Why Moses Sent Jethro Away Before the Third Month at Sinai

"In the third month" (Exodus 19:1). What is written above on this matter? The portion of Jethro, in which he taught Moses: "And you shall provide out of all the people" (Exodus 18:21), and afterward, "And Moses sent away his father-in-law" (ibid. 18:27), and afterward, "In the third month." Solomon said: "The heart knows the bitterness of its own soul" (Proverbs 14:10), and therefore "and with its joy no stranger shall mingle" (ibid.). The Holy One, blessed be He, said: My children were enslaved with mortar and bricks, while Jethro was sitting within his house in tranquility, and he comes to behold the joy of the Torah together with My children? Therefore, "And Moses sent away his father-in-law," and afterward, "In the third month." Why so? Moses expounded a kal va-chomer (an argument from the lesser to the greater): If, in the case of one commandment, when the Holy One, blessed be He, came to give the commandment of the Passover, the Torah said, "No alien shall eat of it" (Exodus 12:43) — then concerning the six hundred and thirteen commandments which He desires to give to Israel, shall Jethro be here and behold them? Therefore, "And Moses sent away his father-in-law," and afterward, "In the third month." Why "in the third month," and not in the second month, nor in the seventh month, nor in another month? Our Rabbis said: Rabbi Oshaya said: Rabbi Chiyya the Great taught me: A female convert, a female captive, and a freed bondwoman may neither marry nor be betrothed until three months. So too Israel were called converts, as it is said, "for you were strangers in the land of Egypt" (Leviticus 19:34); captives, as it is said, "and they shall take captive those who took them captive" (Isaiah 14:2); freed slaves, as it is said, "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, from being their slaves" (Leviticus 26:13). The Holy One, blessed be He, said: I will wait for them three months, and afterward I will give them the Torah.