Parashat “Yitro” (Exodus 18:1-20:23)
for the week of January 22^nd, 2011

Parashat ‘Yitro’ offers us the powerful story of the revelation of Torah at Mount Sinai.  Three months after escaping from slavery in Egypt, the Israelites arrive in the wilderness of Sinai and camp at the foot of the mountain.  Moses goes up to the mountain to prepare for the revelation and God instructs him to deliver the following message to the Israelites:  “You have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagle’s wings and brought you to Myself (Ex. 19:4).”  These last two phrases (‘carried you on eagle’s wings’ and ‘brought you to Myself’) both seem to beg for further interpretation.  What can the two phrases teach us about our evolving relationship with God, both in those days and in our own?

Building on a tradition in the midrash (the rabbinic literature of biblical interpretation), Rashi* explains that the metaphor of the eagle says something important about both God’s supremacy and God’s relationship with Israel.  Following the midrash, he writes:  “…all other birds place their young between their feet since they are afraid of another bird that flies above them, but the eagle fears none except man—understanding that perhaps he may cast an arrow at it—since no bird can fly above it; therefore, he places its young upon its wings, saying, “Better that the arrow should pierce me than my young!”**

Making an analogy between God and the eagle emphasizes that there is nothing higher than God and that God loves Israel (God’s children) enough to stand between Israel and any human threat.  In fact, Rashi continues by pointing out that God had shielded Israel in exactly this way when God’s cloud stood between Israel and Pharaoh’s advancing army at the Sea of Reeds (see Exodus 14:19-20 and the midrash cited above).  While we have witnessed enough tragic Jewish history to doubt that God’s promise of physical protection is as certain or absolute as this imagery suggests, our ancestors’ sense of the miraculous power of God’s love for us remains compelling even today.  While we may have to settle for the understanding that God’s promise of protection is more spiritual than physical, it is inspiring to consider that God’s love is strong enough to carry and protect us in this way.

That said, how might we understand the second part of God’s claim, that I “brought you to Myself?”  Perhaps, this is meant as a simple geographic statement—I, God, brought you here to this mountain so that we could have a spiritual encounter.  But since our tradition also teaches that God isn’t limited to one physical location, that explanation doesn’t quite satisfy.  Rashi says that we should follow the Targum(the traditional, Aramaic paraphrase of the Torah text) and read the verse as “I brought you near to My service.”

If we follow Rashi’s interpretation, then the sense in which Israel is “brought to God” is in the opportunity offered to serve God.  The Israelites are “brought to God” not in a geographic sense of being brought to meet God at the mountain.  They are brought to God because they are given  the opportunity to choose a life that is grounded in the covenant and framed by the mitzvot.  They will know and understand God not so much when they see all the cloud, smoke and fire on the mountain nor even when they hear God’s voice, but mostly when they begin to live a holy life.

We, too, may be most powerfully “brought to God” in the act of serving God.  The spiritual and moral sensibility we nurture as we practice the discipline of sacred living is our most effective path to revelation.  We get to know God most deeply when we live the kind of life to which God has called us.  That reality may be the most certain sign of both God’s existence and God’s protective love.  Because it is also by teaching us how to live and what to live for that God most protects us and lifts us up on eagle’s wings.  Perhaps, our ancestors began to understand this Truth after they stood at the mountain.

*‘Rashi’ is the Hebrew acronym for Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchak (1040-1105) who is generally regarded as the most famous of all Jewish commentators on both the Torah and Talmud.

**Midrash Mechilta, Tractate Ba’chodesh, Chapter 2