This is the week of the divine revelation on Mount Sinai, when Moshe goes up the mountain to bring down the Torah for the people.
Yitro’s Advice
But before this big event happens, first we hear of another story, about Yitro, from whom the parsha gets its name. Yitro, who is Moshe’s father in law, comes for a visit and, seeing Moshe single handedly catering to the people’s needs all day long, Yitro says to him – no, this is not good, what you are doing, either for you or for the people. You are going to burn out and so will they. You can’t do it alone (Exodus 18:17-18). And so Yitro helps Moshe set up a system where others participate in the governing of the people, taking some of the burden off Moshe’s shoulders.
Invitation into the “More” Space
I believe this little scene should be understood as an essential prelude to Mount Sinai, that without this intervention from Yitro, the revelation might not have been possible. Why? Because Moshe simply would not have had the physical, mental, emotional or spiritual space to receive what God had to offer. We need space to hear God, to let that wisdom and guidance enter, and what Yitro was inviting Moshe into was precisely such space, not to be so completely consumed by his job in serving the people, to have the time and energy to open to something else, something more. Yitro’s name in fact means “more” like yoter, and he was inviting Moshe into that yoter space, that “more” space, the space of divine connection and revelation that is beyond the details and conflicts and concrete arrangements that make up our busy lives. This beyond space does not denigrate the importance of those details and needs, but on the contrary, girds us to love and tend to them more fully, to serve them from that steady beyond place rather than being entangled in their thorns and brought low along with them.
The Busyness That Blocks Us
But I am getting ahead of myself. Let’s go back and start where Moshe was, in the salt mines, working day and night, trying to take care of everyone’s needs all the time. I invite you to check inside and look at what your busyness is like, what it is that blocks you from having the space inside to connect to something yoter, more, beyond. Noticing how crowded and noisy it is sometimes in there, as if there are a thousand children lined up inside you clamoring for your attention, like the Israelites with their demands on Moshe. Or maybe it feels like a pinball machine, balls going everywhere, bells and bright lights, no rest, no quiet. Noticing, too, the urgency of it all – always it needs to have been done yesterday – keeping you on the run with no time to pause and notice the flowers or to notice the mountain standing next to you that just happens to be Mount Sinai. How can we receive something from God if our container is so full?
Indeed, God doesn’t make this giant revelation until Moshe has cleared enough space to be able to see the mountain and begin to hike it. Maybe the mountain was there for generations waiting for someone to notice it. Maybe it is still there, always there, right next to us, waiting for us to pause what we are doing so intensely and urgently and look up. It’s like we are working on an assembly line that requires constant, mindless focus on the ever coming stream of details in our lives, forever at that conveyor belt that keeps us anxiously looking down with no moment to spare. And meanwhile, perhaps standing right beside us is someone waiting to connect to us and embrace us, but we have to let a few items go by untended on the conveyor belt to turn towards them and take it what they are offering.
Why the Parts Hold On So Tight
It’s not easy. The striving and managing and caretaking parts in us are pretty insistent and make good arguments about why we need to keep our jobs in the assembly line and to make sure each bottle is perfectly capped. Maybe feeling into how tightly they are holding on and getting curious about their urgency and desperation, sensing the primal fears and unmet needs that underlie it all. We have to do this, they say. Otherwise the world will fall apart, It is all on us to keep it together. Or maybe – we have to do this in order to get the nourishment we need, in order to matter and be loved, we have to earn our keep, it’s life and death.
Moshe, too, must have had some of that. He must have felt abandoned as a baby in the Nile, and perhaps from that experience came a desperation to do everything right so he would not be abandoned again, the fear a constant spur to be ever vigilant, to be perfect, to make sure all was taken care of. Or later, standing outside the palace, witnessing a slave being beaten by his master, Moshe looked around – vayar ki eyn ish (Exodus 2:12) – and he saw there was no one else around to take care of things. He learned early on, he took on this false belief that it is all on him to fix the situation, eyn ish, there is no one else. I think many of us have some version of this experience, some traumatic sense of our aloneness, that we must shoulder the burden alone, be responsible for everyone and everything. Otherwise the dam will break. We have to hold all the pieces in place just right to prevent that.
A Hope Balloon
So acknowledging the parts in you that hold on tight to control and manage and strive and caretake, acknowledging their fears and needs and how much sense it makes that they do that. And then maybe offering them a glimpse of an alternative. What if they don’t have to do it all alone? What if there is indeed no ish, no human part, but there is another force that can help? What if they could let go of the heavy burden on their shoulders, turn it over to that other force and allow themselves to be carried and held? What if they could finally relax and trust? They are so tired, they have been working night and day your whole life, tight fisted and urgent, in a constant state of crisis and hypervigilance. They do want to rest, very much so; they’re just scared to let go. Offering them a chance to rest, just as an experiment, so they can see that it’s ok, they won’t lose what they are trying to get, but on the contrary, maybe for the first time ever, they might actually get the kind of deep nourishment that they need, not from work or striving, but from rest and trust, not from holding on tight, but from letting go.
Clearing Space
Offering them that glimpse, these worker bee parts in you, and asking if they are willing to give you some space inside. That is the one thing they need to do. Because this divine energy we are talking about, the one thing it needs is space.
So maybe those parts can indeed give some space. They can still absolutely be here with all their fears and tight fists. Just asking them to step back a tiny bit from the center of your body so that a space is cleared in the middle, an opening, asking them to unblend and separate a little from you so that it becomes apparent that they are parts of you, not all of you, and there is room for you, in your highest self, to emerge and care for them. Maybe taking a deep breath and letting that breath expand the internal space in the middle of your body, breathing in an open clearing right in the center as the parts step back. Picturing it like Mount Sinai: the people stood all around the outside of the mountain with a barrier preventing them from getting too close so that there was an open middle space of divine connection and all around it, a circle of people. Clearing that space in your center, it doesn’t have to be as big as a mountain, maybe just a small circle of open space at first, with all the parts sitting around it, inviting them to all be here together, the strivers and the caretakers and also the little ones who feel worthless or abandoned or unloved, inviting them to all join in and sit around the circle like a campfire.
Entering the Stillness
This open space inside is like the top of Mount Sinai where Moshe and God meet. All the parts of you step back a little and you, like Moshe, step into the middle to meet God in that cleared center. Now you can take the time to relax and connect to yourself and to God because all of the urgent clamoring has receded for a moment; you are open to hearing and being guided. It’s like you were in an auditorium filled with the noise of a thousand people demanding your attention and now suddenly you are on a mountain top in utter stillness, divine peace and stillness. In that stillness, you can just make out a quiet voice that was drowned out by all the noise before. It is the still small voice of your inner wisdom, of God speaking to you and guiding you inside. Be still for a moment and absorb that wisdom, that presence, that calm, that care from another plane. Let it seep into your body as you stand at the top of the mountain in the quiet – let it seep in, the knowledge of God, the revelation of what is true and eternal beyond the vicissitudes of this urgent moment, the love and kindness and care that underlie all of creation, the light that will not go out, despite the ever creeping forces of darkness. Let yourself be saturated by its warmth, by God’s steady calm presence inside you no matter what the circumstances.
Radiating It Out
And when you are ready you can go back to the parts standing around the mountain, around the campfire, around the open clearing, returning now – like Moshe – with something to offer them, this deep nourishment that they have always yearned for. They have been working so hard your whole life trying to get it, when it can never be gotten through striving and working. It needs to come from this place of eternity, this yoter place that Yitro shows us, the place beyond. Sharing the wisdom and care you received in that space, letting it radiate out of you like Moshe’s face radiated beams of light. You went up there, you went in there, deep inside that quiet circle, not just for yourself, but for them, too, for your parts and for all the hurting people in this world, to bring them back the nourishment and knowledge of God that they need.
We Are Vessels
This is who we are. We are vessels, conduits, standing between the divine and the human, mediating, transmitting, like Moshe, bringing down from the mountain what our very human parts and friends need, becoming a vessel for that divine light and presence that the world so desperately needs. Making space for that to enter us continually, asking the parts that hold on so tight to step back and let go just for a moment so that we can separate and connect to something larger and then return to them with what they need. Sensing that divine presence and light in you right now, letting it radiate out to your parts and then extending it as far outward in the world as feels good to you in this moment. There is no limit to this healing energy. Know that you are its vessel. You are the vessel of that healing energy.
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