Rabbi Mishael Zion | Text and the City | Yitro 2016
“I need not expand on the importance of the theme of authority. Few are the educated people who can exist without depending on others, or develop a truly independent opinion. One cannot overestimate the power of people’s lack of internal decision making and their craving for external authority. The incredible rise in frequency of neurosis we see around us since the power of religion has been decimated serves as a measure of this.” (Sigmund Freud, Opening Lecture at the Second Psychoanalytic Conference, 1910)
This week’s Torah portion
is all about authority. Its second half tells the quintessential moment of Jewish
authority: the giving of the Torah at Sinai. It’s a hierarchical model of
authority if ever there was one – with the Law given from up high and forced on
the nation. The Israelites accept wholeheartedly, bowing their heads to Divine
Authority, saying: נעשה ונשמע - We will perform and we will hearken. That’s at least how one
strand of our tradition tells it. For Freud, it is the moment of the inhibiting
Super-ego being crowned over the id and ego, a heteronomous power which if
internalized properly will bring out the healthy and productive individual. It
is a tale of human yearning for external authority.
Discussions of the
trouble with external authority abound. But the story of Sinai is prefaced by
another tale of authority; one which puts a spotlight on our relationship to
our own, internal authority. The juxtaposition makes a claim: before we establish
the role of external authority, one’s own sense of internal authority must be
met face to face . This psychological exercise is played out by the
quintessential underminer of authority: the parent-in-law.
Yitro, Moses’ father in law
and Priest of Midian, comes to visit his son-in-law’s band of runaway slaves in
their desert abode. Before leaving, the seasoned priest teaches his entrepreneuring
young son-in-law a lesson in systems. Seeing Moses overburdened “from daybreak
until sunset” by those seeking the ear of the leader, he advises him to create a
multi-tiered human justice system which can transmit God’s word to the people without
over-burdening the sole prophet. It’s a lesson in the move from charismatic
leadership to bureaucratic leadership, as Max Weber will call
it centuries later. But what is actually going on is Yitro calling Moses
out for not recognizing his own authority, and not recognizing that the “locus
of control” to his situation resides in himself.
This is how the little
family spat is described in Exodus 18:
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Now it was on the morrow:
Moshe sat to judge the people,
And the people stood before Moshe
from daybreak until sunset.
When Moshe’s father-in-law saw
all that he had to do for the people,
He said: What are you doing to the people!
Why do you sit alone, while the
entire people must stand before you from daybreak until sunset?
Moshe said to his
father-in-law:
It’s the people who come to me to
inquire of God!
Whenever they have some
legal-matter, it comes to me –
I judge between a man and his
fellow
And make known God’s laws and his
instructions.
Then Moshe’s father-in-law said
to him:
Not good is this matter, as you do it!
You will become worn out, yes,
worn out,
Not only you, but also the people
that are with you,
For this matter is too heavy for
you,
You cannot do it alone!
Rather, listen to my advice…
(Exodus 18:13-24)
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וַיֵּשֶׁב מֹשֶׁה,
לִשְׁפֹּט אֶת-הָעָם;
וַיַּעֲמֹד הָעָם עַל-מֹשֶׁה,
וַיַּרְא חֹתֵן מֹשֶׁה, אֵת כָּל-אֲשֶׁר-הוּא
עֹשֶׂה לָעָם;
וַיֹּאמֶר: מָה-הַדָּבָר
הַזֶּה אֲשֶׁר אַתָּה עֹשֶׂה לָעָם?? מַדּוּעַ אַתָּה יוֹשֵׁב לְבַדֶּךָ,
וַיֹּאמֶר מֹשֶׁה, לְחֹתְנוֹ:
כִּי-יִהְיֶה לָהֶם דָּבָר, בָּא אֵלַי,
וְשָׁפַטְתִּי, בֵּין אִישׁ וּבֵין רֵעֵהוּ;
וַיֹּאמֶר חֹתֵן מֹשֶׁה, אֵלָיו:
נָבֹל תִּבֹּל--גַּם-אַתָּה, גַּם-הָעָם הַזֶּה
אֲשֶׁר עִמָּךְ:
כִּי-כָבֵד מִמְּךָ הַדָּבָר, לֹא-תוּכַל
עֲשֹׂהוּ לְבַדֶּךָ!
עַתָּה שְׁמַע בְּקֹלִי, אִיעָצְךָ...
(שמות יח יג-כב)
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One is enticed to read Yitro as the stereotypical conniving father-in-law:
first, he spies on his son-in-law at work. Then he takes license to criticize
his practices: “What are you doing?? Why are you doing it alone, and causing
all these people to wait for hours??” When Moses gets all defensive (“I didn’t
ask for this, they started it…”), Yitro turns to outright criticism, and
finally to the sharpest weapon of the in-law: Let me give you some advice…
This is how Rabbi Hayyim Ben Attar, one of the most attuned
readers of dialogues in the Torah, reads the discussion between them: “Moses
heard in Yitro’s words a criticism, as if he is forcing them to only adhere to
his judgement, and not to others” (Or haChayim Exodus 18:16).
Of course, the contentious reading of Yitro and Moses’
relationship is not necessarily so. We’ll never know what tones (and
undertones) filled their conversation. But as the experienced High Priest
teaches Moses how to run an organized religion, he also names something about
Moses’ insecurities.
A basic adage of organizational psychology claims that if a
dysfunction in a system is perpetualized, it’s probably because it serves a
need for all parties involved. As we view the long line of Israelites waiting
on Moses’ word from morning to night, it is clear what need this is serving: like
New Yorkers who love to wait in line for the “best food in town”, Moses is the
only authority in their eyes, the all-powerful savior from Pharaoh, and they
want to receive truth, leadership and guidance from his mouth only. But what
need is this burdensome dysfunctional system serving for Moses? Why does he
need an external review in order to change the dysfunctional system he allowed
the Israelites to create around him?
I’d suggest that Moses doesn’t change the authority
structure not because he actually enjoys being the sole authority, but because
he feels deeply equivocal about the authority invested in him. He doesn’t feel empowered
to hand it to others because he can barely admit that he is holding it himself.
True, he’s exhausted, but this too serves a need: His loudly portrayed exhaustion
shields him from having to take action beyond that which is already on his
plate. (Thank you to David Levin Kruss for this point. I would have thought of
it myself but have simply been too exhausted and overworked this week to do so…).
The dysfunctional system created around Moses allows him to
continue to locate the “locus of control” in his life outside himself. First it
resides with God, then with the Israelites; never with Moses. He doesn’t see
himself as holding any authority, but simply serving external referents. That
is a sure way to achieve exhaustion, but also to avoid recognizing one’s own
power and responsibility, one’s internal sense of authority. Yitro supplies
Moses with the wake up call that forces him to take the reigns.
I find Moses’ discomfort
with his new found authority very relatable. The stage of life between 30-45 or
so (or 80 in biblical terms) shoves us into all kinds of new authority roles
which are not simple to embrace (even as we crave them). A parent who
disciplines their child, the employer who fires and hires, the supervisor sending
others on complicated and risky task. Truly recognizing and wielding the “authority
vested in us” is no simple task, as it forces us to come to terms both with the
burden of power and with the recognition of its boundaries Often, it requires an external event - a
conflict or failure or critical voice to bring us to terms with how much
authority we actually do wield. Many people hold an unjustifiably inflated sense
of their own power and authority, but equally pernicious are those who hold an unjustifiably
deflated sense of their authority. As the
Prophet Samuel says to King Saul, before firing him: “Although you were once
small in your own eyes, did you not become the head of the tribes of Israel!?”
Saul’s inability to recognize the burden of his own authority causes his
downfall. Perhaps it is the fact that Samuel was no Yitro…
A big part of coming to
terms with our own authority is recognizing what is actually being asked of us
in our new role, and the mixture of projections and actual needs that people
bring to us. The brilliance in Yitro’s advice to Moses is not in the judicial structure
he suggests, but in the way he allows Moses to see what he, Moses, brings to
the table, and in that way come to terms with his authority:
Yitro helps Moses
differentiate between what only he can give, and what other fine people can do.
He helps name the values and traits needed to do some aspects of Moses’ job
(caliber, awe, truth, hating gain), so that they can be delegated to others,
while highlighting the ways in which Moses is irreplaceable, the things that
only he can provide: “the matters that come from God”.
We often undervalue the
very things we are best at, those skills and powers that come to us most
naturally. This makes sense, since that which comes naturally to me requires
very little effort –and therefor I underestimate or overlook its value. It is
in all the ways in which we fall short, all the skills that require enormous
effort and concentration that we attribute a high value to, thus making the
half empty glass of our skills feel much more important.
Yitro helps Moses
recognize that it is him that they are seeking, not just God; he helps
him see his own voice and importance in the system, helps him make that which
is projected on him and his own internal self assessment more congruent. He
thus allow Moses to loosen his grip on the untenable system that he allowed the
Children of Israel to create around him. Once Moses can come to terms with his
own internal authority, he can begin the work of truly bringing God’s matters
to the people.
The fact that the people
weren’t really ready for it, well, that’s a whole different Torah portion…
