When Moses crossed the split sea into the wilderness, he didn’t first reunite with his wife or sons. Jethro, Moses’ father in law, takes Tzipporah, Gershon, and Eliezer to see Moses. But the Torah says that Moses instead went to see Jethro. The first person he saw and met was Jethro. They greeted each other, bowed low, and kissed each other. They asked about each other’s welfare and went into the tent.
Why does Moses connect with Yitro, instead of with his wife and children? Abarbanel, the 15th century commentator, says it was unbecoming to greet your wife before you greet your father-in-law. Ibn Ezra, the 12th century commentator, said that it was not the custom of a respected individual to go out and greet his family. He instead waited for them to come to him. I would suggest though that the main reason that Moses greets Jethro first is not because Jethro is his father-in-law. He is not greeting family. He greets Jethro because of Jethro’s other title, High Priest of Midian.
After they connect, Moses recounts to his father in law everything that the Lord had done to Pharaoh and to the Egyptians, And then the Torah tells us that Jethro rejoiced over all the kindness that the Lord had shown Israel when God delivered them form the Egyptians. And Jethro said: Baruch Adonai. Blessed be God.
Moses took the Israelites through the split sea and moments later they complained. They experienced God’s miracles and yet doubted God’s majesty. Yet, Jethro didn’t experience that at all, but simply hearing of God’s omnipotence still led him to praise God.
Moses was a man of faith, the leader of the Israelites, who spoke directly to God and served as a prophet. As the High Priest of Midian, Jethro was also a man of faith; he was a faith leader. And no matter their differences, their faiths connected them, for there was far more that united them than divided them.
For the past month, as part of our MAKOM Teen Post-B’nai Mitzvah educational program, some of our teenagers have been participating in a course called “The Tie that Binds: What Jews and Muslims have in Common.” We’ve had the privilege of learning with friends from the NIA Masjid and Community Center in Newark, the mosque that many in our congregation visited when we attended Friday after Jumu’ah services a couple of years ago as a sign of unity in the face of rising Islamophobia.
This past week, teens from the NIA Masjid joined our MAKOM teens, many of whom were visiting a synagogue for the first time. They asked each other questions about their faiths and beliefs, and compared their favorite television shows (The Office and Brooklyn 99). Soon after though, they discussed the shared challenges, as Muslims and Jews, of being a religious minority in this country, especially given the rise in anti-Semitism and Islamophobia in this country. But most of all they got to know each other. And realized that there was so much more that united them than divided them. They understood that they could hear the words of each other and say Allah Achbar, Baruch Adonai, Praised be God. No matter the name they used for God, or how they worshipped that God, they weren’t so different.
And I imagine a world in which we can all do so; we can all praise God together, no matter what name we call that God. For that is the greatest miracle. More so than experiencing a split sea, they learned to experience that the God of my fellow, is my God as well, that to know the other is to truly know myself. May we all continue to know each other, and come to appreciate that we are all made in God’s image.
-Rabbi Jesse M. Olitzky
There are countless midrashim, rabbinic explanations, that detail the splitting of the sea. These midrashim focuses on the ripple effect – pun intended – that such public actions, and such miracles, can have. The Mechilta says that the roar of the split sea was so loud that it was heard in neighboring countries. Shemot Rabbah says that all waters split, not just those of the sea that the Israelites crossed. As those waters split, so too did the waters of the lakes and wells, and even water in people’s glasses and jars. The impact was felt by those who were not even present.
diverse in our country’s history. CNN shared a picture of the variety of books that members of Congress chose to place their hands on when taking the oath of office. This included the Christian Bible, the Tanakh, the Book of Mormon, the Quran, the Buddhist Sutra, the Hindu Vera, and the Constitution itself. Locally, new members of Congress are veterans, former employees of the state department, and worked in previous presidential administrations.
Rabbi Jesse Olitzky 