18 February 2017
Shabbat ends
Volume 29
No. 21
22 Shevat 5777
London
6.08pm
Jerusalem
6.14pm
Yitro
Artscroll p. 394 | Hertz p. 288 | Soncino p. 445
In memory of Yehuda ben Yaakov HaCohen
Malacky Synagogue, Slovakia, built 1901
“I am the Lord, your God, who has taken you out of the land of Egypt, from the house of
slavery. You shall not recognise the gods of others in My presence" (Shemot 20:2-3).
1
Sidrah Summary: Yitro
1st Aliya (Kohen) – Shemot 18:1-12
Yitro, Moshe’s father in law and a Midianite
priest, hears about the miraculous Exodus from
Egypt. He comes to meet Moshe in the desert,
together with his daughter (Moshe’s wife)
Tziporah and Moshe’s two sons. Moshe greets
Yitro and relates to him all that has happened to
the Israelites. Yitro and Moshe bring offerings
together.
Question: What are the names of Moshe and
Tziporah’s sons? Answer on bottom of page 6.
2nd Aliya (Levi) – 18:13-23
According to Rashi’s commentary, the narrative
now skips forward to the aftermath of the giving
of the Torah. Moshe is busy making halachic
rulings from morning to evening. Concerned
about this being too much for Moshe, Yitro
advises him to set up an alternative system of
judges, presiding over groups and sub-groups.
Only the major issues should be brought directly
to Moshe for his judgement.
3rd Aliya (Shlishi) – 18:24-27
Moshe accepts Yitro’s advice and appoints
judges over sub-groups of 1000, 100, 50 and
10 men. Yitro returns to Midian.
4th Aliya (Revi’i) – 19:1-6
The narrative goes back to Rosh Chodesh Sivan,
one and a half months after the Exodus, prior to
the giving of the Torah. The people travel from
Refidim and arrive in the Sinai Desert. Moshe
ascends Mount Sinai. God tells Moshe to inform
the people that if they listen to His voice and
keep His covenant, they will become “a kingdom
of priests and a holy nation”.
Point to Consider: why does the verse use the
singular form of ‘encamped’ when describing the
Jews’ arrival opposite Mount Sinai (19:2)? (see
Rashi’s commentary).
5th Aliya (Chamishi) – 19:7-19:19
The people agree to God’s offer. God tells Moshe
to instruct the people to wash their clothing,
refrain from marital relations (Rashi) and not to
encroach onto the mountain for the next three
days. Moshe relays this to the nation. God’s
Presence descends on the mountain; there is
thunder, lightning and shofar blasts; the mountain
is wreathed in smoke.
6th Aliya (Shishi) – 19:20-20:14
God ‘descends’ upon Mount Sinai and Moshe
ascends again. God once again tells Moshe
to warn the people not to encroach onto
the mountain. After Moshe descends, God
speaks the Ten Commandments: 1. Faith in
God’s existence 2. Prohibition of idol worship
3. Prohibition of swearing false oaths 4. Keeping
Shabbat 5. Honouring one’s parents; Prohibition
of: 6. Murder; 7. Committing adultery; 8. Stealing;
9. Bearing false testimony; 10. Coveting what
others have.
7th Aliya (Shevi’i) – 20:15-23
Trembling from this awesome experience, the
people retreat and ask Moshe to be God’s
conduit, instead of God speaking to them
directly, lest they die. Moshe reassures them.
God tells Moshe to warn the nation not to carve
certain images (see Rashi). The commandment
is given to build a designated altar upon which
offerings to God should be brought.
Haftarah
The prophet Yeshaya sees a vision of the
heavenly court, occupied by God and His angels.
Whilst the angels assure Yeshaya that he is
personally free of sin, God tells him to warn the
people of their eventual exile, due to their
stubbornness and iniquities. The evil king Achaz
ascends the throne; he will be shown Divine
mercy in order to save his righteous son, the
future king Chizkiyahu.
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2
Solutions in the Sidrah: Changing Legal History
by Rabbi Yoni Birnbaum, Hadley Wood Jewish Community
On 3 May 1980, Candy
Lightner’s
13
year-old
daughter,
Cari,
was
tragically killed by a
drunken hit-and-run driver
in Fair Oaks, California.
The 46 year-old driver had
three previous convictions
for driving whilst intoxicated and was on bail
from a hit-and-run arrest just two days earlier.
He left Cari's body at the side of the road and
fled the scene.
In response to the sudden and brutal loss of
her daughter, Candy set up an organisation
called ‘Mothers Against Drunk Drivers’ (MADD),
determined to change public attitudes regarding
drink driving and to push for tougher penalties
for offenders. Her persistent efforts eventually
bore fruit. On 17 July 1984, the minimum legal
age for drinking in the USA was changed to 21.
By 1997 the Department of Transport had
committed to ending the use of the term
‘accident’ when referring to a drink driving
incident, replacing it with ‘crash’, thereby
indicating that the causes were ‘a choice, a
violent crime and 100% preventable’.
According to Rabbi Yerucham Levovitz (d. 1936),
it was this key quality which enabled Yitro to
change Jewish legal history as well. Possessing
highly-developed investigative powers, Yitro had,
according to the Midrash, ‘tested’ the key tenets
of every contemporary pagan faith. Eventually he
arrived at his own conclusion that Judaism was
the right path.
However, upon arriving at the site of the Jewish
encampment in the desert, he observed that the
legal system they currently employed was
ineffective in delivering justice, as well as
injurious to the health of their leader, Moshe
(Shemot chapter 18). Applying his investigative
skills to this situation as well, Yitro advised
Moshe to set up a cascading judicial system,
with less complex cases to be brought before
lower level judges and only the most important
ones to be brought before Moshe personally.
This was the birth of the Beth Din judicial system.
As with Candy Lightner’s personal battle to
change the law regarding drink driving offences
in the 1980s, it was Yitro, although coming from
a very different direction, whose personal talent
for identifying problems and providing solutions
shaped the legal history of the Jewish people.
When MADD was founded in 1980, an estimated
25,000 people were killed each year because of
drink driving in the USA. By 2013, largely as a
result of the efforts of the organisation Candy
founded, that number had fallen to 10,076 – a
60% drop in the number of fatalities.
Candy Lightner is just one example of numerous,
inspirational individuals who have changed
the course of legal history through their
determination to improve society. Whilst the
factors that originally led them to take action
vary considerably, they share the ability to
critically investigate the current state of affairs
and determine what key changes could be
made to improve things.
In memory of David Yochanan ben Moshe
Candy Lightner 1980
3
Duty and Protection
by Rabbi Sam Taylor, Community Rabbi, Western Marble Arch Synagogue
This week’s sidrah describes
the Jewish people arriving
at Mount Sinai. The verse
(Shemot 19:17) relates that
“they stood at the bottom of
the mountain”. Rashi (d.
1105) quotes a Midrash,
which says that God ‘picked
up the mountain from its place and held it over
the Israelites like a barrel’. What does this
Midrash mean? What message is it conveying?
We can suggest two approaches:
The Talmud (Avodah Zara 2b) states that in the
messianic future, the nations of the world will be
asked by God why they did not observe the
Torah. They will answer that even though they did
not keep the Torah themselves, they should be
rewarded for allowing the Jews to keep it. God
will reject this answer, because the nations
helped the Jews only for their own benefit, not
for ours.
The Talmud then says that the nations of the
world will retort by quoting our Midrash; the
mountain was held over our heads and God said:
“if you accept the Torah, then it will be good for
you; but if you don't, – there [i.e. at Sinai] you will
die”. This indicates, the nations will claim, that
the Jews only accepted the Torah because God
threatened them; they had to accept it. The
Talmud then defends the Jews, pointing out that
during the Purim story they re-accepted the
Torah out of love (Talmud Shabbat 88a). It seems
clear that, according to the Talmud, ‘holding the
mountain over us’ indicates a forced acceptance.
What are we supposed to learn from this image?
Perhaps the lesson is that we should take
responsibilities regarding our faith with a strong
sense of duty.
In memory of Mordechai Avraham ben Nechemia
An alternative interpretation of this Midrash could
be derived from a verse in Shir HaShirim (the
Song of Songs) which states: “my dove is in the
clefts of a rock” (2:14). This verse is understood
by Rabbi Akiva (d. 137 CE) to be a parable of the
Giving of the Torah. The dove takes shelter and
rests in the overhang of a rock. The cleft is a safe
place for the dove; it can be free from predators
and recuperate from the activities of the day.
Before receiving the Torah, the Jews were
standing in the desert in the summer month
of Sivan. It must have been unbearably hot. God,
in His kindness, picked up the mountain and
provided the children of Israel with a canopy, with
shade and protection from the sun, which was
beating down brutally on them. Just as the dove
is sheltered in the cleft of the rock, so the Jews
were sheltered. This image teaches us that when
we accepted the Torah, God promised us shade,
protection and shelter.
Understanding these two paradigms, that Torah
is both a duty and a protection, can help our
relationship with God to develop and flourish.
4
Parallel Thinking Part 16: The Fabric of Reality 1
by Rabbi Dr. Moshe Freedman, New West End United Synagogue
The Rambam (Maimonides,
d. 1204) proposed that the
study of science and the
natural world helps to bring
a person to love and fear
God. Understanding the
nature of God’s creation of
a physical world is an
essential scientific study for those who seek to
enhance their understanding of God.
From a scientific perspective, it is very hard to pin
down what physical things are actually made of.
The ancient Greeks were the first to propose that
all matter is made of fundamental, indivisible
building blocks. The idea probably originated with
the Greek philosopher Democritus, around 2,500
years ago. The word ‘atom’ comes from the Greek
word atomos, which means indivisible. However,
one of the most successful scientific endeavours
of the late 19th and early 20th century was the
discovery that atoms consist of smaller particles –
protons, neutrons and electrons.
The model of the atom was refined by Danish
scientist Niels Bohr (d. 1962), who described a
central nucleus comprised of protons and
neutrons surrounded by orbiting electrons.
The dimensions of the atom are astonishingly
small. Humans can see objects as small as
0.4 mm wide, roughly the diameter of a human
hair. The width of a human hair contains
approximately 100,000 atoms, end to end!
Yet the relative distance between the nucleus
and the orbiting electrons is vast. If we expanded
the size of the nucleus to the size of a standard
fishball, the electrons would be orbiting
approximately five miles away. In other words, if
that fishball was at the New West End kiddush, its
electrons would be orbiting as far away as Golders
Green United Synagogue! The rest of the atom is
empty space, which means the vast majority of all
physical objects is also empty space.
consisted of even smaller, fundamental parts
called quarks. Trying to understand what quarks
and electrons are made of is very challenging,
even for scientists!
For our purposes, imagine a snooker table; these
particles are represented by the different balls on
the table. In varying circumstances, the balls
could whizz around anywhere on the table;
so too these particles could exist anywhere in
the universe at any time. Physicists would
describe the ‘table’ as a ‘field’. The strength of
the field in positions where there are no balls is
low. In contrast, the strength where there is a ball
is high. Electrons and quarks (like the snooker
balls) are described by scientists in similar terms.
However, if those particles are always whizzing
around at very high speed, they cannot come
together to form all of the physical things in the
Universe. In the mid-1960s, Peter Higgs
proposed the idea that there is a unique field
which gives other particles mass by slowing
them down below the speed of light. This would
be like someone pouring golden syrup all over
the snooker table, which would slow the balls
down so they could come together. The Higgs
field has the same effect.
The discovery of the Higgs Boson, dubbed ‘the
God particle’ proved the existence of this field
which explains how almost everything in the
Universe is solid and stays still. While scientists
do not currently know how these fields originate,
the concept highlights Einstein’s famous remark
that reality really is an illusion, “albeit a very
persistent one”.
By the mid-20th century, scientists had
discovered that these smaller building blocks
In memory of Yisrael Shmuel ben Yirmaya Yehoshuah
5
Insights into Jewish History Part 63: Drawing Battle Lines
by Rebbetzen Ilana Epstein, Cockfosters & N Southgate United Synagogue;
Head of Project Development, US Living & Learning
The fourth and fifth
mishnayot of the first
chapter of Pirkei Avot
(Ethics of the Fathers – see
green
siddur,
p.524)
introduce us to the new
leaders of the Sanhedrin
(Jewish central court), Yossi
ben Yoezer and Yossi ben Yochanan. The first
acted as the prince (Nasi), the public face of the
Sanhedrin, the second was the halachic head
(Av Beit Din). This began the period known in
Rabbinic literature as the ‘Zuggot’ (couples).
These two men were the first ‘zug’. The most
famous ‘zug’ of all, four generations later, was
Hillel and Shamai.
Yosef Ben Tuvia, a ruthless tax collector, had
emerged as a leader. His tax collection in the
province of Syria (modern day Israel, Jordan,
Lebanon and Syria) attracted followers from the
sectarian movements. These movements wanted
nothing to do with any Torah laws, Written or
Oral, but were interested in forging a new life,
away from the rigours of halacha, and with a
focus on material wealth.
only one who was ritually pure was able to bring
an offering. The Sanhedrin utilised the people's
diligent adherence to these laws, by decreeing
that going outside of Judea would cause one’s
status to change from pure to impure. Even
entering the land of the Kutim (Samaritans) in
modern day Shomron, which had always been
part of biblical Israel, would render someone
impure. The Sanhedrin hoped that this measure
would stop the common folk from joining Yosef
ben Tuvia and his tax collectors outside of Judea.
Another new law had to do with the introduction
of glassware by the Hellenists to Judea. Though
glass had been around for a very long time, it was
only during the first century BCE that it started
being used by the Hellenists to make utensils
such as cups and plates. The Sanhedrin ruled
that if one who was in a state of ritual impurity
touched a glass, and then passed it on to one
who was ritually pure, his/her status would
change. This rendered glass a conduit for ritual
impurity. The Sanhedrin hoped that this would
keep the observant Jews from sharing meals with
the Hellenised Jews.
They were opposed by the Sanhedrin, who stood
defiantly against the ruthless pursuit of Hellenism
and wealth. The battle lines were drawn as the
two camps fought over the “amei ha’aretz” – the
farmers and common folk.
In memory of Miryam Frumit ben Shimon
Answer: Their first son was called Gershom,
their second son Eliezer.
As the battle was underway to influence this
population group, the Sanhedrin had tradition on
its side. We learn both from the Talmud and from
the Letter of Aristeas that the laws of ritual purity
were kept scrupulously by all the people in
Jerusalem. Aristeas describes a scene in
Jerusalem of people walking on different parts of
the road, depending on their purity status, in
order to not affect each other’s ritual purity. The
laws of purity and the status attached to them
may seem foreign to us today, but in Temple
times these laws were stringently adhered to, as
6