Breaking Bread with Friends – Yitro
There are five parshot in the Torah that are named after people – Noach, Yitro, Korach, Balak, and Pinchas. There are a few more that come close, like Chayei Sarah and Toldot Yitzchak, but the above five are unique in that the parsha is simply their name - without any addendums.
On the surface it seems that this group is incongruous, three are heroes, two are villains. There is one common thread that runs through all of them however that affords them the special privilege of having a parsha in the Torah in their name. They each performed one, solitary, earth shattering act that had a major impact on their generation and our history and then their influence ceases.
Noach built an ark, saved and reseeded humanity after the flood, but what he stood for never affected the future of Am Yisrael in any significant way.
Korach in a fleeting act of rebellion against Moshe, attempted to undermine the very premise and hierarchy of our nation (nevuah and kehunah). But what he stood for got swallowed up with him and Am Yisrael moved on to bigger and better things.
Balak attempted to wipe us out, not like Amalek (by war), but by trying to get our own G-d to “erase” us, using Bilam and his curses. It was a major shift in mindset and caused us serious damage and loss of life, but who remembers Balak in their day to day life today?
Pinchas stepped forward to zealously deliver justice when everyone else was paralyzed. Unlike the other four, Pinchas is perhaps the only exception in regard to his influence being fleeting (according to the דעה that he is also Eliyahu Hanavi, his influence still lingers).
Contrast this with Avraham, Yitzchak, Yaakov, Yosef, Moshe, Aharon, etc. who performed multiple acts that shook the foundations of the earth, repeatedly and have many parshot dedicated to them, but not named after them. It seems that the Torah is trying to teach us that the abovementioned five figures are unique in that they are to be remembered, not for whom they were or what they stood for, but for their fleeting and brief appearance and contribution on the stage of our history and then - they make their exit. We remember and learn from their acts, but we don’t learn from their middot or their lives, like the Avot, Moshe, etc. from whom we do.
What about Yitro? Who was Yitro?
The midrashim fill in a few blanks explaining to us who Yitro was. Earlier on in sefer Shmot, Yitro is mentioned as one of Pharaoh’s three advisors (together with Bilam and Iyov). He is also mentioned in his capacity as father of Tzipporah and father-in-law of Moshe. The midrash describes that he was a kind of “high priest” to עבודה זרה but not just one kind of the many varieties – he was the leading expert and high priest for ALL of them! It was in this capacity he served Pharaoh. Yitro knew exactly which specific עבודה זרה to use for what and exactly what the ceremony and ritual was for each.
There is a מחלוקת in the gemara (Zevachim, 116a) whether Yitro came to meet Moshe and מתגייר before or after מתן תורה. They try decipher what Yitro “heard” וישמע יתרו. Some opinions say קריעת ים סוף, מלחמת עמלק, מתן תורה etc. I believe it was the latter – מתן תורה.
The midrash lists Yitro’s many names פוטיאל, יתר, חובב etc. each for some positive attribute he demonstrated when he joined forces with Am Yisrael and rejected his previous life. His name was not originally יתרו it was יתר. Hashem added an extra letter “vav” to his name to afford him respect, like with אברם by adding a “heh”. יתרו in gematria is התורה so when it says וישמע יתרו, what did he hear and come running? התורה וישמע - it was מתן תורה that made him convert, not the other apocalyptic miracles and wars.
Yitro had personal experience with every type of עבודה זרה on the face of the earth. He knew the ins and outs, the “truths” and the deceptions of each intricately. It is not surprising therefore that he would not be impressed with fireworks, impressive as they may be – Ten Plagues, Crossing of the Red Sea. To him tricks were tricks, whether they were performed by charlatans or by G-d Himself. He was similarly unimpressed by Israel’s first military victory against Amalek, as war and victory were a common.reality and not indicative of anything out of the ordinary.
What made an impression on him was Matan Torah. G-d Himself communicating directly with Am Yisrael, without any intermediaries – no tricks, no hocus pocus, but plain, direct communication – the only time in history.
Yitro knew this for a fact as did every human on the face of the planet, because during Matan Torah the entire earth suddenly went totally silent and subsequently erupted, reverberated and resounded to the words of עשרת הדברות. The nations of the world knew what was happening, but after the initial shock at its raw power, it left little lasting impression on them. Much like the way people witness floods, earthquakes, tsunamis and tornados today. They quiver at the raw power of it during the event, but a week later they are back to being the same people they were before.
Hashem had asked the two halves of the world – the nations of Edom and the nations of Yishmael, before giving the Torah to Am Yisrael – if they wanted it. He gave them first choice (so they would not later be able to claim – if only we had received the Torah we would have turned out differently) and they all rejected it in turn. So when they heard and felt Matan Torah happening on Har Sinai, they quivered momentarily, but a day later they went back to their previous lives. All except one!
You couldn’t pull a “fast one” on Yitro, he had heard and seen it all. Yitro knew every chant, every ritual from a-z on the face of this earth. But when he heard the “chant” of truth, uttered by G-d Himself in Matan Torah, it shattered everything he knew deep down to be sham and show …. and he came running to convert.
As explained above, the 5 people who warranted a parsha in their name did one momentous, but fleeting act, but then exited the stage. Yitro’s momentous act was - converting.
So what, you say? Yitro was not the first convert and not the last either. So why did the Torah dedicate a parsha in his name?
What made Yitro’s act momentous was who he was and his timing.
Yitro was the “high priest” of the non-Jewish world. If you want to picture that in contemporary terms, he was a kind of a pope from the Vatican and the grand mufti from Mecca all rolled into one. Imagine if on the 8pm news you see the following headline – “Pope and grand mufti put on tfilin and eat cholent!” Yitro’s act of converting rocked the world more profoundly than them actually feeling the reverberations of Matan Torah in their cheek bones. It cast doubt on their deepest beliefs. Yitro did what Matan Torah itself could never do.
Secondly was the timing. After Am Yisrael left Egypt, the entire world trembled in fear. In Canaan they started burning their fields and houses in anticipation of Am Yisrael’s arrival (Chazal say this was one of the reasons that Yisrael had to wander the desert for 40 years so that they would not enter a scorched land and it would have time to regrow and blossom). Then came Amalek and “chilled the waters" and suddenly not all the nations trembled so much. Into this situation comes Yitro with his tfilin and cholent headline and restores the deterrent factor of Am Yisrael upon the nations and got them thinking …. “If our pope and mufti suddenly start putting on tfilin, then we need to be really scared of Am Yisrael”.
Yitro converts, he has a brit milah and a seudat hodaya. Chazal say he brought a Korban Shelamim, a Korban Toda. He sacrificed korbanot and then all the elders of Israel and Aharon came to break bread (all 40 loaves) with him and celebrate. Where was Moshe in all this? (it doesn’t mention Moshe). The midrash says he was waiting on Yitro his father-in-law out of respect. Imagine a simcha hall with guests, friends (Moshe named Yitro חובב) and waiters like that!
Yitro remains a short time, teaches Moshe some important lessons in management and then …. leaves to return home. Yitro’s contribution to our nation was significant – very significant in fact – at that specific point in time, but it was fleeting and he then exits the stage. We remember him fondly and thankfully for his important part in it all, but he is not up there with the Avot, with Yosef, with Moshe, who are in the very fiber of our being every second of every day.
In conclusion, a mind blowing perush from the Zohar Hakadosh (בראשית רפ"ו) -
“In order to cover the shame of his father, Moshe married the daughter of Yitro ‘Hakeini’ because he was descended from Kayin. And even though Kayin killed Hevel (the ancestor of Am Yisrael and Moshe) despite this, Moshe tried to repair the spirit of Kayin (that had infected the erev rav) which in fact was the shame of Adam Harishon from the sin of עץ הדעת and Moshe wanted to erase that shame of his father Adam Harishon. Therefore he took a wife, the daughter of Yitro who was the gilgul of Kayin and thus repaired and erased the sin of Adam Harishon.”
