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Synagogue Sermon

January 26, 1951

Yithro (1951)

Yitro
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Bar Mitzvah Talk (1952)

Now that you are Bar Mitzvah, and have attained your majority, Jewish Law holds you legally responsible for all your actions. You are now expected to act as a mature member of your people and to do your duty as an adult Jew. But you are not beginning on this new venture of a fully responsible Jew as a raw recruit. You have been trained for this role many years. Your stay at the Religious School, your home environment and your parents’ guidance have all been directing you towards this high goal. You have had a basic training for your actions as a good Jew.One of the things which you will be expected to keep and observe, and for which you have been trained for all your thirteen years, is one of the Ten Commandments which we read this morning. כבד את אביך ואת אמך, “Honor your father and mother.” This is a well-known commandment, and which goes to the very root of all family life and respect. But this commandment is different from the other nine of the Asseres Ha’dibros in a special way. The other commandments merely tell you what to do and what not to do. This one adds something – it tells you what the reward is for abiding by this law – למען יאריכון ימיך, it is the promise of longevity, long life, “that thy days may be long.” Haven’t you ever wondered, Julius, why this mitzvah above all others is accompanied by a promise of long life, long days?Well, I want to give you an answer to that question which my grandfather gave me on my Bar Mitzvah day, and which he heard from his father on the same occasion in his life.It happens many times, Julius, that because of lack of experience in life, you start out upon a venture which may last a day or a month or a year or many years, and which you later regret. At the end of a certain period of time, you look backwards, and think to yourself, Oh, if only somebody had warned me beforehand that a course of action of this sort was bound to end in failure. If only somebody with more experience than me had opened my eyes and directed …
Yitro

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Barukh Hashem (1973)

This is a great and historic day in the life of our nation and of our entire civilization. Tonight at 7 P.M., the longest, angriest, most divisive, most sickening war of American history will officially come to an end. There is little exultation and no element of triumph in our national reaction to this event – just a sense of deep, inner relief for the end of this war in which there emerged no winners, and all were losers. How shall we, as Jews, react to these good tidings from Indochina? There are only two words adequate to express our Jewish reaction: Barukh Hashem, “thank God.” Indeed, whenever we announce or hear good news, whether it be of international scope or personal interest, the reaction of the Jew is: Barukh Hashem, “praised be the Lord,” or “thank God.” What is the source of this very Jewish expression? The answer is: a goy! The first one to utter these words was a Midianite. Thus we read today ברוך ה' אשר הציל אתכם מיד מצרים ומיד פרעה Jethro said to Moses, his son-in-law: “praised be the Lord who saved you this day from the hand of Egypt and the hand of Pharaoh.” The Talmud comments on this remark by Jethro:גנאי הוא למשה ולשישים ריבוא מישראל שלא אמרו ברוך השם עד שבא יתרוit is a shame, a disgrace, for Moses and six hundred thousand Israelites that not one of them thought of saying the words barukh hashem until Jethro taught them to do so.Now that is a strange remark indeed. Do the Rabbis really have the right to fault Moses and the Israelites in such harsh language – ”shame, disgrace” – for not having originated the expression barukh hashem? After all, the concept behind the words is that of gratitude, and הכרת טובה (thankfulness) is a basic principle of Judaism. The word “Jew,” as I have often pointed out, essentially means “thank God,” because Yehudah (Judah, Judea) derives from Leah’s remark upon the birth of Judah, הפעם אודה את ה’ך, “this time I shall thank the Lord.” The first thing the Jew says upon arising is מודה אני, I thank God. And Saadia, …
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The Thrill of a Lifetime (1963)

Our Sidra this morning tells us of the reunion of Moses with his father-in-law, Jethro and with his wife Tzipporah and his children who had remained behind in Midian while Moses was experiencing the adventure of the Exodus of Israel from Egypt. After Moses tells Jethro of all that had happened to him and his people, we read that va-yiḥad Yitro, Jethro rejoiced for all the goodness which the Lord had done to Israel. Now, the word va-yiḥad, means more than “rejoice.” I would translate that, “and Jethro was thrilled.” Both words, va-yiḥad and “thrilled,” mean joy to the point where you feel your skin being pierced with sharp pleasure. The Hebrew va-yiḥad comes from the word ḥad, to feel sharp sensation, and the word “thrill” comes from the Middle English “thrillen,” which also means to be pierced or “drilled” with joy. So that Jethro experienced great, almost ecstatic joy.Why was he so happy? What was so thrilling about his experience? A reading of Rashi leaves us with the feeling that Jethro’s joy was not unqualified. A non-Jew himself, he could not gloat over Pharaoh’s downfall. Why, then, va-yiḥad? I believe that we may find the answer to this question by a psychological analysis, which yields morally instructive results. In order to appreciate it, we must pick up, as it were, stray hints that the Torah leaves for us in order to build from them a perspective on the attitudes and lives of the protagonists in this great story.In the beginning, Moses takes his family from Midian to Egypt, a trip that Jethro does not find to his liking (see Abarbanel on Ex. 4:18). Later, Moses sends his wife Tzipporah and his two children back to Midian, to stay with his father-in-law Jethro while he, Moses, continues with his work. We, who read the Bible, know the real reason for this separation, Moses was now involved in perhaps the greatest single enterprise in all of history. He was the father of all prophets of all the ages, and as such experienced constant and uninterrupted gilui…
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