The straightforward reading of the text support Ibn Ezra in his claim that Yitro came after Matan Torah. He then explains why the story is related “out of order”: in order to contrast the radically different reactions of the nations to the emergence of Am Yisrael. Amalek, actually related by blood to Am Yisrael, reacts with the most vicious imaginable rejection, while Yitro, actually an Egyptian if you go far enough back in Midyan’s bloodlines, hears and rejoices, comes and joins. Ramban, for his part, cannot accept that Yitro came after Matan Torah. After reporting faithfully the full power of Ibn Ezra’s take, he opens his attack with the following words: “Vahakarov elei litfos seder hatorah” – That which is closest to me is to grasp the order of the Torah. He means not just that this is to his mind the most reasonable explanation of the passage at hand, as he goes on to demonstrate, but also, that he is inclined by spirit always to follow the order of the Torah’s presentation as the chronological order of events, as he states explicitly elsewhere and as matches his statement in his introduction to his commentary regarding the ultimate reality of the Torah as names of the Hashem.
Ramban’s arguments are many, but the ones which seem to carry the most weight are these two: 1) IF Yitro came after Matan Torah, how could Moshe, in relating the miracles which Hashem did for Am Yisrael, fail to tell him about Matan Torah? 2) How could Yitro, the first convert to Judasim, MISS Matan Torah (this is more implicit than explicit in the Ramban’s words.
Rabbeynu Bechaya brings the essence of the arguments and, as usual, follows the Ramban, but strangely, he brings the Ibn Ezra’s explanation for the juxtaposition of accounts of our war with Amalek and the arrival of Yitro. But, according to the Ramban, there is no explanation needed – that’s just the way it happened!
I’d like to buttress Ibn Ezra’s approach by explaining why Moshe would not have related Matan Torah to Yitro though he came after its occurrence as well as why it is important for him to MISS Matan Torah, AND why he was there in any case!
Despite all the fireworks they share in common, Yetziat Mitzraim and Matan Torah differ in a critically important way. The former, including the episode by the sea and, for that matter, even the battle with Amalek (Rashi brings the opinion that Yitro came upon hearing of both the Exodus and the war with Amalek), are public events that occur on the international stage and involve other actors –
Matan Torah, however, for all its miracles, was a private affair between Hashem and Am Yisrael. Yes, the whole earth was silent and/or shook, yes, Hashem shopped the Torah around to the nations before offering it to Am Yisrael, but as for the event itself – Hashem closed the bedroom door (not my metaphor, but Shir HaShirim’s) and what went on was of the most intimate nature. Not only WOULDN’T Moshe have told Yitro about this, but he literally couldn’t. Can the Torah’s spare, yet amazingly powerful description be imagine to convey the actual experience, even when supplemented by all the midrashim, for anyone except the most deeply learned and refined tzaddik? No. Thus, though Yitro came after Matan Torah, Moshe told him nothing initially about what had transpired. After all, we were ALL like righteous converts at Har Sinai, all that applied previously was uprooted and Torah was planted/replanted in the soil of our neshamot – if Yitro had been there, too, he wouldn’t have been a Ger Tzedek but a Jew from the beginning (along with the Erevrav!).
But there’s a problem: If Yitro wasn’t informed (initially) of Matan Torah, and “merely” heard about Yetziat Mitzraim and Milchemet Amalek, what is the meaning of his reaction: Vayichad Yitro – Yitro overflowed with joy, expressed his sudden comprehension of the meaning of the faith of Yisrael, feasted with the leaders of the people and thus, according to our tradition, joined us by converting to Judaism. What was he joining, if at this point he had no notion of Torah?
The Shem MiShmuel explains an aspect of Matan Torah which I believe can help us here: It is stated in Parashat Mishpatim that Hashem tells Moshe, These are the words that you shall PLACE BEFORE THEM. Rashi explains “like a prepared table”, with everything arrayed in a fashion such that each item is accessible, visible, available, in its proper place. In other words, the legal “kernel” of the Ten Commandments needed to be expanded, elaborated.
But if this is the case, he asks, then why do we not have a similar explanation for the same expression earlier, when Moshe comes to the people after Hashem speaks with them and tells them the spiritual/historical/theological “kernel” of the entire enterprise of the Jewish people (Shemot 19:3-6): Thus shall you speak to the house of Ya’akov and tell to the children of Israel: You have seen that which I did to Egypt, how I carried you on eagle’s wings and brought you to Me; And now, if you will carefully listen to/obey My voice and guard/keep my covenant, you shall be for me a precious treasure from amongst all the peoples, for Mine is the whole earth; and you shall be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy people – these are the words you shall speak to the children of Israel (Rashi: no more and no less).
The answer given by the Shem MiShemuel is extended, but the first part amounts to the following: Hashem knew he was speaking to a people with a listening ear, but who as yet were not yet ready for the elaboration that is just as necessary, eventually, in matters of spirit as in legal matters. So he planted the seed, and left it as their task, with Moshe’s indispensable assistance, to create the environment for that full-bodied faith to flower and spread its light to all corners of their beings.
Note that what Moshe is bidden to say to Am Yisrael is not substantially different from what he is reported as saying to Yitro. A seed must be dropped into Yitro’s soul, and if it will spout, well and good. And sprout it does, as Yitro erupts with the joyous unification and blessing of Hashem, whose “intimate Name” he uses for the first time. “Now I know that Hashem is greater than all the “gods” (that I have known previous, per Rashi), because the thing that they (evildoers) do maliciously is upon them”. This is the key to Jewish faith: ultimate order, reason and meaning even in that most intractable sphere – why do the righteous seemingly suffer and the wicked seemingly prosper. In a moment, Yitro knew all was One, paradoxically though the particular experience of a single people, he brought it all together, and was ready to receive Torah. Perhaps that was the banquet – a kind of a pre-siyyum, which prepared Yitro for the next day when he engaged in Torah with Moshe and proposed his system of appellate courts!
We now understand why Yitro, and every convert since, MUST come to the intimacy of Torah via the public role of Am Yisrael in the world, but it wouldn’t do to leave Yitro at this point. For, the Torah DOES report his coming before reporting Matan Torah. This is because, retroactively, Yitro’s soul has taken its place with every other Jewish soul throughout history, standing at the foot of Har Sinai, saying with conviction, “Asher Kidshanu b’Mitzvotav” – “Who sanctified US with His commandments”, and thereby, providing the most effective erasure of the legacy of Amalek possible – by uprooting that kernel of G-d-hating existential doubt from the core of his being, rendering Amalek one step closer to being but a bad dream, and adding his own soul to the construction of the ultimate Temple in Jerusalem that is, in truth, the project of all human history!
Shabbat Shalom,
Yehoshua Kahan
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