Yithro: whose religion?

Yithro: whose religion?

 

Parshath Yithro consists of :

Yithro comes to Moshe, reacquainting himself  as his father in law. ( Note that subsequently the Torah prohibits having one's son marry out of the faith for fear that the children will follow the faith of the wife's father).

Yithro advising his son-in law about the administration of the law. ( Moshe had spent many years with Yithro and his sense of the law may have come, in part from that experience) [ The Rabbinic controversy about whether Yithro approached Moshe before or after Sinai is a reaction to this issue]

Moshe accepts yithro's advice.

The Yithro (democratic) solution means that there is a public body of law, and the credibility of that law is based upon the law's divine origin; the divine origin must be demonstrated... hence the fire, cloud, trembling and voice from Sinai. 

The ten commandments are a demonstration that a law that covers every situation can be summarized in a small number of statements ( like the postulates of geometry).  Thus the public body of law is possible!

The Sinai experience is preceded by a purification and followed by laws of the altar.  The altar law is interesting in the context of the rite of Adonis (a local avodah zara) which involved the castration of the priest.  The altar law forbids the sword from any involvement in the altar, the sword that was used to castrate the priest; and it includes a requirement to keep the genitals covered, implying that they are intact. 

 

 

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Who would think that the ten commandments are a tool for democracy?  But What happens when you make the rules public and simple?: then the lowly can point to rules that the mighty must abide by.  Thus, public rules are a liberating force, they fight slavery and tyranny:

Thus: I am the Lrd who(se rules) took you out of Egypt

There is no appeal to another set of rules ( no other Gds)