Session 6: Parashat Yitro

The Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson, 1776

One of the biggest challenges of our recent political moment is how America confronts its history. When The New York Times published the 1619 Project, it inspired and offended equal numbers of Americans, a polarity exacerbated when President Trump established The 1776 Commission. The former effort sought to grapple with the country’s history of oppression of minority populations, while the latter sought to minimize those issues in favor of a central narrative of exceptionalism and greatness.

The Jewish core narrative at Sinai contains a similar tension. We tell ourselves that we all stood together, but as Judith Plaskow pointed out long ago, the text clearly marginalizes women. This obvious problem opens a question about how communities grapple with difficult truths from the past.

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