Jethro, Blessings, and Miracles

The Torah portion named Yitro has, as always, SO many things going on in it. I could write many posts this week about Yitro, all focusing on a different verse or event. Perhaps I will circle back around to some of them in the weeks to come.

Assistant Professor Stephen P. Garfinkel of the Jewish Theological Seminary writes that "Parashat Yitro is a Torah reading of monumental ideas, foundational concepts, and widely-recognized importance. By all measures, this week’s portion must be considered a highlight of the entire Torah, since it includes no less (and a lot more!) than the Ten Commandments."

I couldn't agree more.

For today, I would like to focus on a tiny tidbit that almost passes by unnoticed in the Torah.

Parashat Yitro is named for Moses’ father-in-law, Yitro. The Hebrew word Yitro has been Anglicized to Jethro. (Confession: this is when the theme song of the Beverly Hillbillies always loops through my head, because Jethro simply isn't a much-heard name these days, so my brain finds the only Jethro it's ever known, Jed Clampett's nephew in the TV show The Beverly Hillbillies. You are welcome for that ear worm.) In this post, I will use the word Yitro when referring to the parasha as a whole, and Jethro when referring to the actual person.

Jethro was Moses' father-in-law. He was not a Hebrew. Furthermore, he was a Midianite priest, which means he served as a priest in a religion very different from the Hebrew one. This is, of course, a topic all on its own, perhaps for a different post.

Parashat Yitro contains two very significant, major, huge, and well-known events: the creation of the Israelite judicial system, and the revelation at Mt. Sinai, aka the giving of the Ten Commandments. Pivotal, critical, both of them. And again, worthy of many posts, and even books, all of their own.

But that is not where I would like to focus today. I would like to look at something almost overlooked, but equal in its significance. Parashat Yitro provides a source for the Jewish system of bracha, of saying and giving blessings, and of seeing miracles.

When Moses tells Jethro of the miracle of the Exodus and the crossing of the Red/Reed Sea, Jethro, (who is, remember, a Midianite priest of another religion), rejoices and says, “…Baruch Adonai, blessed is Adonai, who saved you from the hand of Egypt and from the hand of Pharaoh..."  (Ex. 18:10)

In the Babylonian Talmud, in Sanhedrin 94a, the rabbis praise Jethro for his piety, that even though Jethro, a Midianite priest, only hears about the miracles from Moses (compared to the Israelites who personally experienced the miracles), it is Jethro, not the Israelites, who recites a bracha (blessing). Furthermore, Rabbi Abraham Sofer,  a leading rabbi of Hungarian Jewry in 1815–1871, adds, "because Jethro rejoices at the Israelites’ good fortune, he fulfills the commandment to '…love your neighbor as yourself…' (Lev. 19:18)." In that moment, Jethro is truly a righteous Gentile, a righteous person.

While Jethro is not the first person to bless G!d in the Torah, he is the first to offer a bracha––a blessing––in response to a miracle performed for a group rather than just for an individual. As the rabbis write in the Babylonian Talmud (B’rachot 54b), it is this moment in Exodus 18:10 which becomes the proof-text for reciting a blessing for miracles (such as we do at Chanukkah and Purim).

While the Jewish system of blessings was developed in the Talmud in lengthy legalistic discourses, the heart of our saying blessings is designed simply to foster an attitude of gratitude, and to nurture the mindful acknowledgement that even the smallest, most mundane event is, in fact, a miracle.

This causes us to pause and ask, What is a miracle, and how do we know when a miracle has taken place?

Rabbi Nicole Guzik of Sinai Temple explains this well. She writes, "Identifying a miracle is tricky business. How does one define a miracle? Definitions include a surprising occurrence that has divine agency or an improbable, unexplainable event that is both welcoming and wondrous. But I am realizing that a miracle isn’t a miracle until someone takes the time to open their eyes and label the event. A sunset to one may just be a daily, routine event and to another, it is a miracle that the world continues to function according to a particular order. Waking up each day and taking a breath may be commonplace and insignificant to one, and to another, a miracle that we are gifted one more day on this blessed Earth."

Looking again at our verse in Torah, Jethro turns to Moses and says, “Blessed is the One who saved you from the hand of Egypt and from the hand of Pharaoh, who saved the people from beneath the hand of Egypt.”

The rabbis in the Talmud explain that it is when Jethro, a non-Jewish Midianite priest, recognizes G!d’s gifts that compels them to declare that when someone experiences a miracle, we must bless the moment. Even moments perceived as ordinary or mundane should be recognized as gifts from G!d, as the miracles they truly are.

Our Torah supports the idea that often, a miracle is not an outer reversal of physical laws, but an inner shift in perception. It comes in a moment, a holy instant, when a person decides to temporarily suspend their habitual perspective on something. It is a  momentary loosening of the grip our little ego self has on us, which then allows our minds to shift into a different way of seeing things. This tiny moment, small shift in perception, opens the doors that might have been closed and locked against seeing something or someone from a different perspective.

Jethro could've held tightly onto his Midianite priesthood and chosen not to see the Hebrew experience as miraculous, but he chose instead to shift his perspective in a moment, and recognize and even bless another G!d in a story of redemption which he saw as completely miraculous.

In our parashah Yitro, in one tiny verse, we are reminded that as our thinking shifts, so does everything else. Our whole experience of life, and of particular situations, is allowed to shift and change. Whether the miracles are the times when we go beyond ourselves and work for a greater good, or bring a smile to a face weary with illness or concern, or those unexpected moments of watching the sunset and the sky turn fabulous shades of pinks and purples and oranges, or perhaps even more importantly, the miracles of moving beyond loss or of picking ourselves up and beginning again when everything around us has been too much of a burden, a failure, a dismal "why me? why this? why now?"...

These are the times, my friends, when nothing less than a miracle will save us, the miracle of courage, determination, of finding meaning in the loss. These are all miracles of their own right. At these times, the miracle is not found in “why this, why now, why me”, but rather in “what now?” When we can pick ourselves up and shift our minds to thinking “what now” rather than staying stuck in “why this”–– that is truly a miracle.

Rabbi David Wolpe, one of the most influential rabbis in this country today, writes this about miracles in his book, Making Loss Matter: “While we cannot count on miracles to save us, we can be miraculous. We can ourselves do things that change the world and reshape our own souls. Faith teaches us not that life will be easy, but that the difficulties of life yield beauty.”

Let’s open ourselves to the EXPERIENCE of life lived as an unspeakably perfect miracle. Let’s shed that old stodgy way of defining miracles that no longer works for us, and embrace the shift in thinking that allows all of life around us to be a miracle we can experience if we allow it.

So here’s our challenge: Let’s go out into our days with our eyes and hearts open to the experience of miracles all around us.  Yes, even those of us with rational minds who think the word miracle has no place in our world today. For what is a miracle if not just a tiny shift in our perception?

Let’s be miracle hunters, miracle collectors, and miracle makers. Let us, in this moment, like Jethro, bless G!d and give thanks. LOOK for miracles, and you will find them everywhere.