Parashat Yitro

Erev Shabbat, 09 February 2007
Week of 4 to 10 February
Torah portion: Ex. 18:1-20:23
Haftarah: Isa. 6:1-7:6; 9:5-6
Sunday Readings, 11 February: Jer 17:5-8; I Cor. 15:12,16-20; Lk. 6:17,20-2

How I love your law!...
How sweet is the taste of your instructions –
Sweeter even than honey!...
Your word is a lamp to guide me and a light for my path.
Psa. 119:97, 103,105

“Ubuntu is an African concept, but it embodies an insight that is universal.” It holds the key, says Shutte, to “overcoming the great divisions in the world today, as well as undoing the divisions in South Africa created by apartheid.” Ubuntu is about the maintenance and quality of relationships with others. You are a person because of other people; an insight that persons depend on persons to be persons.

As I reflected on the Torah portion for this week and tried to find a connecting theme to the Sunday Readings, I was struck by how strongly the word “relationship” kept coming back to me. Ubuntu is relationship, an activity that recognizes that life is a process of becoming a person and we are all expected to participate…exercising our gifts, compassion, talents, and wisdom. We are never alone, never without the guiding hand of God.

Jethro has a relationship with Moses, one that comes full circle at the mountain of God. Moses begins his mission at Sinai as a member of Jethro’s household and now he meets him in Sinai, “on the brink of the confirmation of Exodus 3:12 (you will serve God on this mountain)” (Fox). Jethro is still active in the process of Moses becoming a person as he shares his wisdom.

“The thing you are doing is not right; you will surely wear yourself out, and these people as well. For the task is too heavy for you; you cannot do it alone. Now listen to me. I will give you counsel, and God will be with you!” (17-19). Moses responds to his father-in-law’s advice and sets up an interactive judicial system based on the law and the teachings mediated by just and trustworthy men.

Moses enters into a relationship of “ubuntu” with the Lord as he goes up and down the mountain and engages with him in preparing the people to receive his law. It is a wonderful interaction of trust and love and obedience and joy… “All that the Lord has spoken we will do!” (19: 8) declare the community as they witness the interaction and dedication of Moses.

It is at the base of this mountain that Moses delivers the “Decalogue.” These laws and instructions are guidelines to personal conduct, social justice, and worship…all relational in attitude and carrying with them the process of revolutionary change in the way they are lived. These laws gave the Israelites a new life style, a new worship style, and a new challenge… and they cherished them as a sign of God’s special love for them.

Parashat Yitro holds the three pillars of the structure of Israel and so holds for us Christians our focus for our life, our destiny:

Revelation – how God is experienced;
Covenant – aspects of doubt and truth – “I will be your God and you will be my people”;
Law – guidelines for communal living.

Within this week’s Torah portion we experience a dimension of history which impacts on us today – a whole people living with the quality of a natural and supernatural existence. “They live forever after on two planes that are yet one and the same, exposed to men and nations with their demands and exposed to God with His” (Plaut 517) – the eternal dance of relationship. This covenantal relationship with God, recognizes the movement between mitzvot as meaningful; their relevance nurturing and enriching, and then also the times when Torah and mitzvot are obeyed because it is God’s will – a people in the grasp of “divine obligation.”

The experience at Sinai provides the spiritual reason for being for it is at Sinai that God “reveals himself to the whole people; here he concludes his covenant with them; and here he promulgates the laws that are to govern Israel’s existence” (Plaut). Revelation, covenant, and law – the pillars of a peoples’ history and the structure on which Israel built her reputation and nation – become the focal point of human destiny…and humanity’s response is that of relationship: “All that the Lord has spoken we will do” (Ex. 19:8).

What set Israel apart from other religions was the fact that “the divine manifestation was experienced by all the people at the same time” justifying the theophany on a historical basis. Rabbi Julie K. Gordon entitles her commentary on Yitro, “We All Stood at Sinai,” and although she challenges the exclusion of women from the preparations of receiving the Law, she points out that they were participatory in the revelatory experience, holding therefore that together we strive to be a holy nation fulfilling God’s Torah (Goldstein).

The Gospel Reading: In the Gospel of Luke Jesus has just chosen his twelve apostles on the mountain, comes down with them and stands on level ground, addressing his disciples, giving them a teaching which is also about relationships. The Beatitudes are a challenge to bring about a kingdom, a new world, by disciples who foster a spirit of sharing and reciprocal aid – ubuntu. The Gospel is a proclamation of joy for what God has done for us. Jesus shares his life and his values to bring this new world into existence; he did not live his life as if he was blessed by God; he lived out his life in the constant awareness that God did indeed bless him (McBride).

For Reflection and Discussion: [1] Ubuntu calls us to live in relationship with God and members of our community. The qualities of ubuntu are manifested in community…it is the way we live it out, it is what makes us human. In the context of your life and community what aspects of the Commandments and the Beatitudes do you find difficult to live up to, and thus fail the philosophy of ubuntu? [2] Jesus uses the Beatitudes to challenge the worldview of his day. He turns it upside down. If you had to name a worldview that needed to be challenged today, what would it be? And what would it take to motivate this change? What would it “cost”?

Bibliography: Armellini, Celebrating the Word, Year C (Nairobi, 1994); Fox, The Five Books of Moses (New York, 1997); Goldstein, ed., The Women’s Torah Commentary (Woodstock, 2000); Leff & Epstein, Torah Insights (New York, 2000); McBride, Seasons of the Word, (Guildford, 1991); Plaut, The Torah: A Modern Commentary (New York,1981); Shutte, Ubuntu, An Ethic for a New South Africa, (Pietermaritzburg, 2001).

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This week’s teaching commentary was prepared by
Lynn Harrison, Catholic Bible Foundation of South Africa, Durban.
Bat Kol Alumna 2003