The love between Moses and Jethro didn’t seem to have a happy ending. But G-d has the last word, and the two men will play out the final act when the Messiah arrives and the sad times are over ...

The Torah then relates Moses’s meeting with Jethro, and how Moses told Jethro everything that happened to the Israelites during the Exodus from Egypt and what that happened with them since.

To be fair, Jethro does not tell Moses that his dispensation of justice is wrong. He just tells him that it is inefficient, enervating, and, while absolutely just, too undemocratic to succeed.

Jethro advising Moses, Jan van Bronchorst, 1659. (Wikimedia Commons) You are at the height of your powers, you have just redeemed a nation of slaves and transformed them into a new power feared ...

“And Jethro, the priest of Midian, Moses’ father-in-law, heard all that God had done for Moses and for Israel, His people, how the Lord had brought Israel out of Egypt” (Exodus 18:1). This ...

If anything, Jethro was a serious man with an impressive resume. The man who would become Moses’ father-in-law was a senior adviser to Pharoah, then he moved to become the high priest of Midian.

Jethro priest of Midian, Moses’ father-in-law, heard all that God had done for Moses and for Israel, God’s people, how י-ה-וה had brought Israel out from Egypt.