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Drash for Shabbat Yitro By Sandra Birnbaum - February 9, 2007 We often hear stories about mothers-in-law, but when was the last time you heard a good story about a father-in-law? Today’s Torah portion has just such a story. As in any good western film, the protagonists—Yitro or Jethro and Moses meet in the desert, in this case at the foot of Mount Sinai. After all the festivities of the family reunion, Yitro, who is Moses’s father-in-law, observes the goings on for a while and then approaches Moses. "Moses, what is going on here? Why are all these people coming to you with all their petty problems and complaints all day long?" Moses responds, "God has spoken to me. When the people come to me to inquire of God, when there is some legal matter, I judge between man and his fellow and make known God’s laws and instructions." "Moses, don’t be such a control freak—you don’t have to do everything yourself. Appoint some other people you respect to help to deal with the little problems and you then can deal with the important ones." And thus was set in motion the current structure of our court system. Recently, listening to some parents of first year university students, I heard them express the following complaint: "My kid doesn’t know how to write a decent essay—he can’t spell, he doesn’t know how to punctuate, — so he e-mails me his essays and I correct them, do some editing and send them back. My thought was that if you do the work for them, how will they ever learn to write properly?" Yitro, I believe, would agree with my position. His view was that God had given the Israelites a set of rules, the Ten Commandments, to apply in their lives. Yitro understood that we can teach the rules, we can set an example, but each individual has to learn to use the rules for herself and, as well, to accept the consequences for not following the rules. In modern language, Yitro was saying help empower people to make the best decisions they can so that they don’t have to run to someone else to do it for them. Some wise advice from a father-in-law. Shabbat Shalom.
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