EXODUS XVIII:1-XX:23

THE CHARACTER WHOSE NAME ADORNS THE TEN COMMANDMENTS

We find Yitro (Jethro), the priest of Midyan, when Moshe (Moses) helps Tziporah, Yitro’s daughter, to obtain water from a well against the will of the shepherds of the region. 

Tziporah invites him to his house and they eventually marry. Two sons are born and Moshe, exiled from Egypt for fear of Pharaoh’s revenge, dedicates himself to the work that Yitroentrusted to him: he becomes a shepherd. Thus the next 40 years of pastoral tranquility pass. It was the vision of the burning bush that produced a fundamental turn in the life of this shepherd who took on the mission of freeing his Hebrew brothers from Egyptian slavery.

The following chapters of the book Shemot (Exodus) describe the details of this mission, the plagues and their consequences and the happy outcome: the Hebrew people break the chains of slavery and begin the tortuous crossing of the desert, but not before making a transcendental stop at Mount Sinai where they receive the two Tablets of the Law with the Ten Commandments engraved on stone. These Commandments form the basis of the moral and ethical structure of civilized man. The other two monotheistic religions are also based on his message.

What was Yitro‘s role  in this saga, besides fathering Moshe’swife? The Torah testifies that Yitro went to the desert to meet his son-in-law after having heard the account of the exodus and the miracles that God performed to save the Hebrew people from the fury of the Egyptians. And it was no wonder. God had parted the waters of the Red Sea so that the Hebrews could escape their persecutors.

Yitro went to meet Moshe to congratulate and advise him. Seeing that Moshe was constantly engaged in answering each person’s questions, Yitro suggested that he form a group of experts to assist him in these tasks, so that he could concentrate on what steps should be taken to achieve the destiny of the people: their consolidation as a people around the commands of the Torah,  the Mitzvot and the eventual conquest of the Promised Land.

It is not very clear what Yitro’s final fate was. According to Ramban, at Moshe’s insistence, he accompanied the Hebrew people from that time forward. According to Sforno, he returned to Midyan, although his name is mentioned again in the chapters of Beha’alotekhah. That time, Yitro said he recognized that the Creator is above all deities. According to Jewish tradition, he knew what he was saying, because Yitrowas an expert in the different beliefs of the time. He knew closely the pantheon of idols that humans had created and had studied, in detail, the individual characteristics of each of these cults. So, when he claimed that the one God, the one who had freed the Hebrew people from the chains of Egyptian slavery, was above any deity, he made that assertion with all propriety.

It can be deduced from the above that Yitro had great intellectual curiosity and that he felt a spiritual emptiness that could not be answered by the beliefs of his time. Motivated by an existential restlessness, he tirelessly studied and inquired about the different possibilities devised by man to identify the recipient of his spiritual needs. He left no worship unexamined. 

Yitro recognized that for the first time he had encountered a God who demanded moral conduct, who was not capricious, who did not demand extravagant worship of his being, and whose will could be “bought” through an offering or some bribe. Yitro was moved because the Ten Commandments did not include the tribute to be offered to the deity but rather formed a set of rules whose purpose was to promote the well-being of the individual and the possibility of coexistence with others. This God, the authentic God, did not focus his interest on himself, but on the effect on the human being who should aspire to perfectibility through the fulfillment of a series of norms, whose fundamental basis is morality.

MITZVAH: ORDINANCE OF THE TORAH IN THIS PARSHA

CONTAINS 3  POSITIVE MITZVOT AND 14 PROHIBITIONS

25. Exodus 20:2 Believing in the Existence of God

26. Exodus 20:3 Not to believe in any god other than God

27. Exodus 20:4 Make neither graven weights nor images (of gods)

28. Exodus 20:5 Do not bow down or serve these images

29. Exodus 20:5 Do not worship an idol according to the way you are accustomed to worship it (or worship it in any other way)

30. Exodus 20:7 Do not swear in vain (pronouncing the Name of the Lord)

31. Exodus 20:8 Verbally keep Shabbat holy

32. Exodus 20:10 Doing No Work on Shabbat

33. Exodus 20:12 Honoring Father and Mother

34. Exodus 20:13 Do not murder an innocent person

35. Exodus 20:14 Do not commit adultery

36. Exodus 20:15 Do not kidnap a Jew

37. Exodus 20:16 Do not bear false witness

38. Exodus 20:17 Do not covet what belongs to another

39. Exodus 20:23 Do not make sculptures in human form, even as ornament

40. Exodus 20:25 Do not build an altar with hewn stones

41. Exodus 20:26 Not to go up to the altar by steps (but by a ramp)