“You shall also seek out from among all the people capable men who fear God, trustworthy men who spurn ill-gotten gain. Set these (people) over them as chiefs of thousands, hundreds, fifties, and tens.” (Shemos 18:21)

I would like to share a story that happened to me many years ago. I was working as a shochet in a factory and because of my lack of experience, my ratio of treif to kosher was higher than the average shochet. The owner of the factory approached me and told me that I had to improve my numbers. I told the owner, “I am working here because a kashrus organization told me to, and if you have any complaints, you should speak to them. I will continue doing as I am doing.” After that conversation, I went directly to the kashrus organization, and asked, “Why is it that the owner has a right to speak to me? I work for you. I am your employee, and you pay my salary!” I was told to work around this quirk in the system. The organization continued the conversation by explaining how I should interact properly with the owner of the company.

I was quite taken aback by the reply, as I felt that this was not the way that a kashrus organization should work. At that point, I went to my father, my rebbe, and explained to him the predicament in which I found myself. He told me a piece of valuable advice: In many situations in life there will be problems that have to be dealt with. People are willing to listen to those who offer constructive ways to improve a situation. However, they will have little patience for those who only complain about it. At that point, I proceeded to explain to my father a system that could be put into place at the factory to avoid such a situation in the future.

Complaining doesn’t take much intelligence, but thinking of ways to improve a situation does. If people see that you are willing to help them overcome their difficulties, they will be much more receptive to the complaints that you have.

The section of the Torah that deals with Yisro giving advice to Moshe on how to run the court system within the Jewish nation is called the parsha of “Ata techeze” – you should seek these qualities. Rabbi Menachem Ziemba (Poland 1883-1943) points out that the name of the parsha should have been “נָבֹל תִּבֹּל” (you will certainly wear yourself out). He says the reason what it was called “ata techeze” is that we point to the positive statement on how to correct the problem, and not on the statement which honed in on the pre-existing problem.

At the end of the day, Yisro’s hierarchical structure was not such a novel idea. Why was he applauded for this? The answer given is that many times people who are involved in something do not see their own problems as something that is cumbersome. You need to have a third party looking in from the outside to see how cumbersome it really is. Yisro was applauded for seeing the issue.

When I was in elementary school, our class took a trip to a television broadcasting studio. I remember seeing a man sitting at a console, his chair mounted on poles with ball bearings so he could slide back and forth—about three yards—between different panels filled with buttons and gadgets. He moved effortlessly, operating everything needed to record and produce the show.

I asked our tour guide how anyone could possibly learn to run so much equipment at once. He smiled at me and said, “I have no idea.” Then he explained that everyone who worked there had started back when there was only a single console. As new equipment was added, they learned each piece, one at a time. “But no one,” he said, “has ever walked in and learned this whole setup as it exists today.”

I learned from that encounter two things: the first is that the people who are in the inside are able to work things out. And therefore, Moshe did not see any problem with how he was running the judicial system. I also learned how people on the outside find it extremely difficult to understand how things are working on the inside.

The lesson I would like to share with you is that sometimes you might see someone doing something that seems to you as very cumbersome and difficult. You think that there is an easier way. It is not enough to know if the quicker way is actually better. You must determine (before speaking to him) if the alternative way will actually work better for the person involved, because he might be better off keeping things as they are. As many of the commentators say, if Yisro had not given this advice, and Moshe would have continued judging as he did, this would have enabled all of Bnei Yisrael to remain in a position that was closer to Hashem (by going to Moshe for everything).