Miller's Musings Parshas Yisro: I Am He As You Are Me

בס''ד

To have a Parsha named after you is no small thing.  Of the many remarkable individuals found in the Torah, very few were chosen for this accolade, so for Yisro to be one of them must tell us something of great significance about his achievements. The two acts that seem to mark him out for distinction are his joining the Jewish people and the contribution he made to the judicial system. Yisro suggested a hierarchical structure with Moshe delegating others to judge the more basic cases leaving him to preside over only the most challenging ones. The first of Yisro’s feats is relatively easy to see as an act of immense self-sacrifice.  But what was it about the second, ostensibly simple act of pragmatism that elevated Yisro above all others? 

To understand the merit of Yisro’s advice we must first understand the rationale behind it.  When Yisro offers his counsel to Moshe he contends that you, Moshe, “will surely become worn out-you as well as this people that is with you”, if he were to remain the sole adjudicator.  But what we must consider here is what relevance any of this had for Yisro himself.  He could quite easily have brushed aside Moshe’s hardship with the knowledge that this was ‘part of the job’.  And with regard to the inconvenience to the people, was this really his problem, especially considering those who were waiting must have been totally unknown and unconnected to him?  He had only just arrived and was hardly likely to be involved in a dispute and even if he would have a question he would have surely been able to access his son-in-law without a lengthy wait. Perhaps therefore Yisro’s greatness was in his ability to see their suffering, putting himself in their place, despite his disconnection from it. 

This ability to imagine oneself for a moment in the position of another is central to our capacity to interact as we should.  Faced with the needs of others we will be able to truly feel their suffering. Being the victim of an action that hurts us we may be able to somehow see past our wounds and perhaps understand the underlying motive behind the act. Seeing a person behaving in the wrong way, we can possibly imagine how their past experiences may have shaped who they now are and reassess the amount of fault that lies with them.  Without these ways of perceiving each other, we risk callousness, perpetual blame and conceit. With them we open our minds to their perspective and our hearts to their needs.

*May this Shabbos help us to see each other as part of ourselves*

לעילוי נשמת לאה בת אברהם 

לעילוי נשמת שרה יעל בת גרשון

לרפואת אלימלך יהושע אהרון בן דבורה רבקה