Sequencing, or putting items in proper order, is a skill that children begin working on at a preschool level and work their way up to more complex sequencing. Younger students can begin by taking pictures or statements of given related tasks and putting them into the proper order. Older students can be asked to identify the tasks for a given project or series of events in the order in which they happen. They can also be asked to break down a task into individual, minute steps, which may ordinarily be overlooked or assumed.
A basic, younger level example is having pictures of (pictured not necessarily in proper order)
- a child waking up in the morning
- a child being dropped of at school
- a child learning or eating in school with other students
- a child coming back home from school
- a child getting into pajamas
Students can be asked to cut out these 5 pictures and paste them onto a chart numbered 1-5 in order.
Another, similar level example would be pictures of
- a child taking out ingredients to make a sandwich
- a child setting up the food to make a sandwich
- a child assembling the sandwich
- a child eating the sandwich
There are many examples of such picture sequencing projects. As students become more proficient, they can handle a series of pictures that involve more pictures or pictures that require more careful scrutiny in order to identify the proper order. A more complex example for elementary students might be 3 pictures of a child eating, but cues on the table, a clock in the background, or sun and lighting positioning through a window could indicate how to identify breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Older students (grades 5-8 and older) can be given a task and asked to break it down into steps themselves. How can you give someone step by step instructions for making a sandwich? For getting ready to go to school? For your daily schedule? Remembering that the minute details are all important is key to the complete picture of the task. Often the clues to proper sequence are found in the minute details.
In this week's parsha, we are given a series of events that happened over a period of time. According to the order in which they are presented in the parsha:
- Yitro brings Tzipporah, Gershom, and Eliezer into the desert to rejoin Moshe
- Yitro brings olah and peace offerings and eats with Aaron and the elders of Israel
- Moshe judges the Israelites in disputes and matters that require judgement & Yitro advises him to appoint elders as judges over segments of the population
- In the 3rd month after the exodus from Egypt, the Israelites arrived in the wilderness & Moshe speaks with Hashem
- Hashem directs Moshe to give the people 3 days to prepare for receiving the Torah
- Moshe directs the Israelites to prepare for receiving the Torah
- Hashem speaks to Moshe
- Moshe relays 10 commandments to the people
Understood at face value, it would appear that if we wanted to put these events on a timeline, the events with Yitro, Moshe and family would be placed within the first 3 months after the exodus from Egypt. They appear to have happened after the exodus, but before the Israelites arrive in the wilderness to prepare for receiving the Torah.
Rashi, in response to Shemot 18:13, explains that it's not possible that Moshe sat in judgement for the Israelites before they received the Torah- how could he judge for them before they received laws and statutes by which to live? This sequence doesn't make sense, logically. (The details are key!) This means that, minimally, the order of events of the parsha should actually be:
- Yitro brings Tzipporah, Gershom, and Eliezer into the desert to rejoin Moshe
- Yitro brings olah and peace offerings and eats with Aaron and the elders of Israel
- In the 3rd month after the exodus from Egypt, the Israelites arrived in the wilderness & Moshe speaks with Hashem
- Hashem directs Moshe to give the people 3 days to prepare for receiving the Torah
- Moshe directs the Israelites to prepare for receiving the Torah
- Hashem speaks to Moshe
- Moshe relays 10 commandments to the people
- Moshe judges the Israelites in disputes and matters that require judgement & Yitro advises him to appoint elders as judges over segments of the population (note that this event had originally been 3rd in the list)
Rashi also makes reference to the gemara in Avodah Zarah 24a and Zevachim 116a where there is a dispute as to whether the entire section with the events involving Yitro actually took place after the Israelites received the Torah. If that were the case, than rather than the interpretation above, the actual sequencing of events would have been:
- In the 3rd month after the exodus from Egypt, the Israelites arrived in the wilderness & Moshe speaks with Hashem
- Hashem directs Moshe to give the people 3 days to prepare for receiving the Torah
- Moshe directs the Israelites to prepare for receiving the Torah
- Hashem speaks to Moshe
- Moshe relays 10 commandments to the people
- Yitro brings Tzipporah, Gershom, and Eliezer into the desert to rejoin Moshe
- Yitro brings olah and peace offerings and eats with Aaron and the elders of Israel
- Moshe judges the Israelites in disputes and matters that require judgement & Yitro advises him to appoint elders as judges over segments of the population (note that these 3 events had originally been the first 3 events in the list)
In actuality, these events would not even just be moved to the end of the parsha to be put in proper sequence. What follows in the next parshas are itemizations of laws that were given from Hashem to Moshe- the laws that were given before Moshe was able to sit in judgement for the people. So these events would, according to sequence, be moved much farther back, possibly to the end of the book of Shemot, or even to a different book, if we were to look at proper timeline sequencing alone.
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