Yisro: Filtering the Foreign

By Meir Jacobs

At the beginning of פרשת יתרו, Yisro suggests to Moshe that כָּל-הַדָּבָר הַגָּדֹל יָבִיאוּ אֵלֶיךָ, וְכָל-הַדָּבָר הַקָּטֹן יִשְׁפְּטוּ-הֵם, that all big matters should be brought to Moshe, and all small matters should be judged by those appointed. The Chasam Sofer, picks up, however, that later, when the Torah describes how Moshe heeded Yisro’s advice, the לשון is אֶת-הַדָּבָר הַקָּשֶׁה יְבִיאוּן אֶל-מֹשֶׁה, וְכָל-הַדָּבָר הַקָּטֹן יִשְׁפּוּטוּ הֵם. Why change the word from גדול to קשה? He answers that to Yisro what was important was what was big. The high profile cases, the large sums of money. But to Moshe, and what the אמת is, is that profile and sum are irrelevant; Moshe’s role was to answer the questions that the others didn’t know, whether with his own knowledge or by asking Hashem directly. When the lower courts had a million dollar case which had a relatively pashut דין, they handled it themselves, and when they had a difficult or complex case, where the דין wasn’t clear, even if only a פרוטה was in question, the case rose through the ranks to Moshe.

There are a couple different hashkafic points that one can glean from this פירוש, including the importance of clarity and substance over splash. But also, it serves as a paradigm for how to interact with and filter ideas from the world around us. As תורה ומדע, Modern Orthodox™, or Rav Soleveitchik Jews, or whatever your preferred title is, we fundamentally accept the concept of inculcating productive ideas and truths from the “outside world”. We believe in science, and we believe in חכמה בגוים תאמן. And as Rav Schachter says, you always have to consult the expert in whichever field you’re dealing with, and if that expert is a גוי then so be it. And Yisro was no exception. He was an incredibly worldly person, according to the medrash having tried out all the other religions in the world before accepting Judaism as truth. He was, as Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch notes, a necessary influence to Moshe to help establish the first Jewish government, which could not have functioned without his advice. But even as Moshe accepted Yisro’s guidance, he knew how to tinker this foreign system to adapt to Torah values. Which makes Moshe in a sense the model for a Jew in the modern world.

I know that this isn’t necessarily something that we think we struggle with - after all, we YP YU guys tend to be relatively insular to outside influences as far as modern orthodoxy goes, but perhaps there are a few areas where ideas seep in without passing the רצון השם test.

I listened to a shiur by Rav Shay Schachter this week, in which he prefaced that even though rabbis always say “I’m not talking to you, I’m talking to myself” and they’re usually lying, in this scenario this shiur was just a publication of introspection that he’s done on matters that pertain to his own struggles. So I’m going to echo the same sentiment here: I currently struggle with the following examples, and if any of them happen to be relevant to others, that’s why I’m publishing this piece. I’ll keep them short though, so everyone can do their own חשבון הנפש.

One: Days off. The adoption of the 5-day workweek was a great thing for society, but the idea that on Shabbos and Sunday there’s a mitzvah to not be productive with something valuable is not. Do we take the appropriate amount of time over the weekend that we need in order to refresh and reload for the following week, and no more than that? Or do we look to find other activities to do in order to “excuse” ourselves out of a חיוב לימוד תורה?

Two: Comfort. The communities we live in, lifestyles we lead, and amenities we take for granted are, on average, wealthier and more comfortable than any other Jewish community in history, and it’s not even close. So logically, with a proper historical perspective, we should never be complaining about the quality of the food at a schmorg, the relatively dim lighting in one’s heights apartment, or about only having a few thousand dollars of savings in one’s bank account as opposed to living day-to-day or paycheck-to-paycheck. But is that how we really act? Or do we let society’s definition of an ideal lifestyle define what we believe, instead of חז”ל’s?

It’s all too easy to let foreign ideas infiltrate our subconscious, often even to the extent that we think we’re doing רצון השם when we act on them. So we should continuously be מחזק each other to remain vigilant and not let our guard down, to constantly re-evaluate whether every decision we make is truly driven by רצון השם, and if not, to take sustainable corrective action accordingly.