A Tidbit of Torah – Parshat Yitro 5785

I the Lord am your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, the house of bondage:       Sh’mot / Exodus 20:2

Biblical commentators through ages have observed that in the verse above the words your and you are written in the singular in the Hebrew even though God is speaking to the entire nation of Israelites arrayed at the foot of Mount Sinai. Many of these commentators echo variants of the idea that God’s revelation is tailored to each individual listener, “each according to their ability to understand and the depth of their comprehension”, recognizing the uniqueness of each person. Building on this, some of our teachers suggest that this differentiated comprehension is a product of one’s knowledge of Torah in its broadest sense, their level of spiritual development, their engagement with Jewish observance, and their ongoing efforts to connect with the sacred.

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel of Apt1 adds a unique element to this discussion of individual capacity as he adds, “To bear and function with the weight of divine glory”. I am intrigued by the Apter Rav’s proposition that we are each infused with a measure of God’s glory that we are meant to reflect in our actions in the world. Living with the awareness of our great potency as expressions of God’s presence could lead to either an inaction bred of a fear of misusing that power or an arrogance leading to an abuse of our God given abilities.

This balancing effort is captured in a similar way in the following words by the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
[P]ower without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.          ― “Where Do We Go From Here?” (1967)

The Apter Rav suggests that inherent in the blessings given to us through our ancestors’ encounter with God at Sinai is the ability to utilize the measure of divine potentiality embedded within us, secure in the knowledge that the Holy One has infused us with sufficient sacred strength to maximize our ability to do good in the world; a world desperately in need of exemplars of divine love and able to highlight the divine glory in all of God’s creation.

Shabbat Shalom –
Rabbi David M. Eligberg

1 Rabbi Avraham Yehoshua Heschel of Apt, popularly known as the Apter Rebbe or Apter Rav, was born in Zmigrod, Poland in 1748 and died in Mezihbezh, in what is now Ukraine in 1825.

A son of famous rabbinic families, on both his father’s and his mother’s side Avraham Yehoshua Heschel showed great promise at an early age acquiring fame as a Talmudic scholar. In 1800 he accepted the post of Rabbi of Apt, becoming one of the foremost voices of the growing Hasidic movement.

Rabbi Avraham Yehoshua Heschel of Apt was the founder of the Mezhbizh/Zinkover rabbinic dynasty and to honor his memory his descendants adopted Heschel as the family name.