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Parashat Yitro

Joshua Leib

January 29, 2005

Many people know only one aspect of my parashat Yitro. But there is much more to it than the story of Moses receiving the Ten Commandments. 

After Moses brings the Israelites out of Egypt, they meet up with his father-in-law, Jethro. The Israelites settle in Jethro's land of Rephidim. Moses is put in charge, and when people need any kind of advice or judgment, they go to Moses who goes to God who gives Moses the answer who gives the solution to the troubled Israelites. Moses is overwhelmed because he thinks it's all about him being able to do everything for the people. Unfortunately, there is no system in place yet for the people to go anywhere else. Yitro shows Moses that they aren't coming for his help, but for God's, and if Moses keeps the current pace up, he will surely wear himself out. He then advises Moses to set up a system of magistrates and judges to solve the smaller problems and to have Moses solve the big problems. 

After this, the Israelites leave Rephidim and head to Mt. Sinai. When they get there, God speaks to Moses, commanding him to set boundaries around the mountain and says that anyone who touches the mountain will be shot or stoned to death. Moses then goes up the mountain and listens as God recites the Ten Commandments to the people of Israel. 

This is all very interesting, but I'm still focused on the exchange between Jethro and Moses about Moses' leadership style. Jethro is promoting a kind of shared leadership. There are different levels, and Moses is still at the top. But Jethro's advice is really important not only to the rest of the story, but it's relevant in today's world. Sharing leadership is the only way to run a country or a community. Advantages to this are as follows. Ideally, nobody would get overworked and too tired, but really it's about recognizing different tasks that need to be done, maybe even with different skills or talents. If there is a disagreement, there will be other people to help decide and to help one another accomplish their goals. Having judges or magistrates in the community allows for the community to dispense justice more frequently. We can even point to democratic ideas of governance in this example. The judges are equal, and they mete out justice in ideally the same way. 

But there are challenges to sharing leadership. If there is more than one leader on a project, the workers may not always know who to listen to. Sometimes, there can be such disagreement that no one can get anything done. A project can be impossible to organize because everyone's responsibilities and materials will get mixed together and confused. 

I think that the reason that we have this interlude with Jethro is to show that the Israelites needed a system in place for decisions to be made beyond bringing them to Moses. People don't need to know how to follow the law once the Ten Commandments are given. But if they need to be interpreted and enforced, they can't rely on only one person to do it, even if it is Moses. 

The way that this relates to me becoming a bar mitzvah is that I will have to take more responsibility that other people delegate, and as I get older, I may have the opportunity to delegate to others as well. In the synagogue, if there is a service, and there are only nine Jewish adults, I can assume the responsibility of being the tenth. I can also carry the Torah, open the ark or help out with other parts of the service, and I feel good about being counted in this way. 

To me, becoming an adult means that I must take up more responsibility, including taking up leadership. And there are many types of leaders. For example, gang leaders lead by fear. Becoming the leader of a gang can be dangerous. Gang leaders have to be the biggest, strongest, and meanest one in the group. And they will always be challenged because people are only following them due to fear. There is also leadership by trust. For example, leader of fund-raisers ask for the trust of the people who give them money. They have to willingly give money and believe that the leader will not spend the money, but give it to the cause. There is also the leadership by example. If one is being a teacher's aid, one can show the younger kids what to do by doing it themselves. This is the kind of leadership I like to emulate. I have explained leadership by fear, leadership by trust, and leadership by example. There are other examples of leadership, too. Moses was the leader of the people by trust and example. As I grow up into the man I will be twenty years from now, I hope to work my way up to being a leader in the same way Moses was, and in the tradition of Jethro, who taught us how to share the leadership.

Shabbat Shalom.