I do believe in my heart of hearts that all Torah portions are awesome, but if I had to pick a favorite, it would be the Torah portion we read this past Shabbat, Yitro (Exodus 18:1–20:23).
There is so much cool stuff that happens in this parsha that it's hard to pick one, so I will give you some highlights.
Yitro is the only Torah portion named after a non-Israelite, or today we would say a non-Jew, Yitro, Moses' father-in-law. The Torah tells us that Yitro heard of the exodus from Egypt with all the miracles. So he took Moses' wife and children, whom Moses had left in Midian, and joined the Jewish people encamped in the Sinai desert.
When Yitro arrives at the camp he is impressed with his son-in-law, and he is concerned that Moses is working too hard to solve family problems, complaints, and litigations. Yitro says to Moses, "This is too great a burden for you; you cannot do it by yourself." He then outlines a brilliant solution and suggests that Moses appoint magistrates and judges to help him administer justice to the people. This system that Yitro describes is still in place today, where we have a system of upper and lower courts.
Seven weeks after the exodus, the Israelites assembled at the base of Mount Sinai where they received the Torah, and God proclaims the 10 commandments:
- Believe in God.
- Don't worship idols.
- Don't use the divine name in vain.
- Keep Shabbat.
- Honor our parents.
- Don't murder.
- Don't steal.
- Don't bear false witness against your neighbor.
- Don't covet anything that is another's property. In other words, do not be envious of what others have.
The 10th commandment is my favorite commandment because I believe it is the key to happiness. Envy is the desire to have something belonging to someone else. Envy is an emotion that brings out jealousy, resentment, bitterness, the old green-eyed monster, and makes people unhappy. Why should we want something just because someone else has it?
The remedy for envy is gratitude. Suppose we stop defining ourselves in relation to others and instead define ourselves in our relationship to God.
In Yitro when the Israelites heard the commandments aloud, the people responded with the promise: All the things that God has commanded we will do, and we will hear (understand)! (Exodus 24:3). It may seem strange that the sequence of the people's reply on the mountain that day was that we will do comes first before we will hear.
This brings me to another important concept in Judaism. The Israelites accepted the Torah with the statement na'aseh venishma — we will do, and we will hear (understand).
I learned from Rabbi Jonathan Sacks z'l many years ago that the only way to understand the Jewish experience is by living it, not by studying it. Judaism is full of rituals, food, and song — things that we can only understand through experience, by living it, not by studying it.
Judaism teaches that when the Israelites received the Torah on Mount Sinai the voice of God spoke to every person and every generation, which means all Jews were present at Sinai to accept this awesome revelation of Torah and all of us could hear and understand the voice of God because God speaks to each one of us in a way that only the individual can understand.
We may all pray together, study Torah together, and eat together, but we may not all emerge with the same understanding from those experiences because we understand God's presence in different ways. Although we know Adonai Ehad — God is one, we are all different, and we experience God in ways that only we can understand.
In the Torah portion Yitro we received the 10 commandments. In the Torah portion we read this week, Mispatim (Exodus 21:1–24:18), God gives us 53 more commandments (FYI, we as Jews have 613 commandments, not just 10). In Mishpatim we transition from a story of a people trapped in slavery, trying to get to freedom, to a Torah portion about laws. The Torah says: "Now these are the laws (mishpatim) that you Moses, shall set before them."
The new laws in the Torah reflect the reality that the Israelites are no longer enslaved people. The Israelites were enslaved for 400 years and only knew how to be slaves. Now they are free and need guidance on how to act as free people.
These commandments are the beginning of a foundation of a society whose aim is justice, fairness, compassion, mercy, and a sense of personal responsibility. Responsibility not only for you as an individual and your family, but also a responsibility for the quality of life in our community.
Mishpatim is one of those Torah portions that recognizes and reminds us especially in this COVID era that we are all responsible for those most vulnerable in our society.
Rabbi Sandra Lawson serves as the inaugural director of racial diversity, equity and inclusion for Reconstructing Judaism. Info: www.rabbisandralawson.com.
This article originally appeared on Times-News: Studying is not how to understand the Jewish experience. You have to live it: Lawson
