The complete set of weekly portions is available in Rabbi Jeffrey K. Salkin’s book The JPS B’nai Mitzvah Torah Commentary (JPS, 2017).
The complete set of weekly portions is available in Rabbi Jeffrey K. Salkin’s book The JPS B’nai Mitzvah Torah Commentary (JPS, 2017).
Yitro (Exodus 18:1-20:23) and Haftarah (Isaiah 6:1-7:6; 9:5-6): The JPS B'nai Mitzvah Torah Commentary
24
Yitro (Exodus 18:1-20:23) and Haftarah (Isaiah 6:1-7:6; 9:5-6): The JPS B'nai Mitzvah Torah Commentary
24eBook
Available on Compatible NOOK devices, the free NOOK App and in My Digital Library.
Related collections and offers
Overview
The complete set of weekly portions is available in Rabbi Jeffrey K. Salkin’s book The JPS B’nai Mitzvah Torah Commentary (JPS, 2017).
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780827615427 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | The Jewish Publication Society |
| Publication date: | 08/01/2018 |
| Series: | JPS Study Bible |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 24 |
| File size: | 1 MB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
The Torah
Yitro: Exodus 18:1–20:23
Moses never really had a whole lot of father love in his life. He never knew his real father. That is why Moses's relationship with his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian, is so important. Moses and Jethro reunite, and Jethro is sincerely happy about everything that has happened to the Israelites. Loving father figure that he is, he notices that Moses is working too hard, and he tells him what he must do to "lighten up."
Moses then has another reunion with an old "friend" — God. In one of the most dramatic scenes in the entire Bible, God descends onto Mount Sinai and proclaims the Ten Commandments to the Jewish people. It would be the first, and last, time that God personally reveals teachings to the Israelites.
Summary
• Moses's father-in-law, Jethro, takes great delight in everything that has happened to the Israelites. He then gives Moses some "management advice," telling him to appoint judges to decide small cases and to only judge the big cases himself. In this way, Jethro not only "invents" the ancient Jewish judicial system, the Sanhedrin; he also plants the seeds for the modern Supreme Court system. (18:1–24)
• God tells Moses that the Jewish people must be "a kingdom of priests and a holy nation." This means that they are to have a special role in human history — to teach the world and to model the idea of holiness. (19:3–9)
• In preparation for the revelation of the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai, God issues a series of instructions about how the people should prepare, as well as warnings about the sacred nature of Mount Sinai itself. (19:11–14)
• God reveals the Ten Commandments (Aseret ha-Dibberot) to the Israelites. The first five commandments —"I am God," no idolatry, no taking God's name in vain, observing Shabbat, honoring parents — are all about the human relationship to God. (20:1–12)
• The second five commandments — not murdering, not committing adultery, not stealing, not bearing false witness, and not coveting — are all about the relationship that people have with each other. (20:13–14)
The Big Ideas
• True leaders are always open to advice from others. Moses was perhaps the greatest leader that the Jewish people ever had. And yet, he did not know everything about leadership. He needed his father-in-law, Jethro, to teach him how to improve his leadership practices. In whatever we do, it is important to hear and learn from constructive feedback.
• To be the Chosen People entails responsibilities. Throughout Jewish history, Jews (and others) have wondered about what it means to be God's Chosen People. The Torah portion makes it very clear that the Jews are supposed to be a teaching people and a learning people: to teach ethics and holiness to the world, and to be a model for how a life of holiness can be lived.
• Holiness means boundaries. When God prepares the Israelites for the moment of revelation at Mount Sinai, God tells them (among other things) not to come close to the mountain, and to set boundaries around it. This is a good, basic rule of religious life: everything that is holy has boundaries set around it. The Sabbath is set off from the other days of the week; marriage is different from other relationships.
• Religious life is, first and foremost, the way that we relate to God. That is the meaning of the first five teachings. They are all about the human relationship with God. But "honoring your parents" is among these five — as if to say that when we honor our parents, we simultaneously honor God.
• Religious life is also the way that we relate to other people. The "people" teachings in the Ten Commandments — not murdering, not committing adultery, not stealing, not bearing false witness, and not coveting — form the basis of civil society. Most of these acts are in fact illegal. (Coveting isn't illegal, and it is the only "thought crime" on the list).
Divrei Torah
The Greatest Teacher of Them All
Here's a great Yiddish word: mensch — a decent, ethical human being. Time to meet the greatest mensch of the Torah. He is Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses. And the interesting thing is that he's not even Jewish.
Here is how we meet him: Moses rescues Jethro's seven daughters from some shepherds who are harassing them at a well. They go home and tell their father about it, and he orders them to bring this stranger home for a meal. Moses marries one of Jethro's daughters, Zipporah (2:16–22).
The next time we meet Jethro is in this week's Torah portion. Jethro hears of the wonderful things that God has done for Israel, and so he brings his daughters and his grandsons to Moses. Jethro also brings offerings to God. Some ancient sages, therefore, thought that Jethro had actually joined the Jewish people. The Rabbis in a midrash imagine God saying: "I draw near; I do not drive away. Just as I brought Jethro close and did not drive him away, so, too, when someone comes to you to convert for the sake of heaven, you must bring that person close and do not drive him away."
We don't know if Jethro actually joined the Jewish people. But he was, in fact, Moses's teacher. When he sees Moses judging every legal case on his own, he realizes that Moses is going to burn out, and so he suggests a way of developing a system of lower courts and higher courts — similar to the United States court system. Jethro figures it out on his own — he doesn't need God to tell him how to do it. To quote Rabbi Shai Held: "Just before the revelation of divine guidance for how Israel ought to live, Exodus stops to teach a lesson: there is wisdom among the non-Jews, and there is wisdom to be found through the use of reason to evaluate a situation and the needs of the moment." But there is still one big question about the relationship between Moses and Jethro. What was the secret of their bond?
Moses never really knew his real father, Amram. And as for Pharaoh, his adopted grandfather (remember, Pharaoh's daughter had adopted Moses) — he probably wasn't the most fun father in the world.
Jethro was the father figure in Moses's life. The Torah keeps referring to Jethro as "Moses's father-in-law." This is quite possibly the most precious relationship in Moses's life, given the strained relationships with his wife and siblings. Without his father-in-law, Moses would have been in trouble.
God says that Israel will become a "kingdom of priests" (19:6) Consider that the only priest the Israelites knew, their role model, would have been Jethro, who had helped and taught Moses. To be a kingdom of priests means that the Jews are to be a kingdom of "Jethros" — a kingdom of helpers and teachers to the world.
Caring for God, Caring for People — It Is All the Same
Some people think that the real meaning of Judaism is to pay attention to God through ritual. Other people think that the real meaning of Judaism is to pay attention to other people through acting ethically.
Guess what? They are one and the same. When God gave Moses the Ten Commandments, the first five commandments — the "God commandments" — were on the first tablet. The second five commandments — the "people commandments" — were on the second tablet. But it turns out that you can actually read the commandments across the two tablets, linking the first and the sixth, the second and the seventh, and so forth. And when you do that, something interesting happens.
Check it out: "I the Lord am your God ..." (the first commandment) links to "You shall not murder" (the sixth commandment). Because everyone is made in God's image, anyone who murders another person has destroyed the divine image in that person.
"You shall not make for yourself a sculptured image ..." (the commandment against idolatry — the second commandment) links to "You shall not commit adultery" (the seventh commandment). Constantly looking for new partners is like worshiping other gods. To violate one sacred relationship is tantamount to violating the other sacred relationship.
"You shall not swear falsely by the name of the Lord your God ..." (the third commandment) links to "You shall not steal" (the eighth commandment). Why? Because those who steal will always swear that they didn't do so!
"Remember the sabbath day and keep it holy ..." (the fourth commandment) links with "You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor" (the ninth commandment) — because if you violate the Sabbath, it is as if you are bearing false witness against God, saying that God did not rest after six days of creation.
And then the best for last. "Honor your father and mother ..." (the fifth commandment) links to "You shall not covet your neighbor's house ..." Really? What's the connection there? Because if you covet things, you are saying that you wish you were richer — which is another way of saying that you wish you had been born into a different, wealthier family.
To quote the writer Dennis Prager: "Properly understood and applied, the Ten Commandments are really all humanity needs to make a beautiful world. ... If people and countries lived by the Ten Commandments, all the great moral problems would disappear."
Connections
• Have you ever gotten constructive feedback from someone? Have you ever given constructive feedback? What are some examples? How did you grow from either experience? What do you think should be the rules of giving feedback and advice to people?
• What are some contemporary idols or false gods? How are they worshiped? What is wrong with worshiping them?
• What does it mean to take God's name in vain? What is wrong with doing that?
• Some people translate the sixth commandment as "You shall not kill." But it is far more accurate to translate it as "You shall not murder." Is there a difference between killing and murder? Is killing ever justified?
• Why is it important to observe Shabbat? How does your family observe it?
• Why is it important to honor our parents? How is honoring them different from loving, or even liking, them?
• What is wrong with stealing? Has anyone ever stolen something from you? (Remember: not everything that gets stolen is an actual "thing.") What did it feel like?
• What is wrong with coveting? What have you coveted? Did you get what you wanted? What have you learned from that experience?
CHAPTER 2The Haftarah
Yitro: Isaiah 6:1–7:6; 9:5–6
If you know someone who is a doctor, or lawyer, or hairdresser (or whatever profession), they probably wanted to become a doctor, lawyer, or hairdresser. That's the way it is with professions. You have to want to do it. The same thing is true with rabbis, cantors, and Jewish educators: those people are involved with that work because they want to do it.
Being a prophet was different. The biblical prophets rarely wanted to be prophets. Moses, Amos, Jeremiah, Jonah — none of them really wanted the job. God called to them (which is where we get the idea of a "calling" or a "vocation"), and told them that they had to speak God's words, and much of the time they weren't very thrilled about it.
The same thing is true for the prophet Isaiah. In this haftarah, he describes the precise moment when God calls him to do prophetic work. He protests. He says that he is "a man of unclean lips" (6:4; we are still not sure what he means — does it mean that he is deceitful, or uses foul language?). Isaiah can complain all he wants but he still has to do what God wants him to do — to speak to the people of Judea.
Even before he begins his calling, Isaiah figures that the people won't understand his message, because they won't want to hear that God wants them to be punished! That's how badly they have sinned. And yet, with it all, Isaiah finally relents. Okay, he says, I'm ready.
Isaiah has a vision of God seated on the divine throne, surrounded by seraphim (angelic figures). For Isaiah this moment of personal revelation is huge — as huge as the moment in the Torah portion at Mount Sinai, when God revealed the Ten Commandments to all the Jewish people. That is why this haftarah is linked to the moment at Sinai: they were both ultimate moments of feeling God's presence.
Awesome
There is a word that almost every kid uses: "awesome." It's used to describe something that is totally cool, almost beyond-belief cool, but also sometimes a bit nerve wracking or scary. Think of how Dorothy and her friends felt while approaching the Wizard of Oz.
That was probably the word that the prophet Isaiah used to describe his experience in this haftarah. "In the year that King Uzziah died, I beheld my Lord seated on a high and lofty throne; and the skirts of His robe filled the Temple. Seraphs stood in attendance on Him. Each of them had six wings: with two he covered his face, with two he covered his legs, and with two he would fly. And one would call to the other, 'Holy, holy, holy! The Lord of Hosts! His presence fills all the earth!'" (6:1–3).
Seeing God, seated on a throne in a heavenly temple, with God's robe filling the entire temple and seraphim (more on them later) singing God's praises. ... Well, there is simply no other word for that than "awesome." Except maybe "insane," right? Because, seriously, no one can see God, right? And what's with God's robes and feet? God doesn't have a body, right?
Well ... let's just say that nowadays most people agree that you can't see God, and that God has no body. And it could be that the language describing God was meant by the authors to be taken symbolically. But, back in ancient times, some people really did think that God had a body, and that you could see God. Or, at least Isaiah could. Moses could, too; he saw God's back — in a vision, at least.
Okay, let's deal with perhaps the oddest piece of this story. Isaiah not only caught a glimpse of God; he also saw the seraphim. They seem to be depicted as semidivine beings who surround the divine throne. Some people think they were actually stars. Bible scholar James Kugel writes, "Many people identified these heavenly bodies with gods and goddesses; their path through the heavens was seen as containing clues as to what these deities were planning for people down below." Why are the seraphim up there? They seem to have had only one job: to praise God. And not all at once either. They formed a kind of heavenly choir. According to Rashi, they invite each other to praise God.
Isaiah's vision has a starring role in the Jewish worship service: the Kedushah(Sanctification). The congregation echoes the seraphim, singing "Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh," rising on their toes as if they were angels flying up to the divine throne. The Kotzker Rebbe comments: "God says, 'I need you to be holy as human beings. I have enough angels.'" So, as we say "Holy, Holy, Holy," we rise up on our heels. But, when the prayer ends, we are back on earth, trying to live an imperfect, aspiring life of mitzvot.
Any way you look at it, Isaiah's experience was, well, awesome. That's how religious feeling starts, but it does not end there. Abraham Joshua Heschel writes: "The root of religion is the question of what to do with the feeling for the mystery. Religion begins with a consciousness that something is asked of us." After his vision Isaiah knows that he is being called, that something is being asked of him. He responds, "Then I heard the voice of my Lord saying, 'Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?' And I said, 'Here am I; send me'" (6:8).
Something is, in fact, asked of us. Prayer, study, mitzvot: all these are ways that we can respond to that feeling of "awesome."
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Yitro (Exodus 18:1-20:23) and Haftarah (Isaiah 6:1-7:6; 9:5-6): The JPS B'nai Mitzvah Torah Commentary"
by .
Copyright © 2018 Rabbi Jeffrey K. Salkin.
Excerpted by permission of UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA PRESS.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Introduction,
What Is Torah?,
And What Else? The Haftarah,
Your Mission — To Teach Torah to the Congregation,
How Do I Write a Devar Torah?,
How To Keep It from Being Boring (and You from Being Bored),
The Very Last Thing You Need to Know at This Point,
The Torah: Yitro: Exodus 18:1–20:23,
Summary,
The Big Ideas,
Divrei Torah,
Connections,
The Haftarah: Yitro: Isaiah 6:1–7:6; 9:5–6,
Awesome,