the Torah at this time, there
would have been no purpose for creation, and the world would have instantly
returned to its original state of nothingness. Yet even with the importance of
this event, I would instead like to focus on the man for whom this parshah is
named, Moshe’s father-in-law, Yisro. I will also be doing it in a little
different style than what I normally do for this Dvar Torah.
At the beginning of the Parshah, Yisro
travels into the desert along with Moshe’s family to join Bnei Yisrael. Moshe
greets him and affords him a tremendous amount of respect, bringing the entire nation
along with him to greet Yisro with him.
The next morning, Yisro observes Moshe
judging the nation and takes issue with the process. The way the system worked
was that Moshe was the lone judge while everybody who had a question or
complaint would approach him and get their problem answered. Yisro felt this
was disrespectful to the people that they had to stand and wait for a long time
to have their questions answered. He also felt that by carrying this burden
alone, Moshe would eventually become worn out. So he designed a new system
where Moshe would appoint judges over a certain number of people. Whenever the
person’s appointed judge could not resolve their problem, he would send the
case up to another judge who was responsible for a larger number of people
until eventually the case would work its way up to Moshe. This way, the simple
problems were taken care of right away, making sure the people did not have to
wait, and only the most difficult problems came to Moshe, thereby making sure
he would not become worn out. Moshe listened to Yisro’s proposal, and without
any hesitation, implemented his plan in full.
This is an amazing story. Yisro was not
Jewish, nor had he spent time amongst the Jewish People before this, so he would
have no idea how judgments were supposed to work. Furthermore, while Yisro was
a first-rate philosopher, he had tried every religion in the world before
deciding that Judaism was the correct one, he was in no way a Torah scholar!
And yet, he comes in and right away starts making changes which Moshe decides
to implement immediately! Without even consulting Hashem! How could Moshe make
these changes simply based on Yisro’s ideas? In my opinion, what should have
happened was that Moshe should have told Yisro that while his suggestions were
very logical, he simply did not have the experience with the Torah system
necessary to know this is how things work. Or if Moshe decided these ideas could
fit within the Torah justice system, at the very least, Moshe should
have consulted Hashem before implementing Yisro’s plan!
We see from here two very important
principles of Judaism. The first is that this story is another example of the
idea of how once the Torah was given to the Jewish People, it was ours to do as
we pleased. This does not mean that we are allowed to change any of it, that is
strictly forbidden by the Torah itself. What it mean is that the Rabbis, or
anyone who knows how to properly study Torah, can draw any further conclusions
they can understand from the written text of the Torah. This means that Moshe
was able to decide the best way to judge cases and spread the knowledge of
Torah without consulting Hashem. This is a very short explanation of a long
discussion which is not our place to get into at the moment. Really, my main
point is the next one.
Chazal teach us a very important idea, “(If
they tell you) there is wisdom amongst the nations, believe them. (If they tell
you) there is Torah amongst the nations, don’t believe them.” This means
that while the greatness and spirituality of our Torah knowledge and lifestyle
was not shared with the nations of the world, this in no way means that they
still do not have wisdom, some of which can even be applied to our lifestyle
which is based upon Torah.
In practical terms, this means that
anyone who may come up to us with a thought, even if it comes from an un-Torah
educated mouth or culture, we must still take it into serious consideration.
These ideas have the potential to come from a place of wisdom.
This is what we learn from the story of
Yisro. As we said earlier, Yisro had no Torah background, how could Moshe take
his proposal for the system of Torah courts into consideration? The answer is
that Yisro’s idea made sense, it came from a place of wisdom.
Moshe realized this while listening to the proposal and therefore decided to put
it into practice.
How many times do we hear thoughts or
ideas from people who we feel are “unqualified” to comment on, or “unconnected”
to the subject we are dealing with. And how many times do we brush away their
ideas because of this? Are we any smarter or more committed to the well-being
of the Jewish people than Moshe was? These ideas do have the potential
to help us. This does not mean that we must listen to ideas which attempt to
undermine our Torah way of life. However, what it does mean is that when
someone makes a suggestion to improve upon an existing system, we cannot
dismiss it offhand. Let us learn from the story of Yisro to broaden our
perspective and appreciate the wisdom Hashem has given all human beings and use
it to improve our understanding and further our commitment to the Torah way.
Shabbat Shalom!
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