Exodus Cycle Three Yitro 18:1 to 20:23

The Haftorah section for this week is in Isaiah. I beheld my Lord seated on a high and lofty throne; and the skirts of His robe filled the Temple. Seraphs stood in attendance on Him. Each of them had six wings; with two he covered his face, with two he covered his legs and with two he would fly. And they would call to each other, “Holy, holy, holy! The Lord of Hosts! His presence fills the earth!” (6:1-3)

This is the kedushah . It shows up three times on Shabbat …in the yotzer or (preceding the Sh’ma) during the Amidah and in the musaf service (the additional prayers). According to the scholar Elbogen , Merkavah mystics in the 600s believed that the kedushah would take us there…to God…and that it was our work to bring there to here.

In any case, come late to the service or early…it was set by rabbis so all could say the kedushah.

And now, come late or early…maybe we say it or not. But it might be a nice thing to do. There’s even a little yoga move that comes along with it. You get to lift your heels off the ground three times (like an angel with wings). You can even go a bit higher each time. Once , I was at a service in which the kedushah was said by raising open arms higher and higher.
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Yes, here we have the anthropomorphized God (God forbid) … but if we describe ourselves as God why can’t God describe Himself as us? So even if it doesn’t directly deal with our personal issues...the kedusha is not something we want to bury. The sages (for a reason) have tied it to this week’s parsha, Yitro…and the receiving of Torah.

Let’s look at the prophetic writing. While I don’t have the super-radiant tunnel vision of either Isaiah or Ezekiel it seems (in their words) we are being shown the steps to God right at the God-place. It’s as if these heightened vibrations have tightened and are clinging to each other with such intensity that not even a violin with such strings could make a sound tenable to human ears. Widen them a bit and witness the fire and thunder as they light-up Mt Sinai and manifest as Torah, as the ten commandments and then (the vibrations even wider) as the boundaries of Mt Sinai (and of the outlying areas) and then in each of us and in a man named Yitro who personifies these levels through his advice to his son-in-law Moses.

Let’s specify the word here. Some of us call this miracle of God-access vibrations. Some steps. Some levels. They are the sefirot as well as each breath we breathe. They are whatever it takes to keep moving us one thought, one hand-length, one cubit, one spark closer to the Holy One. The rabbis of Talmud (thinking steps) see the receiving of Torah as Jacob’s ladder. The ladder is equated to Mt Sinai and stands (like a pillar) upon the earth. The people stood (also netzavim) on the nether part of Mt Sinai. The top of the ladder reached to heaven. And (Deut. 4:11) the mountain burned with fire to the heart of heaven, The angels ascend and descend the steps of the ladder. Moses ascends and descends Mt Sinai. (Gen Rabbah 68:12).

Even within each commandment we see a myriad of sreps depending on the Talmudic rabbi doing the analysis. Bt really, each of these devrit carry a utopia of vibrations highly reflective of the God-head and therefore capable of many different reflections, meanings, perspectives. The lines of Torah, each word, each white space…all resonate with that one-step-down (or up) feeling from God.

The boundaries and the refuge cities also carry many vibrations within their very meaning. They both precede the receiving of the Torah (one in Exodus and the other in Deuteronomy)…in a linear interpretation…and therefore it is worth mentioning. In trying to get to the intricacies of the refuge cities, the rabbis of Mishnah say that when death occurs in a downward movement, the slayer goes to a refuge city. In other words…in oh so real terms…the downward steps seem to continue probably right to the mouth of the earth.

Finally,Yitro (with his seven names) instructs Moses how to help others in a hierarchical manner. Moses is to delegate to people who (according to position) are to delegate to others. Yitro originally comes to the Israelites because of the power of Torah (Bab Talmud Zevachim 116a). In his advice he gets to demonstrate how Torah flows through him naturally. He actually advises Moses to apply this construct of steps or levels to the healing of the Israelite people.

And here’s the beauty of it all….Yitro’s advice is simply a widening of the kedushah…a vibrational watering-down if you like but the kedushah just the same…for earth-people…humans like us on our way to the Seraphim and to the skirts of God in the Isaiah vision.

So, may we open ourselves to the kedushah and therefore to the Torah in each other. . May we see that each state of being..,.from the refuge cities to the Holy mountain…is necessary for the whole picture. May we say the kedushah in our own form to the people we love, to those in our community. May we say it in heightened form when in prayer and in even more heightened form when we, as well, go to the mountain. May we heal each other as we move breath after breath to the kedusha beyond the kedushah…to the magnificent silence of God.