Parshas Yisro: Getting Out of Your Own Way
This week’s parsha isn’t named after the Ten Commandments. It’s named after what happens right before them.
Before revelation. Before the laws. Before Sinai.
Something interrupts the flow.
Moshe is drowning.
Not in the sea like the Egyptians last week, but in responsibility.
From morning until night, people line up in front of him.
Every question, every dispute, every decision goes through him.
Not because he wants control, and not because he doesn’t trust anyone else, but because when you’re in survival mode, you don’t step back and plan.
You keep things moving. You deal with whatever is right in front of you.
You carry what needs to be carried.
Survival shrinks your field of vision.
That doesn’t make you wrong. It just makes you busy.
And Yisro is the one who sees it.
“This isn’t good,” he tells Moshe.
“You can’t do this alone. You’re too deep in it to see what’s happening.”
It matters who Yisro is. He’s an outsider, not caught up in the urgency.
He’s Moshe’s father-in-law, someone who loves him and isn’t competing with him.
And Chazal describe him as a priest of Midyan, someone who had explored every single path of religion and idol worship before arriving here in search of truth.
So this isn’t careless advice, and it isn’t dismissive of Moshe’s journey.
It’s about integration.
Step aside a little, so something bigger can come through.
Yisro doesn’t tell Moshe to stop caring. He tells him to stop carrying everything himself.
Build a structure. Train others. Delegate responsibility.
Let people learn. Let them make mistakes.
No one is replacing you. They’re helping you become who you’re actually meant to be.
Only after Moshe listens, only after he builds a system and shares the load, do the people arrive at Sinai. And only then can the Torah be given.
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That lesson is showing up for me now, very practically.
After a long stretch of survival, and a year of real healing, I’m finally able to see it.
At work, I can see how survival mode turned me into a bottleneck in some situations.
Carrying too many decisions. Jumping in because it felt faster or easier than stepping back.
Trying to put out fires instead of building something that could actually hold.
At home, it shows up differently, but it comes from the same place.
Holding things in instead of saying them out loud.
Trying to solve everything instead of asking for help.
Carrying responsibility quietly, and then wondering why it becomes overwhelming.
This isn’t about a lack of support. It’s about learning how to ask for help, and how to accept it.
When you’ve lived in survival mode for a long time, asking for help can feel like failure.
Letting go feels risky. Trusting others feels like something you’ll do later, once things settle down.
Yisro names the truth clearly and kindly.
That way of living isn’t sustainable, and it doesn’t honor the people around you either.
Because when one person holds everything, no one else gets the chance to step into responsibility.
Yisro doesn’t tell Moshe to work less. He tells him to lead differently.
Build the system. Train leaders. Share responsibility. Let others learn, even imperfectly.
Not because Moshe isn’t capable, but because he’s meant for more than constant triage.
And only after that shift, only after Moshe stops being the bottleneck, does Sinai happen.
Because Torah isn’t given to people still stuck in survival mode.
It comes after interruption, after humility, after learning when to hold on and when to ask for help.
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This year, Yisro feels less like a parsha and more like a personal guide.
For a long time, I was living in my own version of survival mode. Carrying pain I hadn’t really spoken about. Functioning, but tight. Moving forward, but blocked.
That cycle broke a year ago, when I took advice I couldn’t see clearly on my own.
To stop forcing my way through everything. To get out of my own way.
I listened, and it changed my life.
What surprised me most was what came next.
Not new beliefs. Not walking away from Torah. But old truths coming back into focus.
From belief in one G-d, to honoring Shabbos, to not coveting, and everything in between.
Not just as rules, but as repair.
Making things right where I could.
Speaking up where I had stayed quiet. Telling stories that needed to be told.
Letting go of what I didn’t need to keep carrying.
It wasn’t “stop hurting and return to Torah.” It was simpler than that.
Stop hurting, and come back to myself.
And when I did, that self already knew this language. Responsibility. Accountability. Boundaries.
An inner spiritual framework that looks a lot like the Twelve Steps, even though I had never formally walked through or even previously read them.
That didn’t come from nowhere. There had to have been something there before the hurt.
A foundation laid early on. Values absorbed long before they were ever chosen.
Like the forefathers, who lived many of the mitzvos before the Torah was given, this wasn’t about learning something new. It was about uncovering what had already been planted.
Torah had been given to me once, through my parents and my upbringing, but it hadn’t yet been chosen by me.
Healing didn’t replace Torah. It removed the weight that was in the way.
Once the pain loosened, once I got out of my own way, there was room again for G-d to come through.
Not as obligation, but as recognition.
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Which brings me back to Yisro.
Yisro didn’t give the Ten Commandments.
He helped Moshe step out of the way so they could be received from G-d.
Healing helped me stop hurting, which led me to my own version of Matan Torah..
Now Yisro is teaching me how to live, at work, at home, and wherever responsibility shows up.
Step aside a little.
Trust the people around you.
Build something that lasts.
And let life work the way it’s meant to.
Wishing you all a beautiful Shabbos
and a meaningful Kabbalas HaTorah b’simcha u’b’pnimiyus.
Berke