Yitro 5786
Moses Solo
This week we are reading Parashat Yitro (Exodus 18–20), and this week’s Torah puzzler is: What links our parashah to the book of Genesis?
The easy answer, the answer of the midrash, is that God’s appearance to give the “Ten” Commandments (that word does not appear in the parashah) and to announce אָֽנֹכִ֖י֙ יְ׳הוָ֣ה אֱלֹהֶ֑֔יךָ anokhi yhwh elohekha ‘I am YHWH your God’ is the moral equivalent of the creation of the world — a second creation, if you like, or a new “dispensation,” as Christians might call it.
The midrash I’m referring to is in Genesis Rabbah 1:10.
R. Jonah said in R. Levi’s name: Why was the world created with a beth? … For twenty-six generations the alef complained before the Holy One, blessed be He, pleading before Him: ‘Sovereign of the Universe! I am the first of the letters, yet Thou didst not create Thy world with me!’ God answered: ‘The world and its fullness were created for the sake of the Torah alone. Tomorrow, when I come to reveal My Torah at Sinai, I will commence with none but thee: I (anoki) am the Lord your God’ (Ex. xx, 2). [Soncino translation]
Why was the world created, that is, why does the Bible begin with the letter ב (of the word בראשית, in Gen 1:1), the 2nd letter in the alphabet, and not א, the 1st letter? Because creation is not complete until YHWH says אנכי anokhi and begins the Decalogue.
That’s a good answer (though in the ancient world there was more than one alphabetical order). The book of Exodus actually provides two additional historical moments that seem intended to inaugurate the next stage of the creation process: (1) the creation of the people of Israel in Exodus 1 and (2) the creation of the Tabernacle in Exodus 40. You might want to think of the revelation at Sinai as the capstone linking those two moments.
I, of course, have yet another answer to the question of what links our parashah to Genesis. My answer comes from earlier in the parashah, in Exodus 18, the story of Jethro, Moses’s father-in-law, finding Moses micromanaging things and explaining to him that he’s got to find a better way to do it:
Exod 18:17 Moses’ father-in-law said to him, “The thing you are doing is not right; 18 you will surely wear yourself out, and these people as well. For the task is too heavy for you; you cannot do it alone. 19 Now listen to me. I will give you counsel, and God be with you! You represent the people before God: you bring the disputes before God, 20 and enjoin upon them the laws and the teachings, and make known to them the way they are to go and the practices they are to follow. 21 You shall also seek out from among all the people capable men who fear God, trustworthy men who spurn ill-gotten gain. Set these over them as chiefs of thousands, hundreds, fifties, and tens, and 22 let them judge the people at all times. Have them bring every major dispute to you, but let them decide every minor dispute themselves. Make it easier for yourself by letting them share the burden with you. 23 If you do this—and God so commands you—you will be able to bear up; and all these people too will go home unwearied.” [NJPS]
By the way, it’s very interesting to compare this version of the story with the story that Moses himself tells in Deuteronomy 1. Have a look.
It’s quite a remarkable thing that Jethro shows up from the middle of nowhere (if the Midianites will forgive me for describing their country that way; Midian is where he’s from) and tells Moses this idea. It’s definitely a good idea, but adding that “God commands you to do what I just explained to you” seems a bit much. It’s true that Jethro is the priest of Midian, so perhaps that’s enough for him to tell Moses that it’s God’s idea.
Perhaps, though, the link with Genesis that I’m about to point out was on Jethro’s mind. It is certainly on mine. Here it is:
Exod 18:17 Moses’ father-in-law said to him, “The thing you are doing is not right [לֹא־טוֹב֙ lo tov]; 18 you will surely wear yourself out, and these people as well. For the task is too heavy for you; you cannot do it alone [לְבַדֶּֽךָ l’vadekha].”
Gen 2:18 The LORD God said, “It is not good [לֹא־ט֛וֹב lo tov] for man to be alone [לְבַדּ֑וֹ l’vado]; I will make a fitting helper for him.”
It seems to me that, whether consciously or not — that is, whether the author was alluding to it intentionally or not — Moses’s father-in-law Jethro is echoing that phrase in the book of Genesis, in Version 2 of the Creation story. It’s interesting that he does so because in saying that phrase, YHWH God is deciding that the first human male needs a female “helpmeet.” And what happens at the beginning of Exodus 18?
Exod 18:1 Jethro priest of Midian, Moses’ father-in-law, heard all that God had done for Moses and for Israel His people, how the LORD had brought Israel out from Egypt. 2 So Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, took Zipporah, Moses’ wife, after she had been sent home, 3and her two sons … 5 Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, brought Moses’ sons and wife to him in the wilderness, where he was encamped at the mountain of God. 6 He sent word to Moses, “I, your father-in-law Jethro, am coming to you, with your wife and her two sons.”
Hello, Moe. This is your father-in-law — and I have your wife and kids with me.
Now let’s look at the two Hebrew words that NJPS translates “after she had been sent home.” They indicate something more than just that Moses had her evacuated from the danger zone when the exodus was going to happen. The words that end v. 2 are אַחַ֖ר שִׁלּוּחֶֽיהָ aḥar shilluḥeha. That noun, obviously, comes from the root שׁלח sh‑l‑ḥ, which (as everyone learns) means “send” — but that is the Qal meaning of the root, and the shape of this noun tells us that it comes from the Piel stem. (See Lesson 15 of my Hebrew course for the details.)
It matters because שׁלח in the Piel can mean everything from showing someone out, through accompanying them on their way, to getting rid of them. When Moses tells Pharaoh (in God’s name) “Let my people go,” he is using the imperative form of exactly this verb: שַׁלַּח֙ אֶת־עַמִּ֔י shallaḥ et-ammi. (That dagesh in the לּ, giving us a double -ll- in transliteration, is your clue about which meaning to use.)
And — some of you are way ahead of me on this — שִׁלּוּחִים, the Piel noun, is also the word that is used for divorce:
—1. dismissal (of a wife); Zipporah, the wife of Moses, who went to the house of her father Jethro אַחַ֖ר שִׁלּוּחֶֽיהָ after her dismissal Ex 182; a harmonising gloss. [from the Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament]
I’m not saying anything about the “harmonising gloss”; perhaps we can deal with that possibility another year. For now, I find it extremely interesting that Moses seems to have gotten rid of his wife. Indeed, he does not seem like a married man when we encounter him all the way through the rest of the Torah either, other than in the famous passage in Numbers 12 where Aaron and Miriam, Moses’ siblings, are complaining about him taking a “Cushite” wife, an episode that has left interpreters guessing for thousands of years.
What we do know is this: Moses is a guy who likes to do it on his own. He is a loner, and Jethro is telling him: lo tov ha-davar. That is not a good thing! It is not a good thing for a man in your position to be alone. You need support. The end of our chapter tells us that Moses “did just as he had said,” but we do not really see that system in action, least of all in Exodus 19, where YHWH counteracts Jethro’s advice and calls Moses up to see him — alone.
