Yitro: Summary – The name of the Parshah, “Yitro,” means “Jethro”, and this is the name of Moshe’s father-in-law. He comes from Midian to the Israelite camp, bringing with him Moshe’s wife and two sons. Yitro advises Moshe to appoint a hierarchy of magistrates and judges to assist him in the task of governing and administering justice to the people. The Aseret Hadevarim, the Ten Sayings, which Christians call the Ten Commandments, are given. The children of Israel are told that G d has chosen them to be a “kingdom of priests” and “holy nation.” The people respond by proclaiming, “All that G d has spoken, we shall do.” And this is a reminder that chosenness in the Jewish tradition means responsibility, and not privilege.
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I always wondered about the name of our portion, Yitro. The rabbis could have chosen a different name, as a verb. We have a very important verb at the beginning: and he heard. Vayishma. If you recall, we have several portions that are named after the first verb: Vayishlach, Vayigash, Vayeshev – to name a few. But the rabbis decided to name this after a person, Yitro – in the beginning of the portion, a non-Jew. After a few verses, it is clear that he becames a Jew.
Another story we read about someone who becomes Jewish is the haftarah for Shelach, which brings the story of the spies. The haftarah contrasts Moshe’s spies to Yehoshua, or Joshua’s, spies, bringing the story of Rahav. Rahav, a Canaanite prostitute, tells the two spies sent by Joshua: “We have heard how God split the Sea before you” (Joshua 2:10). She heard about a miracle – God’s power saving the oppressed.
Yitro, the Midianite prist, the father of Tzipporah, the father in law of Moshe, he comes to join Israel after he “heard all that God did” (Exodus 18:1). The Talmud debates what he heard. Rabbi Yehoshua says: the splitting of the sea. Rabbi Elazar HaModa’i says: the war with Amalek. But Rabbi Eliezer says: he heard the giving of the Torah (Zevachim 116a).
These two present a profound contrast: Rahav heard what God did. She heard about chesed in action – liberation, redemption, impossible salvation. Her heart melted from the stories of God’s compassion. Yitro heard what God said. He heard the Ten Commandments – structure, law, covenant, divine speech. He was drawn to revelation itself.
One converted because of God’s deeds. One converted because of God’s words.
But the Talmud knows there’s a third door too. In Menachot 44a, we meet a student of Rabbi Chyia who traveled to see a prostitute. At the moment of temptation, his tzitzit slapped him in the face – a physical reminder of mitzvot, and he tells her she can keep the moey but he’s not going to do the deed. The prostitute asked: “What flaw did you see in me?” He answered: “I saw no flaw in you, but God commanded us about tzitzit.” The Talmud then says that she then gathers her wealth, shares a third with the poor, uses a third to pay her way out and goes to Rabbi Chiya: “I wish to convert.” He asks: “have you set your eyes on one of my students?” And at the affirmative, he marries them.
This is the third door: she came because of love. She converted, and eventually married that scholar. Her door was ahavah – human connection that awakened divine connection.
Today, there are those who sometimes speak carefully about this path, nervous about “insincere” conversions. But here’s what we know: many people first encounter Judaism through dating, through love, through a relationship that made them curious. And sometimes that relationship doesn’t last. The engagement ends. The marriage dissolves.
And yet the Judaism remains.
The person who started learning for a partner discovers they’re learning for themselves. The doorway was love; what they found inside was Torah. Their relationship with the Jewish people outlasts their relationship with that particular Jewish person.
This too is a valid door. This too is holy.
And then Elie Wiesel tells us about a fourth door – perhaps the most mysterious of all.
He was visiting Saragossa, Spain. A Catholic tour guide approached him, offered to show him the magnificent cathedral for free. When the guide learned Wiesel was Jewish and knew Hebrew, he rushed home to his apartment. From a drawer he pulled out a fragment of yellowed parchment, passed down in his family for generations. “Can you read this?”
Wiesel began to tremble. The parchment was 500 years old. It read:
“I, Moshe Ben Avraham, forced to break all ties with my people and my faith, leave these lines to the children of my children and theirs, in order that on the day when Israel will be able to walk again, its head held high under the sun without fear and without remorse, they will know where their roots lie. Written at Saragossa, the 9th day of Av, in the year of punishment and exile.”
Tisha B’Av, 1492. The day of the Spanish expulsion. A forced convert, leaving a message in a bottle for descendants he would never meet.
Five years later, Wiesel is walking in Jerusalem. A man stops him on the street, speaking Hebrew: “Don’t you remember me? Saragossa!”
The tour guide. He had learned Hebrew. He had converted. He had made aliyah.
He took Wiesel to his apartment. There on the wall, framed: the yellowed parchment.
And then the man said: “You forgot to ask me my name. I want you to know my name. It is Moshe Ben Avraham. Moses, son of Abraham.”
He heard his family calling to him across five centuries.
So we have four paths:
Rahav – moved by witnessing God’s deeds
Yitro – drawn by hearing God’s words
The woman in Menachot – awakened by love for a person
Moshe Ben Avraham – called home by ancestors he never knew
The question for us: What do we let others hear? What do we let them see? Whom do we let them love? And what messages are we leaving for those who will someday need to find their way home?
Because that tour guide in Spain? He didn’t convert despite the relationship ending. He didn’t even have a relationship to begin with. He had a piece of paper, words in a language he couldn’t read, passed down by people who told him: “If you lose this, a curse will come upon the family.”
He guarded something he didn’t understand. Until one day, someone could read it to him. And the words said: Remember who you are.
There are many doorways into Jewish life. We don’t get to choose which one opens for someone else.
Our job is to make sure that when any door opens – whether through witnessing justice, studying Torah, falling in love, or finding a forgotten parchment – there is something worth finding on the other side.
Shabbat shalom.