King David was quoted as praising Yitro, Moshe’s father-in-law, as a very smart man who has a tremendous insight into G-d and was able to fully comprehend the miraculous events that occurred to the Israelites. This was evident by some of the definitions of his seven names, in which Rashi and many commentaries say he was called by. What was it about Yitro, which impressed David and warranted such praise?
It’s only natural in a successful marriage that more and more matrimonial matches spurt up between the two sides; Moshe’s nephew, Elazar, marries one of Yitro’s daughters. But what’s odd when we are introduced and informed of the union, is Rashi’s description of Potiel, the father of the bride, Yitro’s other name; he describes a man “who fattened calves for idolatry” and “from the seed of Yosef who conquered his passion”. Now I understand the compliment of the comparison to Yosef, that’s very nice; however, why bring up “he fattened calves”? It’s very demeaning not just for Yitro but for Elazar as well. One can only imagine the mazal tov section of the weekly Synagogue newsletter stating ‘Mr. and Mrs. Potiel, the ones who fattened calves for idolatry.’ It doesn’t have a nice ring to it, don’t you think?
In this week’s Parsha, our ancestors received the Torah and we read the Ten Commandments. One has to ask, why did G-d emphasize these ten as opposed too many others he could have mentioned? Furthermore, G-d wanted to give it to the other nation as well; but His reply to their question of what’s in it, always played on their weakness. For example, to the Arabs he emphasized ‘do not steal’; to Edom, ‘do not kill’; G-d knew perfectly well that it would be difficult for them.
Rabbi Oelbaum says that the fundamental importance of the Torah is to enable us to overcome and do the opposite of our nature, to break the one aspect of our personality that we have a tough time overcoming. This is the primary goal of life.
Perhaps this is what G-d intended when approaching the nations and asking, are you ready to accept for real, and therefore you would have to eradicate stealing or murder or what ever weakness one has.
Rav Eliyahu Lopian teaches an important awareness of freedom of choice. This is an important aspect of man. However, one should know the definition of freedom of choice is not that one can do whatever he wants. If that was so, what is man’s superiority over animals? They too can do whatever they want. The definition of freedom of choice is that he’s able to choose himself and go against his nature, against his natural instincts and animals cannot do this.
Perhaps this is the greatness of Yitro; his weakness was idol worship to an extent where he couldn’t control himself. However, he was able to persevere and see G-d where many couldn’t. We must bring another definition of Potiel and that is ‘sheniftar me-avoda-zara’, he was able to disassociate, break off from idol worship.
These Ten Commandments were chosen because they are the fundamental building blocks of the Torah, of life. If we strengthen our character traits and not get sucked in like a magnet, we would have done our duty and we would be able to exercise our true freedom of choice. |
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