YITRO_EXODUS XVIII:1-XX:23
These chapters lead to the narrative’s main event: the Tora giving at Mount Sinai. Egyptian slavery and the triumphal exodus after two hundred and ten years of servitude serve as a framework for Divine revelation. Since the Tora is a document of high moral content, the stay in Egypt was necessary to sensitize the Hebrew people to the suffering of others.
This event will be mentioned in every celebration because of its ethical ingredient. The willingness to defend the rights of people who had been “forgotten by history” manifests itself in empathy for the pain of others. This attitude that was imprinted in the spirit of the Hebrew people by its suffering under the Egyptian yoke prepared this nation to be the spokesman of the Word of God.
From the first episodes of Genesis, we observe the process of selection that God imposed to identify people worthy of being the narrators of the moral message of ethical behavior that obliges solidarity with others. Why didn’t God give the Tora to the first couple? That way, humanity would have had a Magna Carta with specific moral behavior guidelines from the beginning.
Indeed, the first generations were subjected to various tests to see if they were fit to receive the Divine message, argues Professor Dov Landau. Adam’s disobedience may not have consisted only in the bite he took of the forbidden fruit. The serpent had seduced the first couple with the notion that “the day you eat of this (tree) your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil,” unlike the Divine admonition that death will be the consequence of disobedience.
The couple’s daring was not a one-off disobedience but a rebellion, a challenge to God’s sovereignty. Many other biblical characters were subjected to tests to prove whether they were suitable to receive God’s law. According to the Torah, the first ten generations degenerated until the days of No’a when God ordered the flood. This event will serve to recreate Humanity from generations that demonstrated moral weakness. No’a planted a vineyard and then got drunk with his wine as one of his first actions after the flood. He had already shown that his conviction was weak because he could not attract any other individual to his cause. Although he worked for decades on making the ark, no one was willing to accompany him.
Kayin failed the test because he murdered his brother Hevel. Lot preferred material abundance, even though the cities of Sedom and Amora would expose him to amoral behavior. Tamar disguised herself as a prostitute, and Potiphar’s wife was willing to surrender to Yosef, not considering that this constituted a betrayal of her husband’s trust.
Avimelech and Pharaoh wanted to marry someone else’s wife, and so on; each of the characters who parade through the pages of the Tora demonstrates cracks in their character and deep personality flaws. The arrival of Avraham marks the beginning of a new stage for humanity. This time God found a person who cared about the fate of others, had the doors of his home open to receive anyone thirsty or hungry and defended his nephew Lot with arms.
Avraham could be the father of a nation worthy of the Tora. There had to be a later selection of Avraham’s offspring because not everyone was fit for the task. Finally, serfdom in Egypt served to purge the people because only one-fifth were willing to follow Moshe, leaving Egypt and venturing through the sands of the desert because they recognized that freedom was one of the fundamental principles of human dignity. The long decades of slavery sensitized their spirits to become the protectors of the persecuted and the defenders of the weak in the future.
The basis of the Tora is the consideration of the rights of others, the recognition that every human being has been formed in the image and likeness of God Himself. Only people who can fulfill Veahavta lere’acha kamocha, “to love one’s neighbor as oneself,” can be transmitters of the moral values contained in the Ten Commandments, further expanded, in turn, in the Tora.
MITSVA: TORA ORDINANCE IN THIS PARSHA
CONTAINS 3 POSITIVE MITZVOT AND 14 PROHIBITIONS
- Exodus 20:2 Believe in the existence of God
- Exodus 20:3 Believe in no other god other than the One God
- Exodus 20:4 Make neither sculptures nor images (of gods)
- Exodus 20:5 Do not prostrate or serve these images
- Exodus 20:5 Do not worship an idol according to the way it is customary to worship it (or worship it in any other way)
- Exodus 20:7 Do not swear in vain (pronouncing the Name of the Eternal)
- Exodus 20:8 Verbally sanctify Shabbat
- Exodus 20:10 Do no work on Shabbat
- Exodus 20:12 Honor Father and Mother
- Exodus 20:13 Do not murder an innocent person
- Exodus 20:14 Do not commit adultery
- Exodus 20:15 Do not kidnap a Jew
- Exodus 20:16 Do not bear false witness
- Exodus 20:17 Do not covet what belongs to another
- Exodus 20:23 Do not make sculptures in human form, even as an ornament
- Exodus 20:25 Do not build an altar with carved stones
- Exodus 20:26 Do not go up to the altar by steps (but by a ramp)
