And Yisro told him the subject of dayanim, that he should institute judges. “Listen to my voice,” he said. “I’m going to counsel you. םָﬠָה לָּכƒמ ה∆ז¡חֽ∆ ̇ הָּ ַ̇‡¿ו לƒיַח י≈ׁ ̆¿נַ‡ – You should find from among the people men of worth, יםƒ ֹ̃ל¡‡ י≈‡¿רƒי – who fear Hashem, ̇∆מ¡‡ י≈ׁ ̆¿נַ‡ – men of truth, עַˆ∆ּב י≈‡¿נֹוׂ ̆ – who hate bribery, they hate gain, and you shall make them judges of the people.”
After that story, the sedrah moves on right away to Matan Torah, but this is how it started out. That’s our introduction to Matan Torah — judgments between the people, how a man should deal with his fellow man, that’s the beginning of the Torah.
Now we think that such a plain subject is not the way to begin the Torah. We think that Shabbos maybe, that would be a good introduction to Matan Torah. No; Shabbos is very important but Shabbos has nothing to do with dealing with your neighbor. Kashrus is also very important, but kashrus usually has nothing to do with a bothersome neighbor. A lot of important things could have been our introduction to Kabolas HaTorah, but now you see that it’s not so. You see the Torah began with a preface of judging between people, making peace between people.
Later in the sedrah, it describes how Hashem came down on Har Sinai b’kolos u’vrakim and He gave a Torah; but the last thing before that was this subject of bein adam l’chaveiro. And it’s not an accident that it happened this way. The Torah is teaching us something very important here.
