Yitro

The dance of intimacy

Last week’s parsha, B’shallah, ends with the question of how a personal, emotional connection between God and the Israelites can be formed. Miracles, spectacular yet impersonal, do not work. In this week’s parsha, Yitro, we read about what does work. In Yitro, God turns to the ultimate model of connections that combine love and loyalty: marriage. But, as with many marriages, the marriage between the Jews and God quickly turns into a dance of intimacy. As the groom pushes forward, the bride pulls away, the roles reverse, repeat.

The parsha opens with and is titled for Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law. Jethro is the driving force behind Moses’ decision to seek a covenant, a marriage between the Jews and God, on Mount Sinai. After escaping Egypt, Moses and Jethro reunite. When Moses recounts the exodus to his father-in-law, Jethro is impressed and awed by God’s power. He joins with Moses and Aaron in an offering to God. Jethro is, literally, giving the relationship between the Israelites and God his blessing.

The next day, however, Jethro observes how Moses leads the Israelites. Moses works as a magistrate for every dispute and conflict the people bring before him, no matter how insignificant. Jethro scolds Moses.“You will surely wear yourself out…you cannot do [this] alone” (Exodus 18:18). He advises Moses to share his lesser judicial duties with others, only taking the most important disputes on himself. This will require Moses to ask God for a comprehensive set of rules that the Israelites and lesser judges can refer to in their day-to-day conflicts—the Torah. That the first mention of Torah does not come from an Israelite, or Aaron, or Joshua, or anyone in Moses’ prophetic sphere, but his father-in-law, paints Jethro as a matchmaker. You’ve been dating long enough, Jethro says, you need to put a ring on it. Propose to God.

Notice that Moses and the Israelites, in this accounting, are the groom; God is the bride.

Moses heeds Jethro and sets off with the Israelites to Sinai to propose to God. After a three days’ journey—a signifier of a period of testing, or preparation, as with Abraham and Isaac’s journey to Moriah—they arrive. God, anticipating the intention behind the visit, sweetly promises the eternal love that will come from their union.

“You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to Me. Now then, if you will obey Me faithfully and keep My covenant, you shall be My treasured possession among all the peoples. Indeed, all the earth is Mine, but you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” Exodus 19:4-19:6

In this moment, there are no warnings of curses or consequences. God’s language is all intimacy and romance, promises of the joy to come. But the soon-to-be bride, like many soon-to-be brides, is quickly seized by uncertainty and fear. Perhaps realizing the gravity of His promise, God pulls away, deciding to test His fiancé. God sets the wedding date—three days away—and instructs the Israelites to touch neither the mountain nor each other in the period before the ceremony. If His fiancé can handle three days of abstinence and uncertainty, God will appear before the Israelites directly. Thus far, only select individuals could see, hear, or communicate with God. The Israelites communicate with God through Moses and Aaron. Conversely, the wedding will be a personal experience for every Israelite. God is being vulnerable, giving each individual the choice to commit.

Three days of restraint later, God tempts the Israelites, commanding them to premaritally ascend Mount Sinai. Maybe the bride has had a change of heart, or maybe it is another test. Moses plays it safe and quickly reminds God of His instruction to abstain. With another test out of the way, the bride issues another warning. “Let not the priests or the people break through to come up” God advises, “to the LORD who would break out against them” (Exodus 19:24). If the groom breaks through, the bride will break out. The warning is phrased in terms of protecting the Israelites from God. But the dual use of “break” suggests that God may be protecting Himself, too. Even in human relationships, those fearing intimacy pull away; maybe they fear harming their partner, or maybe intimacy leaves them vulnerable to being harmed. In spite of the tension, the bride approaches the altar, and the wedding contract, the Decalogue, is presented.

Even during the ceremony, the dance of intimacy continues. When the Israelites see the lightnng and smoke at the top of Sinai, hear the blaring of horns and the crash of thunder, and feel the presence of God, they are stricken with fear. “You speak to us,” the Israelites plead to Moses, “and we will obey; but let not God speak to us, lest we die” (Exodus 20:16). Faced with a glimpse into the power, the intensity, and the danger of the bride, the groom may want to call off the whole thing, or worse, say “I do” out of fear instead of love. Fortunately, Moses, exercising an impressive degree of emotional intelligence, reassures the groom, saying:

“Be not afraid; for God has come only in order to test you, and in order that the fear of God may be ever with you, so that you do not go astray.” Exodus 20:17

God is only so frightening, Moses explains, because He Himself is afraid—afraid of infidelity, betrayal, abandonment. He is doing this because He loves you. All the tests, the hot-and-cold behavior, the pushing and the pulling, are preemptive measures. God is acting out a kind of self-defensive self-sabotage: if the Israelites are scared off, good, because they weren’t loyal anyways; if the Israelites stay, good, they’ll either be too scared to leave, or, if they do leave, God can say that He “knew it all along.”

Image: Beth Howland performs during the stage play of Company in New York. Hulton Archive.