BEFORE OR AFTER?

By Rabbi Joshua (Advisedly known as the Hoffer) Hoffman

The central episode of parshas Yisro is that of the revelation of the Torah at Mount Sinai. However, this episode is preceded by the arrival of Yisro at Moshe’s encampment in the wilderness of Sin at the mountain of Choreiv, which, as the Ramban says, was another name for Mount Sinai.

There is a dispute in the Talmud whether Yisro came there before the Torah was given or afterwards, and various commentators take different positions on the issue. The Ramban presents different opinions and sides with the one that the entire section of parshas Yisro that precedes the revelation took place before the Torah was given. In saying this, the Ramban is following his general approach that we take it that the Torah is in chronological order, unless there is a compelling reason to say otherwise. Rashi says that even according to the opinion that Yisro came before the Torah was given on Mount Sinai, the section that records Yisro’s advice to Moshe about setting up a system of judges occurred after the revelation, because it refers to Moshe teaching Torah and ruling cases according to its laws which were given at Mount Sinai. Following Rashi, we need to understand why this section is recorded in the Torah before its description of the revelation. What message about the nature of the Torah do we learn from the section of Yisro’s advice to Moshe that generated a need to record it before the account of the revelation?

Rav Meir Shapiro, zt”l, the great founder of the Yeshiva Chachmei Lublin in pre-war Poland and the originator of the worldwide Daf Yomi Talmud study program, noted a certain difficulty in a manner in which Rashi refers to this section on Yisro’s advice to Moshe. Rashi, in the beginning of parshas Yisro says that one of the seven names of Yisro was Yeser, meaning “an addition,” because a section of the Torah was added because of him. That section, says Rashi, is the section of “ve’Atoh Secheze” — “And you shall discern” — in which Yisro advises Moshe on how to set up a system of judges (Shemos 18:21-23). The problem with this, says Rav Shapiro, zt”l, is that the section actually begins several verses earlier with Yisro’s observation and criticism of Moshe's daily method of judging the people (Shemos 18:13-20). Why, then, does Rashi refer to this section by reference to a later verse? Rav Shapiro, zt”l, answers that it is easy to criticize someone for what he is doing, but not so easy to offer him the advice that he needs to solve the problem. The greatness of Yisro was that after he told Moshe what he thought he was doing wrong, he suggested a way of alleviating the problem. Based on this comment of Rav Shapiro, zt”l, we can also understand why the Torah recorded this episode before its account of the revelation, when we also consider one additional factor.

There is an important aspect of Moshe’s personality that emerges from the episode of Yisro’s advice to him. And that is the element of his humility, as pointed out by my friend, Yosef Cohen of Yeshiva University. Moshe was certainly on a much higher level, both spiritually and intellectually, than was his father-in-law, Yisro, and yet he was willing to accept and act on the advice he gave him. Actually, the Ramban, in his commentary to parshas Devorim, says that Moshe did not mention in his farewell address to the people that the system of judges that he was mentioning was suggested by Yisro, because of his humility. One interpretation of this comment is that Moshe, out of his humility, did not want to appear to be boasting that his own father-in-law was the one who came up with this idea. However we interpret the Ramban, certainly, the acceptance of Yisro’s advice by Moshe was a demonstration of his great humility.

The factor of Moshe’s humility, as brought out in the section of Yisro’s advice to him, can help us understand why the Torah places this section immediately before its account of the revelation even though according to Rashi all agree that it occurred afterwards. The Talmud teaches us that Torah can only endure in someone who is humble, and this is one reason Torah is compared to water, for just as water flows from high places to low places so too does the Torah remain only in the minds and hearts of the lowly of spirit. For this reason the Torah records an episode that demonstrates Moshe’s humility before recording the revelation of the Torah in order to teach us the importance of humility for the proper acceptance of the Torah.