The arrival of Yitro was a big event – to get an idea of the magnitude of the occasion, think of the Pope, the Grand Mufti of Mecca and the Dalai Lama all suddenly deciding to convert to Judaism and begin eating gefilte fish. Yitro was a high priest to almost every form of idolatry known to man; he knew the intricacies of each and he rejected them all. His act rocked the world, perhaps even more than news of the Ten Plagues and the splitting of the Red Sea.
Despite this, Yitro was extremely humble. When he set out to meet Moshe in the desert, he thought that Moshe might consider it beneath him to come to meet his father-in-law, so in order to give Moshe some extra incentive he sent word ahead that he was bringing his daughter, Moshe’s wife Tziporah and their two sons, Gershom and Eliezer. Moshe had not seen his family for over a year, ever since he returned to Egypt, and you would expect the reunion with them to be emotional and poignant.
However, the Torah says nothing about Moshe’s reunion with his family. The focus is entirely on the meeting with Yitro. Was Moshe not happy to see his wife and sons?
The commentaries teach us that the Torah is not a book of stories. It only details things that have a profound lesson to teach us. The Torah does not mention mundane details, like eating and drinking, etc., about the characters that appear therein. Moshe was undoubtedly overjoyed to reunite with his family and it must have been a touching moment for all involved, but as far as the Torah is concerned, no deeper lesson can be learned from it, so it is omitted.
If that is the case, then why a few verses later does the Torah say (Shemot 18:12) that Yitro offered sacrifices to Hashem, and then Aharon and all the elders came to eat bread with Yitro. If eating and drinking are mundane and generally not mentioned, why make an exception in this case? What was so monumental about Aharon and the elders eating bread with Yitro, and what lesson does it come to teach us?
Before answering this question, it is worth pointing out that the whole subject is rife with questions. From where did they get bread to eat? Were they not already eating mann? Did Yitro arrive before or after Matan Torah? Before or after the Mishkan was built? Why is Moshe not mentioned in the list of the eaters – where was he? Each answer is a shiur of its own, but here I will assume that there was indeed bread to eat.
Rabbeinu Bachye on this verse is of the opinion that this meeting took place before Matan Torah and that Yitro offered sacrifices in front of the Pillar of Smoke and the Pillar of Fire, which were equivalent to a Mishkan. Rabbeinu Bachye points out that this seudah was to celebrate the official conversion ceremony of Yitro – circumcision and immersing in the mikvah. Then Rabbeinu Bachye brings the clincher: He says that undoubtedly the seudah with Yitro, Aharon and the elders had a similar purpose to the seudah of Yitzchak when he wanted to bless Eisav (and ended up blessing Yaakov instead). The purpose was that the food in the feast should arouse joy in the soul so that ruach hakodesh would descend upon them because the forces of the neshama are connected to and invoked by the forces of the body. Rabbeinu Bachye brings another example of David HaMelech strumming on his harp to arouse joy in his soul and invoke ruach hakodesh.
This was no simple feast. As a result of the forces at play in this feast, Yitro, through ruach hakodesh, brought about a complete restructuring of the judicial system of Am Yisrael – the hierarchy of one judge at the top (Moshe) and below him an ever-widening network of judges presiding over 10, 50, 100 and 1,000, depending on the complexity of the case.
Rabbeinu Bachye brings this principle here to explain the reason for the feast of Yitro, and if one were not paying attention, one might easily miss the profundity of what he is saying. It is a monumentally profound principle (elaborated in sefer Meir Panim) upon which a major portion of our avodat Hashem is based: the power of simcha, joy, in our service of Hashem and the interplay between body and soul.
The only way to achieve the ultimate relationship with our Creator is through joy. To achieve spiritual joy, to “play on the strings of our soul,” we allow our physical body to experience physical pleasure that then filters inward to our soul. Through food, through music (these are the examples mentioned by Rabbeinu Bachye, but they apply equally to dance, fragrance, poetry, art, etc.). This is not the hedonistic, physical pleasure of an orgy like that which took place at the sin of the golden calf, but a carefully structured framework of pleasure for spiritual uplift.
A perfect example of this is the festival of Purim, which we celebrate in three weeks. Purim is the prototype for using the physical to strum on the strings of the soul and influence the spiritual. We feast, we drink (more than normal), we fool around, we dress up in costumes and exchange gifts to increase joy, push away the yetzer hara (whose primary tactic is diminishing joy and creating despair) and evoke ruach hakodesh.
Parshat HaShavua Trivia Question: What did Yitro “hear?” What miracle, of all the miracles, was the clincher that caused him to believe in Hashem?
Answer to Last Week’s Trivia Question: What bracha did Bnei Yisrael make on the mann? According to Sefer Chassidim they recited “Baruch Ata … Hanotein Lechem Min HaShamayim – Who provides bread from Heaven.”
