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Awaken Your Jewish Spirituality - On Becoming a Spiritual Manager- Parsha Yitro

918 views · Published 29 January 2018 · 2:10 · Indexed 22 September 2026

Channel: Spiritgrow · 2018 · Education

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Yitro (Shabbat - Sat. 3th February – 18th Shevat) 
Laibl's Weekly Parsha Video

On Becoming a Spiritual Manager

SUMMARY: Life needs to be guided by values and principles.   But all too often their implementation into one’s life, and into the world, fails because of management shortcomings.  Each one of us must become a good manager of our time, disciplines, and people, to ensure that the values see the light of day and don’t just remain abstract truths. 

Notes:
Have you noticed that most wisdom books, spiritual texts, and religious treatises, rarely discuss the mundane issue of personal management.  They deal with the ‘big’ questions of life, advising life goals and insights, but rarely prescribe ways undertake self-change to achieve the highly desirable ends.

The Torah is no exception. But the Torah describes an active partnership between G-d and the Jewish people and therefore the principles of life and the actions that bring about world change – Mitzvot – are spelled out, and there is a clear expectation that we organize our life and manage our time to implement these life principles. 

Yet there is a remarkable exception noted in this week’s Parsha. Moses’ father in law, a convert to Judaism, audaciously tells Moses that he has not read enough of Steven Covey or Peter Drucker or Peter Senge – that his management approach is all wrong. And remarkably, Moses listens and implements administrative changes in the execution of the judiciary and administration of justice and mediation. 

We learn a number of lessons from this.  Firstly, it demonstrates again Moses’ humility and open mindedness coupled with a preparedness to be fully pragmatic on how to best implement the Torah.  Secondly, it informs us that there are wisdoms in the world that even an enlightened Jewish nation can gain. And this is especially so in areas that the Torah is often silent - viz. the how to carry out the what.

 So don’t just espouse values alone – be prepared to be a good manager of their execution into the world.

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