Making sense of the sedra: Yitro
Personal relationships foster love and connection
In the challenging financial times in which we live there is an increasing emphasis on personal relationships. This is not a product or a service that people buy into, it is interconnectedness, and the feeling of trust that it comes together with it. Anyone who has waited many long minutes to get an appointment will appreciate the importance of that connection on the other end of the line, as opposed to grating elevator music.
With this in mind, this week in parashat Yitro we read the first and only public revelation of God to an entire people, when Hashem presented the Jewish people with the Ten Commandments. The first of these is: “I am the Lord your God who took you out of Egypt, from the house of slaves.” This announcement was more than acknowledging a higher being. It proclaimed that there was a God who intervened through the metaphysical wall to touch the lives of his people, Israel saving them from the clutches of Egypt. It expressed an intimate relationship between the ineffable unknowable being, and the mortal and fallible.
Once the Jews at Sinai heard this first commandment, the ones that followed were not just instructions to be followed, but rather keys to continuing the relationship between the omnipotent and humanity. “You should not have any other gods besides me,” emphasises the exclusivity of the relationship. There is no substitute for what was offered at that moment – no protection, no care that could begin to compare to the God who expresses himself through the salvation of the Jewish people.
The word for Egypt is Mitzrayim, which is an amalgamation of two words – meitzar, meaning a narrow place, and yam, the bitterness of the sea. Put together, Egypt tells us that the essence of slavery is constriction of potential, the sucking out of creativity, which leads to bitterness and despair. The first commandment tells us that the key to our freedom lies in unleashing our creativity and potential. Any release of potential within the human realm is finite, and subject to the laws of entropy. The commandments, understanding their depths and fulfilling them provides the path to infinite potential and possibility – after all, God has no limits or boundaries that constrain him, and when we connect, we release the potential that has always been innate within ourselves. “I am the Lord your God” – infinite, timeless, and not subject to any flaw, and through your connection to him, you have the potential to leave your house of bondage and anything that limits your potential to grow and develop in your lives.
This personal relationship is not only a promise to the generation who experienced leaving Egypt, but your journey and my journey as well.
We have lived through difficult times over the past few years. The atrocities of October 7, the antisemitism that runs through the streets of London, the horror of Manchester. There are many reasons to feel despair. The first of the Ten Commandments reminds us of that human customer connection – the love and the personal connection that are expressed in “I am the Lord who took you out of Egypt.” Not only the exodus from Egypt, but every generation from that day to ours. Perhaps it is for this reason that we are told to remember the Exodus.
Rabbi Stephen Dansky is at Cranbrook Synagogue
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