Clouds, Smoke, Fire, Blasts, Trembling and Truth: Yitro

Sometimes Truth comes in a cloud, sometimes in smoke and fire, sometimes in a great trembling, and sometimes in loud blasts. 

Maybe our sight is blurred or misty, so it must come through other senses.

We might have to hear and listen to a gentle calling.

Or it’s so loud, our instinct is to cover our ears. 

Sometimes Truth’s wake-up call comes in a burning sensation and flames.

Maybe we feel it under our feet and through our whole body. 

The way to Truth is by various means, but it will come through in the end.

In this week’s Torah reading, Yitro, Jethro in English, Moses’ father-in-law passes wisdom to him about how to accept help from his community as opposed to taking it all on himself. 

God talks to the people through Moses and shows God’s self through the above-mentioned ways: in a cloud, fire and smoke, a loud blast, or a deep trembling.

It’s not the first, and it won’t be the last effort to get the people to have complete faith in Moses and in God.

And Moses reassures the people; Don’t worry, don’t be afraid—that’s just God trying to get you to listen. 

The Ten Commandments, as they are popularly known, are first stated here in this reading. 

For me, in this moment, this parsha, and God, are just trying to get the people to understand a basic message: Don’t bow down to falsities, have respect for the inter-connectedness of all, and try to be a good person. 

In whatever form it comes, when we mess up, the Truth comes out, and we often need others to point it out to us; we can’t do it alone.

Alone or with the help of others, Truth will find us, whether in a small, still voice, a loud blast, fire and smoke, or in a deep trembling.

It will find us. And it will come out.