"Torah Lights"
 
Video Insights on the Parsha
 
 by Rabbi Shlomo Riskin

Efrat, Israel: “And Yitro said, ‘Blessed is the Lord who has saved you from the hand of Egypt and from the hand of Pharaoh…’” (Ex. 18:9-11) 

In the past I’ve commented upon the remarkable fact that the Biblical portion which initially records the Divine Revelation to Israel at Sinai – the Ten Commandments which serve as the foundation stone of our faith and our morality – opens with praise from, and is actually named after, a Midianite Priest, Yitro.  As we know, Yitro, the ‘Gentile’ priest and father-in-law of Moses, rejoices over the Israelite victory against Egypt, declaring, “Now I know that the Lord is greater than all other powers, because the very object which they [the Egyptians used sinfully, the waters of the Nile River which drowned the Hebrew babies, similar to the waters of the Reed Sea] was turned against them” (Exodus 18: 11).

This very same Yitro goes on to teach Moses how to establish a proper judicial system, putting the Decalogue – and the myriad of laws and statutes which derive from its ten categories of ritual and civil law – into daily practice (Ex 18: 13, 14, 18, 21). Given this intimate relationship between Yitro and Moses, one arrives at the inevitable conclusion that the Bible wants to teach us as clearly and powerfully as possible that its message of freedom from enslavement, its unmitigated demand for the absolute morality of “…thou shalt not murder, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not commit adultery….” and its trailblazing teaching of ethical monotheism was meant not only for Israel but for the entire world.  

There is a fascinating debate among the Talmudic sages as to whether or not Yitro actually converted to Judaism. After all, the Bible does tell us that after voicing his admiration and giving his advice, Yitro returns to his home in Midian (Ex. 18:27). Later on in the Biblical narrative (Numbers 10: 29-32), his departure is described in greater detail, with Moses  urging his father-in-law to remain with the Israelites, promising him proper respect and reward (according to the Ramban, even land in Israel). However Yitro demurs, choosing to return to “…his land and his birthplace.” Nevertheless, his descendants, the Kenites, do join with the tribe of Judah (Judges 1:16), and the Midrash Mekhilta (to the Biblical portion of Yitro) records a dispute between R. Yehoshua, who suggests that Yitro “departed from the glory of the world,” and R. Elazar HaModai’i, who maintains that Yitro went back to convert others, saying, “A candle must give light in places of darkness.”  

If, indeed, the message of the Bible is meant for Gentiles as well as Jews, and if Yitro was actually our first convert after the Covenant at Sinai, and he ‘departed’ to convert others, does this mean that we ought be ‘user-friendly’ towards would-be converts, that there may even be a Divine commandment for us to accept converts? Although conventional Jewish wisdom would have it that Judaism is not a proselytizing religion, many halakhic and historical sources may very well suggest a different attitude.  

True, there are negative statements in the Talmud about converts, such as R’ Halbo’s well-known adage that “…converts are as difficult to Israel as sapahat, [leprosy]” (B.T. Kiddushin 80b), that very same word (sapahat) is used by R. Berakhiya to teach that “…the descendants of proselytes shall serve as kohanim in the Holy Temple” (Shmot Rabbah, Vilna, Parashah 19,4). Moreover, R. Elazar declares that “the Holy One Blessed Be He brought exile among the nations upon the Israelites only in order for them to gain converts (B.T. Pesahim 87b.)” Indeed, the Scroll of Ruth depicts the life of a Moabite convert who becomes the grandmother of King David, progenitor of the future Messiah. The commanding position of this scroll, accepted as one of the 24 Biblical books, and the fact that it is read in most congregations on the Festival of Shavuot, our Festival of the Covenant at Sinai, should be the deciding voice in favor of our positive attitude toward converts.

The Tashbez (R. Shimon b. Zemah Duran), in his Zohar HaRaKiyah (Ot 28) maintains that there is a commandment to accept converts under the rubric of the Divine ordinance that we love the proselyte, a view seconded by Rav Y. Perla in his commentary to Rabbenu Saadyah Gaon’s Book of Commandments (Positive Commands, Number 19). Maimonides, in his Book of Commandments, (Positive Commandment 3), goes so far as to include within the commandment to love G-d the “…necessity of seeking and summoning all peoples to the service of and belief in the Lord of the Universe.”  He cites the Sifre who defines the Biblical verse to mean, “…cause G-d to be loved by all living beings (briyot).”  Rav Yehuda Gershuni (in “Kol Zofayikh,” Jerusalem 5740, p. 503) concludes that this means proselytizing every human being, since Maimonides’ proof text comes from Abraham, who attempted to convert everyone who entered his tent to his newfound faith and religion. The Ravad (Baale HaNefesh, the end of the Gate of Ritual Immersion, Siman 3) likewise accepts the commandment to convert from the verse, “the souls he made in Haran.” (Gen. 12:5). And Josephus documents our successful proselytizing activity throughout the Roman Empire during the Second Commonwealth (Against Apion 2, 39). Perhaps the final word on this subject is the command of Hillel for us “to love all human creatures, b’riyot, and bring them close to Torah” (Mishneh Avot 1, 12).  

Returning to the Biblical message of Yitro, at the very least we are enjoined to oppose human enslavement and spread the universal Ten Commandments to the Gentile world. After all, the Midrash on the verse “…G-d came forth from Sinai [after] He had shown [his laws] to them from Seir and revealed [them] from the Mount of Paran…” (Deut 33:2) teaches that G-d initially offered His Decalogue to the descendants of Esau [Seir] and then to the descendants of Yishmael [Paran], only to have seen them rejected by all except Israel. And Maimonides rules that only Jews must keep the 613 commandments for “salvation”; it is enough for the Gentile world to accept the seven Noahide laws of morality for their salvation and share in the world to come (Laws of Kings 8,10).  Thus, we must certainly proselytize every human being to keep the seven laws of morality. In our global village, this is necessary not only for our eternal souls, but also for the continued existence of our temporal bodies in a free world not polluted by the immediate threat of terrorism and the extreme threat of nuclear destruction. 

Shabbat Shalom