Yithro: The short of it

Yithro is the parsha of the Ten Commandments. These are understood to be the core principles of Judaism and Christianity.  The tablets, their icon, are a symbol of  law on many courthouses in the US. They are assumed universally accepted - at least ,by the empires that claim to live by them. 

The parsha puts these 10 commandments in context.  They are the lasting relic of the great Divine revelation, they are what is taken away from the great phantasmagoria at Sinai. In the Jewish tradition, they are a menu of the law.  The law itself is much more complex. They convey the illusion of knowledge with the practicum reserved for the cognoscenti. 

The Sinai experience was intended to bring the Israelites under a unified hierarchical system of law.  The people would see the frighteningly inaccessible source of the rules and come to respect the chain of command.

 הִנֵּ֨ה אָנֹכִ֜י בָּ֣א אֵלֶיךָ֮ בְּעַ֣ב הֶֽעָנָן֒ בַּעֲב֞וּר יִשְׁמַ֤ע הָעָם֙ בְּדַבְּרִ֣י עִמָּ֔ךְ וְגַם־בְּךָ֖ יַאֲמִ֣ינוּ לְעוֹלָ֑ם

And the LRD said to Moses, “I will come to you in a thick cloud, in order that the people may hear when I speak with you and so trust you ever after.” 

and

וַיֹּ֨אמֶר מֹשֶׁ֣ה אֶל־הָעָם֮ אַל־תִּירָאוּ֒ כִּ֗י לְבַֽעֲבוּר֙ נַסּ֣וֹת אֶתְכֶ֔ם בָּ֖א הָאֱ   וּבַעֲב֗וּר תִּהְיֶ֧ה יִרְאָת֛וֹ עַל־פְּנֵיכֶ֖ם לְבִלְתִּ֥י תֶחֱטָֽאוּ

Moses answered the people, “Be not afraid; for Gd has come only in order to test you, and in order that the fear of Him may be ever with you, so that you do not go astray.”

  They would see the simplicity of pronouncement and come to respect the complexity of the practice. 

Sinai revealed that the Gd of power is the Gd of law.  Sinai was an act of unifying the Israelite perception of Gd.  This J was both the master of war and the enforcer of justice.  There would be reckoning for a person's action before the entity that split the sea, provides the manna, and overthrew Egypt.  Moses could approach, but the power was too great for other to survive.  Only the most select could approach Moses.  hence, the hierarchy of justice. 

The hierarchy was Yithro's idea.  Yithro was a special man.  When his daughters returned from the well early, because they had been aided by a stranger, the first thing Yithro does is assure that  the stranger is invited to his home.  He gives the stranger a home, he demonstrates a  quality that  Moshe, the great beneficiary of the kindness of strangers (he was rescued from a box in the Nile) finds most appealing.  He can assume that the daughter of such a man will have that quality.  He marries her.  When the situation in Egypt heats up, he sends his wife and children back to her father.   Now we have the great reunion. 

Yithro's recognition of J,  the Gd revealed to Moses, includes a consciousness of the union of power and justice.  

עַתָּ֣ה יָדַ֔עְתִּי כִּֽי־גָד֥וֹל יְ   מִכָּל־הָאֱ    כִּ֣י בַדָּבָ֔ר אֲשֶׁ֥ר זָד֖וּ עֲלֵיהֶֽם׃

Now I know that the LRD is greater than all gods, yes, by the result of their very schemes against [the people].”

Yithro does not commit to  our monotheism, but he recognizes the superiority of  the powerful Gd of Justice. He finds the ironic reciprocity of drowning the people who participated in drowning the Hebrew babies an appealing  quality; what he would expect from Divine authority. 

Yithro was the Cohain of Midyan.  He was familiar with wielding authority.  He understood the advantages of bureaucracy, the buy-in of the participants, the army of enforcers  of the rules, the added perception of esteem it conveyed on the upper echelon.  It was such a good innovation, Gd commanded it. 

The Ten Commandments were an outline of the rules of behavior for the people. There is a need for  a small set of principles that can be carried in easily accessible memory.   Saadia Gaon and others saw them containing the 613 mitzvoth that are ascribe to to the Torah ( numerical value 611 + the two commandments heard directly by all the people at Sinai = 613).  The world is simple.  The world is complex.  Sometimes a perplexing system simplifies.