The Conversion at Sinai
Realizing our potential is the greatest thing we can aspire to. But can we aspire to experiencing new potentials? The revelation of the Torah at Mount Sinai will provide us with an answer. PARSHAS YISRO PARSHAS YISRO
Why Name this Parsha Yisro?
This week’s Torah portion, Yisro is arguably the most important Torah portion. It is the source of the Aseres Hadibros (popularly known as the Ten Commandments and more accurately as the Ten Statements). In addition, this Torah portion recounts the world’s most significant event ever – the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai.
The fact that this portion is so significant begs the question as to why it is named Yisro after a convert to Judaism, Moses’ father-inlaw. Why not name it Torah, Sinai, or some other more dramatic name?
PARSHAS YISRO
We are All Converts!
One approach to this matter is that Yisro – a convert to Judaism – was representative of what occurred at Mount Sinai. Our sages inform us that the experience of Sinai constituted the conversion of the entire Jewish people. Whatever status they enjoyed before could not compare with their new and exalted status they acquired at Sinai.
What is it that changed so dramatically at Sinai? Even before Sinai the Jewish people observed many of the Mitzvos. Was it the commitment to observe additional Mitzvos that justified referring to Sinai as a conversion process?
Before the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai there were many things a person could do to become a better and even a more spiritual person. It was not possible, however, for one – no matter how hard they tried – to go beyond their potential.
Translated into simple terms this meant that no matter how hard one tried to connect with Hashem, one could not succeed in PARSHAS YISRO getting anywhere beyond one’s own inherent parameters.
The rationale for this is that G-d created us to be mortal and finite beings. By definition a finite being cannot, no matter how hard one tries, get closer to an infinite Creator. All that the observance of Mitzvos before Sinai could achieve was to make the person into a better person, a more complete creation – within the confines of creation.
New Potentials
All this changed at Sinai. For the first time in history, G-d decreed that through the observance of the Mitzvos (the same Mitzvos one did before as well as additional ones) it was possible for one to break out of the mold of being a mere creation of G-d. One can access the Divine and rise above the confines of one’s physical existence.
In effect, Sinai represented the recreation of the Jewish people. They were now not a people governed by the same conventions of nature. They were now given a totally new PARSHAS YISRO potential. Now they have the power to rise above the world and transform it into a dwelling place for G-d.
This explains the name Yisro, which is related to the word that means “increase” or “profit.” At Sinai there was an exponential increase in our spiritual potential Realizing the New Potential The inauguration of this potential occurred at Sinai some 3,300 years ago. The complete realization of this potential will occur with the true, complete and imminent Redemption. Then, the entire world will see the connections we made to Hashem through the observance of the Mitzvos.
Moreover, compared to what was revealed and actualize at Sinai, the future Redemption will result in another leap; an exponential growth in our spiritual potential.
From the book Light from the Future: Parshas Yisro by Rabbi Heschel Greenberg, published by the Jewish Discovery Center.
