This Shabbat we study the Parshah Yitro, meaning “Jethro” (Exodus 18:1). Moses’ father-in-law, Jethro, hears of the great miracles which G-d performed for the people of Israel, and comes from Midian to the Israelite camp, bringing with him Moses’ wife and two sons. Jethro advises Moses to appoint a hierarchy of magistrates and judges to assist him in the task of governing and administering justice to the people. The children of Israel camp opposite Mount Sinai, where they are told that G-d has chosen them to be His “kingdom of priests” and “holy nation.” The people respond by proclaiming, “All that G-d has spoken, we shall do.” On the sixth day of the third month (Sivan), seven weeks after the Exodus, the entire nation of Israel assembles at the foot of Mount Sinai for the Giving of the Torah. G-d descends on the mountain amidst thunder, lightning, billows of smoke and the blast of the sofar, and summons Moses to ascend. G-d proclaims the Ten Commandments. The people cry out to Moses that the revelation is too intense for them to bear, begging him to receive the Torah from G-d and convey it to them.

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Chabad.org

This week's haftorah discusses Isaiah’s vision of the Heavenly Chariot (the merkavah), a revelation that was experienced by all the Israelites when G-d spoke the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai—an event recounted in this week’s Torah reading.

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Isaiah perceives G-d sitting on a throne surrounded by angels. Isaiah vividly describes the angels and their behavior (in anthropomorphic terms). During the course of this vision, Isaiah volunteers to be G-d’s emissary to transmit His message to the Israelites. He is immediately given a depressing prophecy regarding the exile the nation will suffer as punishment for their many sins—and the Land of Israel will be left empty and desolate, though there will be left a “trunk” of the Jewish people that eventually will regrow.

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Chabad.org

Jethro discovered the meaning of each deity of every pantheon of gods, the forces they controlled, the energies to be exploited by worshipping them, the place each held in the power struggle of nature and being. Until he arrived at a place from which he could look back and say, “Their power is an illusion. They are nothing more than conduits, the agencies of a perfect, transcendent Oneness Who pervades the universe.” Then He saw the miracles wrought for the Jewish people, wonders that engaged every force of nature in unison, that connected heaven and earth as one. Jethro knew he had arrived at truth. With him, he brought the secret of every false power, the wisdom that emerges from darkness. And now Torah could enter the world. Darkness, he found, can teach us more about light than light could ever say.

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Rabbi Tzvi Freeman

Our sages state that “House of Jacob” refers to the women of Israel, and “Children of Israel” to the men. When G-d gave the Torah to Israel, He told Moses to approach the women first. The purpose of the exodus from Egypt was for the Jewish people to receive the Torah at Sinai, as it is written: “When you will have brought the people out from Egypt, you shall serve G-d upon this mountain” (Shemot 3:12). Of the exodus itself it is said that it occurred in the merit of the pious women of that generation. Thus, when it came to the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai, the women were given precedence. The Messianic redemption, too, will come about in the merit of the righteous women of Israel, as stated in the Midrash: “All generations are redeemed by virtue of the pious women of their generation” (Yalkut Shimoni, Ruth: 606). Thus the women will once again be first to receive the wondrous teachings to be heard from Moshiach.

Rabbi J. Immanuel Schochet

On my first trip to Israel in 1978, my traveling companion wanted to climb Mount Sinai. It seemed like a fun Jewish adventure, so I went with her. I remember waking up way too early, that it was way too hot, and that the guide kept talking about Moses. What I remember now, so many years later, is that most everything he said went in one ear and out the other.

I often wonder: what message was playing so loudly that I couldn’t hear that G-d gave the Torah to the entire Jewish nation on Mount Sinai? (I have since learned that we actually don’t know where the real Mount Sinai is, but I don’t think that was the problem.)

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I’m fairly sure that the guide related the Sinai story pretty much like that—a story—but I am definitely sure that hearing it didn’t even raise a question in my mind about what it meant to be Jewish, other than being smart, funny and persecuted.

Clearly, it would have taken much more than a day trip up any mountain to free my head of all the information that had nothing to do with G-d and Torah.

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I was a pop-culture sponge, and my mind was packed with tidbits of trivia, much of it from my favorite childhood pastime: watching television. Cartoons, sitcoms, soap operas; nothing was too dumb. Watching TV was what Americans did,and I did it exceedingly well. But, nine years later, when I was ready to listen and decided that I wanted to become observant, it was challenging not to be frustrated, even saddened, by the amount of pop-culture “stuff” that had hoarded precious storage space in my brain, never to be emptied. Instead of learning which way to turn during the Amidah prayer, I had been watching The Beverly Hillbillies. I can still remember the names of all the cast members, but when I go to the synagogue, I often need help.

This brings me to this week’s Torah portion, and what I learned from that television series in particular.

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The show’s creators probably didn’t intend to make the connection, but one of the main characters on The Beverly Hillbillies was named Jethro, which is also the English translation of the name of this week’s Parshah, Yitro. Which means that year after year, whether I like it or not, when it’s Parshat Yitro, that show’s theme song plays in my head.

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This Torah-television connection may seem ironic, especially because Parshat Yitro contains the pivotal event for the Jewish people and the entire world—the moment when G-d gave the Torah on Mount Sinai. But it makes sense in light of the original Jethro/Yitro’s identity. He was Moses’ father-in-law, a Midianite priest who enjoyed tremendous status and high regard in the world, largely for his unparalleled expertise in the field of idol worship. When a maven like Jethro recognized that this G-d was the One and Only, then chose to convert to follow Him, it sent a powerful spiritual message to the world for all time: Everything about a person, including the past, has the potential to be transformed into holiness. That’s why this magnificent Parshah is named after a convert who once served as an idolatrous priest.

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And for me, that message is a priceless gift, although it took many years for me to be grateful for my history. Who knows what part the emptiness of entertainment played in igniting my desire for a life of meaning? The knowledge that my current effort in the realm of G-dliness actually elevates my past is a great joy for me—one that allows me to laugh a little more about the things that feel like they will stay in my head forever.

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Lieba Rudolph