Parashat Yitro

Vayihad Yitro. Yitro, Moshe’s Midianite father-in-law, was happy, had hedvah, joy, over the news of God’s salvation of the Israelites. Let us stop and reflect on this moment and this joy – this was a ferginin (a Yiddish term) joy, the joy of a person capable of being happy for someone else’s good fortune. Good for you that you were saved, says Yitro – I am so happy for you!

Our parsha -- which contains the Mount Sinai experience and the 10 commandments, arguably the most momentous event in the Torah -- begins here, with Yitro’s visit and Yitro’s ferginin joy. Why? Because this is the essence of the Torah. As Rabbi Akiva says: To love a fellow human as one loves oneself, to want what is good for them, to yearn for and celebrate that other person’s success as one does one’s own, that is the greatest principle of the Torah.

Yitro’s vayihad stands on the one side of the 10 commandments, and on the other side, at the very end of the commandments, stands another word, the same but with one added Hebrew letter: lo tahmod, Do not covet your fellow’s wife, your fellow’s house – do not wish that their happiness, their success, was not theirs, but yours.

These are the two poles – jealousy is what arises when we don’t learn to be ferginin , to be joyful for others. These are the two poles, and standing between them, right in the middle, is the solution – the way to learn to lean toward one pole and not the other -- the first of the commandments: Anokhi Hashem Elokekha. I am the Lord your God. If there is one God above, He cares about all of us. Like a parent who wants what is best for each of her children, and wants them all to feel that they are on the same team, and to work together for one another’s benefit, and rejoice at each others’ successes, so is God above the parent of us all, hoping we can see beyond the confines of “me” and feel our fellowship with one another.

When you take out the mem (and take out the “me”) in hamad, the word for coveting, you end up with had, two letters that also remind us of ehad, “one”. The point is to get beyond the sense of boundaries, of “me” vs “you,” of “us” vs “them.” It’s all one, God is one, we are all one.

How beautiful that we learn this lesson from Yitro, a non-Israelite, who, with his joy for our salvation, makes it clear that the world is one, and that Torah is everywhere and in everyone.