Yisro

Why did Yisro merit an entire parsha named after himself?

Rashi explains first off that the name Yisro comes from the root "yeser', which means an addition. The explainaion being that Yisro 'added' a section to the Torah. (His voluntary action was considered his unique contribution to the Torah.) Which section did he 'add'? The section starting from verse 21 in which he gives his son-in-law advice about how to revamp the judicial system at that time. The procedure before Yisro came along was that people would wait in long lines to ask Moshe himself all sorts of questions in Jewish Law. In other words, Moshe was the sole judge of the Jewish People. This unwieldy system was obviously very taxing on Moshe and cumbersome for the people to have to wait on extremely long lines to get their questions answered. His father in law's wise advice was to introduce a tiered system, in which the simplest of questions could be asked to any of 1000 sages. If they could not answer the question, it was sent to a smaller group of 100 judges, and so and so forth until only the most complex questions that no other sage in Israel could answer except for Moshe- went to Moshe. [As a result of Yisro's positive 'addition' to the Torah, the Torah named the whole parsha after him]

Rabbi Shalom Rosner quotes an interesting insight from Rabbi Jacob J. Shachter. A closer look at the parsha reveals that Yisro actually started speaking to Moshe in verse 17. Why did Rashi only quote verse 21 and on as the source of Yisro's contributing remarks?! The answer is that from verse 17 to verse 21, Yisro simply points out the problems with the current scenario of having only one judge. Big deal. Many people probably saw that the system was flawed. From verse 21 and on, however, Yisro begins dispensing advice on what can be done to improve the system. That apparently was Yisro's original idea. Rashi notes only Yisro's advice for improvement, not his critiques.

The lesson we can take from here is that anyone can point out what is wrong with the system, what is too harsh about the rules, why a program did not run smoothly-- and stop there. That requires little effort and wisdom. The people that are truly valued are the ones that take the next step. They offer a suggestion as to how something can be improved, an innovative idea which could change the future. Let us be more than critics who point out the problems. Let us be constructive critics who offer solutions.

Good Shabbos from RIETS

Yaakov