Ex. 18:1 - 20:23
Précis: Following last week’s trip through the Red Sea, Moses is reunited with his father-in-law Jethro (“Yitro”) and with his family. Yitro acknowledges God, gives wise advice to Moses about delegating responsibility, and Moses appoints assistants (judges). The Israelites come to the foot of Mount Sinai where, in the ultimate transcendental experience, Revelation takes place as the “Ten Utterances” (Commandments) are spoken to the People by the very Voice of God.
Ex. 18:10 ‘“Blessed be the Lord,’ Jethro said, ‘who delivered you from the Egyptians and from Pharaoh, and who delivered the people from under the hand of the Egyptians.’”
As
was so often the case, Rabbi Sacks had wonderful applications of Biblical
history to the current day. Writing on this and related verses a year ago (Covenant
and Conversation, 2/12/20), he notes that “The quintessential Jewish
expression of thanks, gratitude and acknowledgment is ‘Baruch Hashem,’ meaning ‘Thank God,’
or ‘Praise be to the Lord.’”
Calling the phrase “an
instinctive expression of faith,” it was a recognition by all, whether they
were scholars or ignorant, that there was much to give thanks for to God, and
every Jew knew it.
Sacks noted that the phrase is used
by three people in the Biblical literature, and none were Jews: (1) Noah:
“Praise be to the Lord, the God of Shem” (Gen 9:26) (2) Eliezer, whom Abraham sends to
find a wife for Isaac: “Praise be to the Lord, the God of my master
Avraham, who has not abandoned His kindness and faithfulness to my
master” (Gen. 24:27) (3) and, Yitro in this verse.
Contrast these non-Jews’
praise of God with the constant complaining of the Israelites and we realize
that the Torah is signaling that the God of Israel is the God of all humankind,
even if our religion of Israel is not the religion of everyone.
These are among the many examples of Jewish views on God’s universalism. Our tradition does not conceive of an end of times when all will become Jews, but rather a time when all will recognize Him. Jews understand that there is more than one way to acknowledge the Ruler of All. Why is this?
From a historical view, it may be because we were always a minority and had no real way to otherwise survive, or it may be because we have rarely been a people to proselytize. But Sacks delivers the knockout blow: this view helps us to overcome the greatest problem humanity has ever faced: how can we recognize the dignity and integrity of the "other"?
As he concludes, “It is hard to think of a more compelling principle for the 21st century. The great problems humanity faces – climate change, economic inequality, cyberwarfare, artificial intelligence – are global, but our most effective political agencies are at most national. There is a mismatch between our problems and the available solutions. We need to find a way of combining our universal humanity with our cultural and religious particularity. That is what the Torah is doing when it tells us that Noah, Eliezer and Yitro said ‘“Baruch Hashem.’”
