The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves Moses's answer to Jethro's probing question: "When they have a matter for judgment, they come to me, and I judge between a man and his fellow, and make them to know the statutes and the law of the Lord" (Exodus 18:16).
The Aramaic splits the work into two distinct functions. First, judging — resolving disputes "between a man and his fellow." Second, teaching — "making them to know the statutes and the law of the Lord." Moses was trying to do both at once for every case.
This is a remarkable self-description. Every dispute was also a teaching moment. Every teaching was also a ruling. Moses could not separate the two because, in his mind, Israel was still learning what covenantal law even was. The Aseret haDibrot — the Ten Commandments — had not yet been given. The people were operating on pre-Sinai inherited tradition and case-by-case revelation.
But Jethro, listening, would see the flaw. No one person can simultaneously be a court of first instance, a court of appeals, and a national school. Moses was heroic but structurally overloaded.
The takeaway: when the same person handles every case, the teaching slowly disappears because there is no time for it. Systems of justice and systems of learning need to be protected from each other.