Power and Love

Feb 17, 2017 By Rachel Rosenthal | Commentary | Yitro

[P]ower without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.

― Martin Luther King Jr., “Where Do We Go From Here?” (1967)

Why Did Moses Listen to Yitro’s Advice?

Feb 17, 2017 By Walter Herzberg | Commentary | Yitro

Yitro heard that God had done wonders for Moses and Israel and had redeemed them from Egypt. He journeyed from Midian with Moses’s wife and sons to the Israelites’ encampment at the mountain of God. We hear nothing of Moses’s reunion with his wife and children, but rather a detailed account of Yitro’s organizational advice to Moses.

Of God and Man

Jan 16, 2011 By Abigail Treu | Commentary | Text Study | Yitro

When I was little, my best friend and I shared a favorite game of Barbie dolls.

A Leadership Checklist

Feb 2, 2002 By Joshua Heller | Commentary | Yitro

This week we read parashat Yitro, whose primary focus is the revelation at Sinai, and the Jewish people’s preparation for that unique event in the history of the Jewish people. Aside from several spiritual and ritual preparations, the creation of a effective system of leadership is an essential practical component of the readiness for this great event.

The Secret of Judaism’s Vibrancy

Jan 21, 1995 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Yitro

The insignia for a Jewish chaplain in the armed forces of the United States is the two tablets of the Ten Commandments, worn prominently on both lapels. My father, the immigrant rabbi, wore his with pride when he was a civilian chaplain at the Valley Forge Army Hospital during World War Two and the Korean War, as did I when I served a two-year stint as an army chaplain from 1962-64 at Fort Dix and in Korea. The insignia has always appealed to me because of what it represents: the core experience of God by Israel at the foot of Mount Sinai. What could be more central? This is the event that determines the nature of Judaism and the destiny of its adherents

Judaism As a Relationship

Feb 1, 1997 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Yitro

The permanent exhibition of the Diaspora Museum in Tel Aviv begins with a replica of the relief from the Arch of Titus depicting Jewish prisoners bearing Temple artifacts (a large seven-branched menorah, for example) into exile. Nearby a piece of signage unfurls the Museum’s conception of Jewish history: “This is the story of a people which was scattered over all the world and yet remained a single family; a nation which time and again was doomed to destruction and yet out of ruins, rose to new life.” These stirring words attest to an unbroken national will to live. Exile did not end Jewish history nor fragment Jewish unity. Shared consciousness made up for the lack of proximity.

Advice for Moses, Advice for Life

Feb 14, 1998 By Ora Horn Prouser | Commentary | Yitro

In the portion of the Torah most celebrated for the Decalogue it includes, Moses receives wise counsel from an unexpected source. His father-in-law, Yitro, after seeing Moses sitting for long hours, judging and settling claims among the Israelites, objects to his son-in-law’s administrative style. 

Finding Balance

Feb 10, 2007 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Yitro

Negotiating personal and professional boundaries is one of the greatest challenges facing working individuals today. We live in a world that prizes productivity over patience and boundless devotion over definitive limits. Store hours lengthen, the banking week extends, and slowly work overtakes one’s life. Given this reality, Judaism is countercultural. It is a system of belief that places boundaries on one’s behavior. Indeed, eating, sex, and economic pursuits are all limited by sacred structures (kashrut, taharat ha–mishpaha [laws of family purity], and Shabbat, respectively). What is striking is that too often, we fail to recognize the need to set limits to our behaviors; classically, it takes an outsider to focus our attention toward constructive criticism.