This week's portion, Parashat Yitro, referred to in some sources as "Parashat Vayishma" ("And he heard"), centers on a fundamental message regarding the human capacity to listen. For thousands of years, the tension between sight and hearing has occupied Jewish and philosophical thought. In a legal context, the Babylonian Talmud prioritizes sight, stating, "Let hearing not be greater than seeing," as sight provides decisive, objective testimony. Sight is immediate; light enters the eye, and an image is imposed on the viewer. However, sight is limited to a direct line and can be blocked by opaque objects.
In contrast, hearing is a 360-degree experience that penetrates walls. More importantly, it requires an active effort of "decoding." To understand a spoken message, the listener must partner in creating meaning. Through this internalization, a person creates a unique, multi-layered understanding, as reflected in the verse: "God spoke once; I heard it twofold." In deep inner life and the relationship with God, hearing offers advantages that sight cannot.
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'Moses asks permission to leave Jethro,' painting by Jan Victors from about 1635
(Photo: Wikimedia Commons)
An analysis of the parasha suggests that listening serves as a vital link, connecting historical events with the eternal values and laws passed down through generations.
The portion opens with Jethro, the priest of Midian and Moses’s father-in-law, hearing of the miracles God performed for Israel, specifically their deliverance from Egypt. Upon hearing these reports, Jethro travels to the wilderness to meet Moses, bringing Moses’s wife, Tzipporah, and their two sons. The encounter is marked by mutual respect; Moses bows to his father-in-law, and they enter a tent to converse. Although Jethro had already heard of the Exodus and splitting of the sea, Moses recounts the hardships and the deliverance in detail. This repetition highlights a unique quality of hearing: while sight is often one-directional and passive, hearing forms the basis for dialogue and intimacy.
Through this processing of information, Jethro reaches a profound realization: "Now I know that Hashem is greater than all gods." He celebrates by bringing offerings and eating bread with Aaron and the elders of Israel. Jethro’s transformation is a result of active listening. He heard the "rushing waters of history," processed them, and took the initiative to connect himself to the people of Israel.
The preference for hearing is evident during the Revelation at Sinai. God's instructions to the people are consistently directed toward hearing as a preparation for the future. He tells Moses to tell the house of Jacob that if they "heed My voice" and keep the covenant, they will be a "kingdom of priests." The people respond by saying, "All that Hashem has spoken we will do." God explicitly appears in a thick cloud so the people may hear Him speaking with Moses, thereby establishing eternal trust. And God even warns Moses specifically about sight: “…lest they break through to Hashem to see - and many of them fall.”
Then, in the Ten Commandments, the Torah strictly forbids making images or likenesses of God, and Deuteronomy notes that at Sinai the people "heard the sound of words, but saw no form." This prevention of "corporealization" is essential because sight can shrink the Infinite into a limited, static entity. Hearing demands the internalization and processing of an infinite God who is not a visible body.
In fact, hearing is so central to this revelation that even when the Torah, for a brief moment, shifts to "seeing the sounds" - an experience that implies a total, unmediated grasp, granting absolute certainty - this was too overwhelming for the people. They immediately turned to hearing, asking Moses to speak to them instead, fearing that even hearing God directly would lead to death.
Rabbi David Cohen, known as "HaNazir" and the foremost disciple of the Pro-Zionist Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, specifically admired hearing and listening as a foundational stone of Judaism, a faith that eagerly clamors for the future:
"There are two world-approaches, or more precisely: there is a 'worldview,' and a 'world-listening,' an attentive hearkening. The first is characteristic of Greek logic-pagan, theoretical-lying at the foundation of Western science, in which contemplation, theory, observation and watching the world and its deeds, stand at the head. Not so Hebrew logic, which is auditory: it does not watch the world and does not see it as a god; rather, it hears the laws of the world, and listens to the commandments of the Invisible and Unanticipated One, whose word is heard, as in prophecy." (Kol HaNevuah)
Rabbi David Cohen distinguishes between investigating fixed laws (sight) and hearing the "trend" emerging from within those laws. This auditory logic follows what may come to be in the encounter between a person and the world, revealing the right way for us to hear God's voice without fear.
Editing side by side the story about Jethro and the foundational event of the Revelation at Sinai, is the key experience that links the past with eternal values. Each generation is called to hear God’s commandments and guidance anew, internalizing and interpreting them according to the challenges of their specific reality. By processing what is heard and acting upon it, each generation works in dialogue to realize the vision of the parasha: becoming a holy nation and a kingdom of priests.
First published: 16:46, 02.05.26