February 12, 2009
And Yitro said, ‘Blessed is the Lord who has saved you from the hand of Egypt and from the hand of Pharaoh…’” (Exodus 18:9-11)
I’ve previously commented upon the remarkable fact that the biblical portion that initially records the divine revelation of the Ten Commandments — the foundation stone of our faith and morality to Israel at Sinai — opens with praise from and is named for 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 that [the Egyptians] used sinfully” — the waters of the Nile River in which the Hebrew babies drowned — “was turned against them” — when the waters of the Sea of Reeds drowned the Egyptian soldiers pursuing the Israelites. (Exodus 18: 11)
This very same Yitro teaches Moses how to establish a proper judicial system, putting the Decalogue — and the myriad laws that derive from it — into daily practice. Given this intimate relationship between Yitro and Moses, it’s clear the Bible wants to send a powerful message of freedom from enslavement, an unmitigated demand for the absolute morality of “thou shalt not murder, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not commit adultery,” and its trail-blazing teaching of ethical monotheism — not only for Israel but for the entire world.
The talmudic sages engaged in a fascinating debate on whether Yitro converted to Judaism. After all, the Bible tells us that after voicing his admiration and giving his advice, Yitro returned to his home in Midian. (18:27) Later, in Numbers 10:29-32, his departure is described in detail, with Moses urging his father-in-law to remain with the Israelites, promising him proper respect and reward. Yitro, however, 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 Mehilta records a dispute between Rabbi Yehoshua, who suggests that Yitro “departed from the glory of the world,” and Rabbi Elazar HaModai’i, who maintains that Yitro went to Midian to convert others, saying, “A candle must give light in places of darkness.”
If the message of the Bible is meant for gentiles as well as Jews and if Yitro was our first convert after Sinai and engaged in converting others, does this mean we ought to be friendly toward would-be converts, that there may even be a divine commandment to accept them? Although conventional Jewish wisdom would have it that Judaism is not a proselytizing religion, many halachic and historical sources suggest a different attitude.
And though there are negative statements in the Talmud about converts, such as Rabbi Halbo’s adage that “…converts are as difficult to Israel as sapahat [leprosy],” that very same word is used by Rabbi Berakhiya to teach that “…the descendants of proselytes shall serve as kohanim in the Holy Temple.” 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 among the 24 biblical books and the fact that it is read on Shavuot, our festival of the giving of the Torah, should be the deciding voice in favor of positive attitudes toward converts.
Rav Yehuda Gershuni (in Kol Zofayich) says that we should proselytize every human being, as Abraham attempted to convert everyone who entered his tent to his newfound faith and religion. The historian Josephus documents our successful proselytizing activity throughout the Roman Empire during the Second Commonwealth (Against Apion 2). Perhaps the final word on this subject is the command of Hillel for us “to love all human creatures and bring them close to Torah.” (Mishna Avot 1:12)
Returning to the biblical message of Yitro, at the very least we are commanded to oppose human enslavement and spread the universal Ten Commandments to the gentile world. After all, the midrash on the verse “God came forth from Sinai [after] He had shown [his laws] to them from Seir and revealed [them] from the Mount of Paran…” (Deuteronomy 33:2) teaches that God initially offered the 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.
Shlomo Riskin is the chief rabbi of the city of Efrat and dean of Ohr Torah Institutes in Israel.
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