Who is Your Jethro?

Sometimes it takes an outsider to show us what we cannot see from inside our own exhaustion.

In this week’s portion, Parashat Yitro, Moses is doing everything himself. The people stand around him “from morning until evening.” He is answering every question, carrying every dispute, holding the entire community on his shoulders.

And his father-in-law sees what Moses cannot.

Yitro (Jethro) tells him:

What you are doing is not good.
You will surely wear yourself out — both you and these people with you.
For the task is too heavy for you;
you cannot do it alone.
(Exodus 18:17–18)

Moses isn’t weak. He’s responsible. He cares. That’s precisely why he’s drowning. And that is why he needs a Jethro.

A Jethro is someone just outside the swirl of our stress. Someone who sees the cost we’re pretending isn’t there. Someone close enough that we trust them. Someone honest enough to tell us the truth.

But most of us do not lack Jethros. We lack the willingness to hear them.

We tell ourselves we don’t have time. We tell ourselves it’s easier to just do it alone. We tell ourselves we’ll rest later, delegate later, ask later. And sometimes we don’t even realize how overwhelmed we’ve become until someone else names it.

Maybe that’s the deeper invitation of this week.

Not just to ask, “Who is my Jethro?” But to cultivate the humility to receive one. And the courage to seek one before we are at the breaking point.

Because help is often closer than we think. There are people willing to share the burden. People willing to step in. People who see us more clearly than we see ourselves.

Moses listened. He shared the work. And the community did not weaken — it became stronger.

Perhaps the wisdom of Yitro is not just about leadership structure. Perhaps it is about the quiet spiritual discipline of not carrying what was never meant to be carried alone.

,שבת שלום

Student Rabbi Ben