In our portion

 

Yitro - Jethro the idol worshipper comes to the Israelites and Moses

 

Ostensibly  he JOINS the people and 

is now close to the Almighty and 

even advises Moses - Who ... remember ... is the Chief Judge 

 

and guide to and Transmitter of the L-ord' s will on earth.

 

Uh - he does what?

 

 

Why would the idolater

theHigh Priest of Midian 

come to share with the High Judge of the Almighty?

 And be ACCEPTED and BLESSED? And have a Portion named for him?

 

The Talmud Daf Yomi in Avoda Zara is replete with stories this week

 

touching on rules of herecy punishment - and salvation ...

And Rebbe Eliezer gets in TROUBLE

 

The Talmud says he met a heretic who had a GOOD interpretation of a Torah Passage - 

And we know that we are allowed to study what the gentiles may be able to teach us for the purpose of understanding how

BETTER TO AVOID BEING MISLED -

 

But Rebbe Eliezer was punished for ENJOYING what he learned from the heretic-

 

Which is something not wise - because we might LOSE FOCUS

 

Jethro - in leaving home to JOIN US in the desert - never lost FOCUS and-

 

obviously on a deep level - he came NOT to instruct Moses our teacher-

 

BUT TO HELP THE ISRAELITES

 

In a quote sent today from the Yeshiva Simchat Shlomo of my late friend Sholom Brodt zatza"l - with the words of Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach zatza"l:

 

"The Ba'al Shem Tov is teaching that G-d is really calling us all the time,

 

 the only thing is that we don't believe that G-d is calling us.

 

The truth is that every holy thought that comes to my head is mamesh G-d calling me, it's mamesh G-d's voice.

 

 Imagine, suddenly I think I really should be better, it's really mamesh G-d calling me, but I think I had a good thought.

 

 If I would know it's G-d calling me I would jump out of my skin, so why don't we jump out of our skin?

 

 Very simple, because we never call G-d by his name, so we don't believe that he calls us by our name,

 

 but if you are on the real oneness calling G-d name, calling G-d on his level then you understand that G-d is calling you back. This is very deep stuff."

 

So Jethro - Yitro - "got it" - and

 

Moses (Moshe Rabaynu) got it years before at the burning bush

 

And if we drink in the wisdom of the Ten Commandments in this week's portion -

 

we can ALL be closer to that CALL FROM the ALMIGHTY