This week’s Torah portion, Parashat Yitro, brings us to the threshold of Sinai. Our Israelite ancestors have escaped enslavement, but they are only beginning to understand what freedom really means. As the story continues, we learn that liberation alone is not the ultimate purpose of the Exodus. True freedom, the Torah teaches, comes with obligations—responsibilities to one another, to those beyond our immediate circle, and to God. Freedom without responsibility is hollow; freedom anchored in obligation is holy.
Before the Ten Commandments are given, the Torah pauses to teach us something essential about leadership. Yitro, Moses’s father-in-law, sees that every decision flows directly through Moses. He understands—likely from his own experience as a priest of Midian, a leader from outside the Israelite camp—that this path leads to burnout and threatens the entire community’s ability to move forward. Yitro offers his counsel: Moses must delegate leadership to others.
Moses listens—and in listening, teaches us another crucial lesson. True leadership isn’t rooted in ego or control, but in humility, collaboration, and trust. His openness to Yitro’s wisdom reminds us that sustaining freedom requires more than individual effort; it demands coalition, cooperation, and the courage to learn from unexpected voices.
Only then do we arrive at the Ten Commandments, the sacred heart of the covenant. These commandments reveal that freedom is not the absence of limits, but the presence of sacred obligations binding us to one another and to God.
We often come to this Torah portion as we enter February, Black History Month—an observance originally anchored to the birthdays of President Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. While Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809, Frederick Douglass’s exact birthdate is unknown. Enslaved in Maryland in 1818, he was denied even this basic record of his existence. Later in life, Douglass chose February 14 as the day to mark his birth.
Both Lincoln and Douglass understood that ending chattel slavery in the United States was not the end of the liberation struggle for Black Americans. Freedom demanded obligations—from individuals and from society—and leadership capable of transforming moral vision into lived reality. The Black freedom struggle reminds us that progress is forged through partnership, persistence, and shared responsibility.
The work continues: our own freedom, with its accompanying obligations, and the dignity and freedom of others. Like Moses and Yitro, we are called to build coalitions across difference and to share the work of liberation. Our congregation’s partnerships with Greater Zion Church Family and Zioness embody this teaching. From the Freedom Seder we created together last year to our recent shared pilgrimage to Israel, we are reminded that the pursuit of freedom and dignity is not a solitary journey, but one rooted in partnership—listening, learning, and growing together. Black History Month calls us, as a Jewish community, to deepen this work alongside Black Jews, the broader Black community, and all people of good will.
May this Shabbat renew our commitment to the sacred responsibilities that make freedom real and enduring.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Yoshi