Did Moshe Need Yitro's Advice/1/en
Did Moshe Need Yitro's Advice?
Introduction
The second half of Chapter 18 begins with a description of how the nation stood in line all day long waiting to be judged by Moshe. Upon viewing this scene, Yitro realizes that the situation is unbearable, and he makes the rather obvious suggestion that Moshe appoint other judges to assist with the workload. Whereupon Moshe implements Yitro's advice and Yitro departs having accomplished his objective.
Interestingly, there is no other case in the Torah of anybody besides Hashem offering Moshe advice.1 Additionally, Yitro's advice seems like such an obvious and simple solution that one cannot help but wonder: How could it be that Moshe, the greatest of all men and in possession of a direct line to Hashem, needed Yitro's help to figure this out? As Abarbanel aptly formulates in his fifth question on this chapter:2
Concerning Yitro's advice to Moshe regarding the appointment of the judges: For certainly Yitro’s words were good and correct, but even the greatest simpleton would understand and know that it was a foolish idea for one person to stand in judgment from the morning until the night… And how did Moshe, our teacher, and all of the Elders of Israel not realize that if he would appoint judges over the people, it would have lightened his load? And who would not know that the judges need to be "capable men, God fearing, men of truth, who hate unjust gain," that Yitro needed to teach this to Moshe, the master of all prophets and the greatest of all sages?
In Exegetical Approaches we will examine a range of approaches to this question which differ in their portrayal of both Moshe and Yitro, as well as in their understanding of the relationship between the different units in our chapter.
