Hearing problems – Yitro
The sidra tells us, Vayishma Yitro – “And Jethro heard” (Ex. 18:1).
Moses & Jethro, by James Tissot
What did he hear? He heard the news about the exodus from Egypt, but what did he make of it?
Pir’kei Avot says that every day a Heavenly voice (a bat kol) comes from On High with a message for Israel (Avot 6:2). Maybe that is what Jethro heard, a bat kol with a message in relation to recent events.
Why do most people not hear the voice from Heaven? If Jethro heard the voice, why don’t we?
Perhaps he had a degree of hearing and insight that was more acute than ours. He could hear the news and know what it signified.
We are different. We hear the news better than Jethro because we have modern technology. What we don’t have is the instinct to recognise its message.
We have the information but not the instinct. We expect that once the current crisis is over we will go back to how things used to be. In fact it will be a new world and we will need to re-plan who we are and what God wants of us.
