Noam Blauer – Senior Sermon (RS ’26)
Feb 6, 2026 By JTS Senior Sermon | Commentary | Senior Sermon | Yitro
Yitro All Class of 2026 Senior Sermons
Read More
On Moses’ “Saying” and “Telling”
Feb 6, 2026 By Alan Cooper | Commentary | Yitro
The highlight of Parashat Yitro is undoubtedly the spectacular son et lumière at Sinai, accompanying the uniquely unmediated revelation of God’s “words” (the 10 Commandments) directly to the people. The gravity of the occasion demanded special preparation, and most of Exodus 19 is devoted to that preparation…
Read More
Ariel Dunat – Senior Sermon (’25)
Feb 12, 2025 By JTS Senior Sermon | Commentary | Senior Sermon | Yitro
Yitro
Read More
The Confusion of Revelation
Feb 14, 2025 By Barry Holtz | Commentary | Yitro
We have now come to Parashat Yitro in our annual Torah reading cycle, arguably the most significant sedra in the Humash. While Parashat Bereishit has the mythic power of the creation stories and Parashat Beshallah includes the narrative of the Exodus from Egypt and the miraculous crossing of the Sea, it is in Yitro that […]
Read More
Amalya Volz – Senior Sermon (RS ’24)
Feb 1, 2024 By JTS Senior Sermon | Commentary | Senior Sermon | Yitro
Yitro All the Class of 2024 Senior Sermons
Read More
The Limitations God Shares with Us
Feb 2, 2024 By Gordon Tucker | Commentary | Yitro
But how do you reconcile the idea of God’s transcendent power with such things as a failure to anticipate human flaws, or a weakness for the smell of roasting meat, or jealousy, or suffering the travails of exile? Texts such as these raise eyebrows because they seem to lower God in our estimation.
Read More
How Do We Meet At Sinai?
Feb 10, 2023 By Amelia Wolf | Commentary | Yitro
At the moment God initiates a new covenant with the People of Israel, they must learn to demarcate the spaces of their new relationship. Some of these boundaries are lines drawn by God. Others are fences maintained by human beings. How can humanity and the Divine exist in the same space and time? And what can we learn about how humans can exist in relationship with each other from that encounter?
Read More
Strangers at a Revelation
Jan 21, 2022 By Miriam Feldmann Kaye | Commentary | Yitro
Parashat Yitro is framed by the geographical and conceptual ideas of exile and homecoming. Against the backdrop of Bereishit, the notion of movement is critical in framing the experiences of biblical characters: the exile from Eden; the exile of Cain; the “calls” to Abraham, Jacob, and others to move, relocate, and find new homes.
Read More
