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From: "Ohr Somayach"
<ohr@virtual.co.il>
To: weekly@vjlists.com
Subject: Torah Weekly - Yitro
* TORAH WEEKLY *
Highlights of the Weekly Torah Portion
Parshat Yitro
For the week ending 22 Shevat 5760 / 28 & 29 January 2000
================================
OVERVIEW
Hearing of the miracles Hashem performed for Bnei Yisrael, Moshe's
father-in-law Yitro arrives with Moshe's wife and sons, reuniting the
family in the wilderness. Yitro is so impressed by Moshe's detailing
of the Exodus from Egypt that he converts to Judaism. Seeing that the
only judicial authority for the entire Jewish nation is Moshe himself,
Yitro suggests that subsidiary judges be appointed to adjudicate the
smaller matters, leaving Moshe free to attend to larger issues. Moshe
accepts his advice. Bnei Yisrael arrive at Mt. Sinai where Hashem
offers them the Torah. After they accept, Hashem charges Moshe to
instruct the people not to approach the mountain, and to prepare for
three days. On the third day, amidst thunder and lightning, Hashem's
voice emanates from the smoke-enshrouded mountain and He speaks to
the Jewish People, giving them the Ten Commandments:
1. Believe in Hashem
2. Don't worship other "gods"
3. Don't use Hashem's name in vain
4. Observe Shabbat
5. Honor your parents
6. Don't murder
7. Don't commit adultery
8. Don't kidnap
9. Don't testify falsely
10. Don't covet.
After receiving the first two commandments, the Jewish People,
overwhelmed by this experience of the Divine, request that Moshe relay
Hashem's word to them. Hashem instructs Moshe to caution the Jewish
People regarding their responsibility to be faithful to the One who
spoke to them.
================================
INSIGHTS
The Sight Of Sound
"And all the people saw the thunder (lit. the voices.)" (20:15)
Twice a day, the Jewish People cover their eyes, meditate on the
ineffable Unity of the Creator and intone, "Shema Yisrael - Hear! O
Israel, Hashem our G-d, Hashem is One!"
The Shema is the basic credo of the Jew, his first declaration of
G-d's Unity and the last words to leave his mouth when he passes from
this world.
Why is it that we say "Hear! O Israel?" Why don't we say "Look!
O
Israel?"
When the Jewish People stood at Sinai to receive the Torah, they
underwent an experience which was literally out of this world. When
G-d spoke, the Torah writes that the Jewish People "saw the voices."
There was a dislocation of the natural perception of the senses.
Kinesthesia. Seeing sound. What does it mean to see sound?
Sight and sound are very different. Sight operates instantaneously.
We see through the medium of light. Light is the fastest thing in the
universe. It travels at 186,000 miles per second. Sound is
relatively slow, moving at about 800 miles an hour.
The difference between the speeds of light and sound symbolizes a
fundamental difference between the two senses. With sight, we
perceive a complete whole instantaneously. After this first sight, we
may analyze what we are looking at in more detail, focusing on one
element and then another, but the essence of vision is an
instantaneous whole.
Sound, on the other hand, is assimilated as a collage of different
elements. We order these separate pieces of information, giving them
substance and definition, and in the process, we understand what it is
we are hearing. This process of assembly is not instantaneous. Our
brain takes time to balance and evaluate what it is hearing.
When you listen to a lecture on a tape recorder, it's amazing how much
distracting ambient noise there seems to be on the tape. You think to
yourself: "That's not the way it sounded!" When you listen to a
lecturer in person, you aren't aware of the constant drone of the
traffic in the background, the noise of the fans and the air-conditioner. However, when you listen to a tape, those extraneous
sounds vie for your attention. The tape recorder is not the human
ear. The tape recorder is an indiscriminate "vacuum cleaner" of
reality. The human ear, however, takes the elements of what is
available and it "hears" -- it discriminates and balances.
This world is like an assembly line. The Hebrew word for "world" is
olam which means "hidden." You don't see G-d in this world. He is
hidden behind the facade of the world. You can't see G-d in this
world -- but you can hear Him. If you tune your ears carefully, you
can hear an unmistakable pattern in events. If you listen carefully
to the un-historical history of the Jewish People, and weigh it in the
balance of probability, you will hear G-d's Voice. If you listen to
all the seemingly coincidental events in your life, you will hear Him.
The reason we say "Hear! O Israel" is that, in this world, you cannot
see G-d. You have to "hear" Him. You have to take the disparate,
seemingly random elements of this world, and assemble them into a
cogent whole.
There was only one time in history that you didn't have to "hear"
G-d's Unity; one moment when you could actually see it. At Mount
Sinai. There the Jewish People "saw" the voices. They saw with an
incontrovertible clarity those things that usually need to be "heard."
Seeing is more than believing. When you see, you don't have to
believe. It's in front of your eyes.
Ohr Somayach International
22 Shimon Hatzadik Street, POB 18103
Jerusalem 91180, Israel
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Torah/Commentary: Parashat Yitro -- (Exodus 18:1-20:23)
Commentary on the Weekly Torah Reading for 22 Shvat, 5760 (January 29,
2000)
by Rabbi Shlomo Riskin
Chief Rabbi of Efrat;
Chancellor and Dean, Ohr Torah Stone Colleges and Graduate Programs;
Member, Council of Consulting Rabbis and Torah Scholars, Root & Branch
Association, Ltd.
EFRAT, ISRAEL, Yom Revii (Fourth Day - "Wednesday"), 19 Shvat, 5760
(Christian Date: January 26, 2000) (Muslim Date: 19 Shawal, 1420),
Root & Branch: What is holiness and how do we achieve it? The word
for holy, "kadosh", appears in its various grammatical forms more than
200 times in the Bible, but a clear definition of the term itself is
still difficult to formulate.
We associate holiness with a separation from mundane, materialistic
pursuits, an isolation and insulation from the world and its
temptations. The Jewish concept of holiness is almost the exact
opposite of this idea of separation from the world. Only by direct,
vital and passionate involvement in the world will one achieve true
sanctity.
The first time a form of the word "kadosh" appears in the Torah is at
the very beginning of Creation in the context of the first Sabbath:
"...And G-d blessed the seventh day and sanctified [vayekadesh] it,
because in it He rested from all His work which G-d had created to
perform" [Genesis 2:3].
In this week's portion of Yitro, the fourth of the Ten Commandments is
the mandate to keep the Sabbath, and as we expect to find, holiness is
at the heart of the ordinance:
"Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days shall you labor,
and do all your creative activity. But the seventh day is a Sabbath
unto G-d your Lord" [Exodus 20:8-9].
The Ten Commandments are repeated in the Book of Deuteronomy, but with
a slight word change as the introduction to the Sabbath commandment:
"observe the Sabbath day to keep it holy..." [Deuteronomy 5:12).
The opening stanza of the Friday evening prayer-song "Lecha Dodi"
(Come my Beloved to Greet the Bride), popularizes the Rabbinical
commentary, "Observe (Sh'mor) and remember (Z'chor) in a single
command, the one and only G-d made us hear", implying that both verbal
imperatives are to be synthesized and taken together as one.
Nahmanides (Ramban) suggests that "remember" (Z'chor) implies the
positive commands relating to the Sabbath -- such as Kiddush, the
three festive meals, the joyous relaxation -- whereas "observe"
(Sh'mor) implies the negative commands relating to the Sabbath -- such
as the prohibitive acts of physical creativity. Hence, the Talmudic
Sages and the Sabbath Prayer Book are enjoining us to take both the
positive and the negative as two sides to the same coin, the one
re-inforcing and enhancing the other.
I will suggest another interpretation and inter-relationship between
these two versions of the Sabbath command in the two listings of the
Ten Commandments which will, at the same time, revolutionize our
understanding of holiness. First we must attempt to understand two
seemingly contradictory rulings attributed to the Mishnaic Sage, Rabbi
Shimon bar Yochai.
On the verse "six days shall you work and do all your creative
activities", the Midrash Mechilta cites Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai as
commenting "this is a positive commandment in and of itself". In
other words, not only is it a divine command that we rest on the
Sabbath, but it is also a divine command that we work during the other
six days of the week!
In the Mechilta, Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai emerges with a positive view
of labor. However, in another well known Talmudic passage commenting
on the verse "And you shall gather your grain" (Deuteronomy 11:14),
the same Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai expresses a far less tolerant view of
human expenditure of energy in the work force.
After Rabbi Ishmael posits that this Biblical verse modifies another
verse which instructs us never to allow the Torah to "...depart from
out of our mouth" [Joshua 1:8], Rabbi Ishmael insists that the command
to "gather in your corn", is teaching us that Torah study must be
combined with a worldly occupation.
Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai disagrees: "...If a man ploughs in the
ploughing seasons, and sows in the sowing season, and reaps in the
reaping season, and threshes in the threshing season..., what is to
become of the Torah?"
But as long as Israel performs the will of G-d, their manual labor
will be performed by others, as it says, "And strangers shall stand
and feed your flocks" [Isaiah 61:5]. It is only when Israel does not
perform the will of G-d that they must perform their work by
themselves, as it says: "And you shall gather in your corn"
[Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Berachot 35b].
From this source it would appear that Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai views
physical labor during the six days of the week as a punishment, hardly
as a positive commandment!
To resolve this contradiction, we turn to another fascinating Talmudic
text. Three Sages of the Mishna are discussing Rome. The first
praises Rome for building such fine bridges, bathhouses and
marketplaces. The second sage is silent. The third, Rabbi Shimon bar
Yochai, claims that Rome is only interested in Rome's material
self-interest, building "...the marketplaces to put harlots in them,
bath-houses to rejuvenate themselves, and bridges to levy tolls...."
The government of Rome apparently did not believe in freedom of speech
-- and a death warrant is issued for Rabbi Shimon.
Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, along with his son, flee to a cave in the
hills of Peki'In, where they spend the next twelve years studying
Torah in splendid isolation (one interpretation has it that they
discovered the mystical secrets of the Zohar) -- receiving nourishment
from a well and carob-tree which miraculously sprung up for their
sustenance. Elijah informs them that the Caesar has died and they may
emerge from the cave.
The first thing they see, a Judean farmer ploughing his land, fills
them with dismay and shock: "How dare one forsake life eternal and
engage in life temporal!" And whatever they cast their eyes upon is
immediately burnt up. A "bat kol" (heavenly voice) rebukes them for
their destructive gaze, "Did you leave the cave to destroy My world?"
and they return to the cave.
Twelve months pass before they leave, and this time the first thing
that they see is "...an old man holding two bundles of myrtle and
running...'What are these for?' they asked him. 'They are in honor of
the Sabbath', he replied. 'But one should be enough?' And the old
man answered that one branch is for 'remember' (Z'chor) and the other
branch is for 'observe' (Sh'mor). At this point, Rabbi Shimon turned
to his son and said, 'See how precious are the commandments to
Israel?' And they were comforted" [Babylonian Talmud, Tractate
Shabbat 33].
Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai's two contradictory responses to the world,
initial contempt followed by eventual acceptance and affirmation, are
reflected in the two contradictory passages that we cited earlier. In
that discussion of gathering grain, where he disagrees with Rabbi
Yishmael's idea of combining Torah study with work, Rabbi Shimon is
expressing his position before he emerged from the cave.
The Midrashic statement in Rabbi Shimon's name insisting that it is a
positive commandment to work during the six days of the week is an
outgrowth of the lesson Rabbi Shimon learned from the old man with the
myrtle branches.
And what was that lesson? The Sabbath is a taste of a world of
perfection and peace, of truth and tranquility, of a world to come.
But that vision is not yet our reality. We still live in a world of
darkness as well as light, of chaos as well as order, of sin as well
as merit, of persecution as well as joy.
We must observe the Sabbath every seventh day in order to keep alive
the vision and promise of a more perfect world which is to come. But,
we must remember the Sabbath Day work is towards bringing about that
redemption during the other six days of the week. Our task is to
change the world that is, to plow and reap myrtle branches during the
days of preparation in order to pave the way for the Sabbath delight
in Eden achieved.
If we properly remember the goal of the Sabbath during the six days of
labor, then our anticipation will turn into preparation, our means
will contain the sparks of sanctity so crucial to our achieving the
end. Our Torah consists of laws of plowing and reaping --
prohibitions against plowing with an ox and donkey together in concern
for the welfare of the brute beast, and leaving behind portions for
the poor in consideration for the less fortunate.
We must remember the sanctity of the Sabbath when we prepare for
redemption during the six days of the week by working in this world to
achieve the goal of perfection. We must observe the sanctity of the
Sabbath in order to keep alive our vision of ultimate peace and
harmony while we still live in an imperfect world. The old man with
the myrtle branches taught Rabbi Shimon the true message of sanctity:
"And G-d blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He
rested from all the work which G-d had created (human beings) to
perform."
It is a Divine command for us to work six days to bring about the
ultimate perfection. "Remember" and "observe" are truly one
command!
Shabbat Shalom from Efrat,
Rabbi Shlomo Riskin
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