Feb 18/06 - Shabbat Yitro

Commentary by Chazzan Aníbal Mass

An old wise man was very rich and he had many children. When he was about to die, he asked all his children to gather beside his death bed. Near him there were a number of arrows tied up in a bundle. When the children came, the old man asked the oldest and the strongest to pick up a single arrow and try to break it. The son took one arrow as ordered and did break it quite easily. The old man then asked him to increase the number to two arrows and try to break them. The son did break the two arrows, but with a little extra effort. Each time the father kept asking the son to increase the number and each time it became more difficult for the son to break them. The exercise continued until there was a point at which the arrows had formed a bundle and thus became impossible for the son to break…

This week’s Parasha is without any doubt one of the most significant Parshiot of the Torah. Do you know why? Because it contains the Revelation of the Ten Commandments to the People of Israel, the base of Jewish and universal ethics. But what really gets my attention here, is the fact that the Jews were worthy of receiving the Ten Commandments. Being honest, what merit did they have to deserve such an honour?

Let us remember a little bit: the Jews left Egypt two Parshiot ago. They witnessed the glory of God in the plagues He sent to the Egyptians, in the miraculous crossing of the Red Sea, in the manna they ate in the desert and in the water that emanated from the rock. And their only reaction to that was to be ungrateful and to rebel against Moshe and against God! What kind of merit did they earn to receive the Commandments from God?

This is a very old question and the Rabbis have looked for its answer. Some Rabbis remind us of the Midrash where the Jews accepted the Torah without asking, while other people put conditions on its acceptance. But there are others who maintain that the important merit for which they received these Commandments is in the verse that says: “vaiachanu ba midbar vaichan sham Israel negued ha ar”—“they encamped in the wilderness; and there Israel encamped before the mount.” (Ex. 19:2). And if you read the Hebrew, the second time the verse mentions “encamped”, it is written in the singular form. This teaches us that, for the very first time, the People of Israel manifested unity. They were like a single family in front of Mount Sinai, and although we all know that the next episodes weren’t so happy, the merit was having at least a few days in total unity, which made them worthy of the honour of receiving the Ten Commandments.

Can we realize how important unity is? We all know how fundamental it is for the survival of our people. But, unfortunately, there were only a few times when real unity was present in our history.

In general, we are more or less together when we are afraid, when there is danger from outside. But when there is no threat from outside, we are not united. We are separated by kehilot (congregations), by ideologies, by origins, and sometimes this is enough reason to disqualify other Jews and build a “wall” to separate “them” from “us”. It seems that we always put the emphasis on showing our differences instead of highlighting what unites us. Perhaps for this reason God gives us this wonderful lesson which shows the true importance of unity.

Although some people believe the merit to receive the Torah was its acceptance without question, I prefer to believe that they received it because of the fact that they were together as a strong, free nation.

…The old man then turned to the rest of his children and reminded them of the importance of being united among themselves. As individuals, similar to those single arrows, they can easily be broken and taken advantage of by anybody, while if they stand together as the bundle of arrows, then there is no power on earth that can break them.

Shabbat Shalom.