CANTOR’S CORNER

Cantor Eyal Bitton shares a few thoughts on prayer and the parasha of the week.

2024-02-03 Parashat Yitro

The other day, my four-year-old son was eating and watching TV while I was preparing things in the kitchen. Out of the blue, he said, “Papa, I love you.” 

What a feeling! What a rewarding moment that was! For a parent, there’s nothing better than to hear an honest and unprompted pronouncement of love from one’s child. My work is, by nature, about being in service to others. It’s about giving to my community. And, like so many, whether they are clergy or not, it can be very challenging to parent the way we want to or the way we believe we should while balancing work and providing for one’s family.

In Parashat Yitro, this week’s Torah portion, we get a glimpse into Moses as a family man, not as the great leader of the Israelite people. His father-in-law, Jethro (Yitro), sends a message to him stating, “I, your father-in-law Jethro, am on my way to you, along with your wife. Her two sons are with her.” (Exodus 18:6.) 

Notice that Jethro doesn’t say “YOUR two sons are with her.” He says “HER two sons are with her.” Moses has been on a noble mission to liberate his people from bondage. He has served his people selflessly, and was chosen by God to do so. His cause is noble, selfless, and divinely-ordained. And because of that, he has not been a father to his children. 

The next verse shows us that Moses had a very respectful relationship with his wife’s father. But that verse, that message, is a damning statement. One can only imagine how pained Moses might have been hearing the phrase “HER two sons are with her”. I imagine that he would have recognized and felt guilty that he was so absent from his sons’ lives that they did not even see him as their father. Perhaps intellectually, but not on a practical, interactional, relational level. 

In our Shabbat morning siddur, just before the Shema, we speak of God’s love for us, the people of Israel. We speak to God, and refer to God as “Avinu malkenu”, “Our father, our king.” We place ourselves in the role of child. We place God in the role of parent. In the context of recognizing God’s love for us, we see God as our parent AND as the ultimate ruler of the universe. 

We imbue God with possessing the ideal: being a perfect leader and being a perfect parent. We parents all strive for this balance. We all strive to execute our jobs well, to provide for our families, and to be the parents that our children need. And we are afraid of falling short, of failing. 

It would seem that our greatest leader, Moses, failed or, at least, fell short. That should provide comfort to us, not because we wish others ill, but because we recognize the fact that we are all human, that we all err, that we all fall short. 

But who’s to know? Did Moses repair his relationship with his sons? Moses spends more time in Midian, speaking to and learning from his father-in-law, Jethro. During this time, I’d like to imagine that he spent time with his children and nurtured those relationships. I’d like to imagine that Moses lived to hear the most precious words uttered from his children’s lips: “Abba, I love you.”