Avoiding a Victim Mentality: Yitro

This past Saturday night, many of us felt the weight of Jewish history. Images of emaciated hostages triggered every Holocaust memory we carry. That same night, I saw research confirming rising antisemitism among young Americans.

These moments—part of what feels like an endless cycle of escalating antisemitism—left me anxious: Will I always be able to keep my children safe?

When I feel this way, I think of a conversation I had last summer with my friend Dr. Tanya White on her brilliant podcast series about Rabbi Sacks’ key books. Our subject was Future Tense, a 2009 book in which Rabbi Sacks—who we both had as a teacher—argues that Jewish history in exile conditioned us to see ourselves as victims. But, pointing out Israel’s success and Jews flourishing in liberal democracies, he called for a new narrative—one that moves beyond fear of the non-Jewish world.

Tanya and I considered a question. While Future Tense reflects Rabbi Sacks’ faith that the non-Jewish world can resolve its own “Jewish problem,” he died before October 7. Do his words still hold, or are they bound to a world that no longer exists? Can we still hold that faith, or has history exposed it as mere naivete?

This week’s Torah portion, Yitro, goes to the heart of this question.

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Yitro (Jethro) contains the defining event in Jewish history: the revelation at Sinai, where the Israelites become a covenantal nation and receive the Ten Commandments.

Most years, I’ve been captivated by the theology of Sinai. But this year, I was struck by something else: What happens just before Sinai?

After leaving Egypt, the Israelites are pursued by their former masters. The sea splits, the Egyptian army drowns. Then they encounter Amalek—a people with nothing to gain, victimizing the weakest among the Israelites. Amalek embodies antisemitism at its worst—senseless, spineless, ever-present.

We often forget counter-histories—the what-ifs. Had Sinai come directly after the war with Amalek, Jewish identity might have been inextricably tied to victimhood, bound not only to God and each other but also to the permanence of Amalek’s hatred.

But before Sinai, something else happens. Yitro—Moses’s father-in-law, a Midianite priest, and a man of wisdom—arrives, bringing Moses’s wife, Tzipporah, and their children.1 Perhaps he came simply as a father-in-law reuniting his family. Some sages see him as a philo-Semite or a would-be convert. Others suggest he was—what we might call—a recovering antisemite, once aligned with Pharaoh and Amalek before choosing a different path

Yitro greets the Jews with admiration. More than that—he offers guidance to help them succeed. He sees Moses’s judicial system as unsustainable and advises reform. Moses listens, and the Jewish legal system is transformed.

The Torah portion that defines the covenant is named after a non-Jew—Yitro, perhaps the first non-Jewish ally. It represents an encounter with the outside world built on respect, learning, and cooperation. The lesson is powerful: before receiving the covenant that would define them, and after centuries of enslavement, the Jewish people are asked to remember not just Amalek’s enmity but also Yitro’s embrace.

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Recently, at a gathering on higher education, the conversation among my Jewish colleagues often, and naturally, turned to antisemitism. Then, in one session, one of the few non-Jewish speakers took the stage. His topic wasn’t antisemitism, but before diving in, he acknowledged the obvious: that Jews were feeling under attack, that antisemitism was rising, that it was a blight on the world, and that we had a shared responsibility to fight it. Without lingering, he moved to his main subject.

I doubt he thought he was doing anything special, but I fought back tears. Seeing a Yitro when our minds are consumed by Amalek—antisemitism, ever-present and amplified by social media—shifted something in me. I could breathe differently, see myself, my community, and the world with a wider lens. I felt more ready to engage with hard questions, to be self-critical, to consider concerns beyond my own. Even my view of antisemitism sharpened: I wasn’t just bracing against it. I was beginning to envision real strategies—not in isolation, but with allies.

Looking back, I realize this is what encountering a Yitro does: it expands our sense of possibility and deepens our covenantal promise. And, of course, that speaker wasn’t alone. Many non-Jews admire and support the Jewish people; even among young Americans, the vast majority hold favorable views. But fear narrows our vision, making us see only the hostile ones.

I can’t say for certain what Rabbi Sacks would make of this post-October 7th moment. But I believe he would urge us to do both: to confront antisemitism without illusions and to uplift those ready to stand with us. And more than that, he would remind us that to be a Jew is to never lose faith in our calling to heal a fractured world.

It is a lofty calling, one not yet fully realized. Until then, we carry both memories: Amalek’s enmity and Yitro’s embrace.