Yitro’s Novel Idea

Moshe Rabbeinu’s father in-law is credited with coming up with an idea meant to help his son in-law. He suggested setting up a court system of different ranking judges, to ease the burden on Moshe.

Rav Kook asks how it was possible that such an idea was not already known. It is not possible that the Torah could leave out such an important detail as the appointment of judges.

He gives a few answers to this question. One possibility was that Yitro came to the camp of the Jewish people before the Torah was given. It had already been intended to be placed there.

A second answer is that Moshe was aware of this idea, but momentarily forgot it. This happened once before with Pinchas, where Moshe forgot the law.

A final answer of Rav Kook was that they wanted to give special honor and merit to Yitro for becoming a Ger Tzedek, a righteous convert. The whole Parsha has an underlying idea of how careful we must be in the treatment of converts. We must remember that we were strangers in a strange land.

We must love the convert and treat him with the greatest amount of reverence and kindness. Yitro was a prime example.