| |
 |
|
|
|
Yitro 3 "And Yisro heard..." (18:1). What did Yisro hear? Our Sages teach us that the two deciding factors that made Yisro decide to convert to Judaism were the splitting of the sea, and the subsequent attack on the Jewish People by the Amaleki. One can understand why the splitting of the sea (in which the lowliest maidservant experienced a greater revelation than the prophet Yechezkel) should have been a powerful incentive to join the Jewish People, but why was the attack by Amalek so persuasive? After the end of the Second World War, there were several well-known London celebrities, hitherto `religious' atheists, who, when hearing of the chilling and overwhelming cruelty of Hitler and his accomplices (y"s), began to believe in Hashem _ they understood that superficially civilised behaviour, devoid of active faith, can sink to depths of bestiality and savagery far lower than the cruellest predatory animal. Our Sages teach us that this is what Yisro heard. He heard that Amalek, even after hearing of a miracle on the unheard of scale of the splitting of the Sea, could, without hesitation, come out to fight against Am Yisrael. When he heard that such a thing was possible, Yisro realised that if he did not convert, he himself ran the risk of becoming the thing he most loathed. Hearing that does not lead to action _ intellectual mind-games, not rooted in a practical expression of faith, can lead to unspeakable atrocities....(Adapted from Lev Eliyahu in Chochmas HaMatzpun) For by the very thing in which they sinned was punishment brought upon them (Exodus 18:11) A person's punishment is determined by his own judgement of others: When a Jew sees someone transgressing and immediately "sentences" that person in his heart, he is thereby fixing his own sentence, as the sin most certainly exists in him as well. (Baal Shem Tov) "They travelled from Refidim...and Yisrael camped opposite the mountain." (19:2) Based on the fact that the word 'camped' is singular in number, Chazal say that the Jews arrived at Har Sinai united as one. How did this come about? R' Mordechai Shulman zt'zl explains that it was the result of travelling from Refidim. That was where the Jews had been attacked by Amalek, as punishment for loosening their grip on Torah. They learned there that if some Jews are lax in Torah, the whole nation suffers. In turn, they recognized the concept of "Arevut" - mutual responsibility for one another-and this united them. (quoted in Legacy of Slabodka) "Israel camped there . . ." (19:2) Rashi writes that the verb "camped" is written in the singular to indicate the unity of the Jewish people when they arrived at Har Sinai. Added Rav Naftali of Ropshitz z"l: Such unity was possible only before the Torah was given, for after the Torah was given, each person thinks only he knows the right way to serve G-d. "And all the people answered simultaneously . . ." (19:8) It's a good thing, said Rav Moshe Amiel (Chief Rabbi of Antwerp and Tel Aviv), for if one person had been first to say, "We will do," another certainly would have said, "We will not do." "You shall make Me an earthen altar..." (20:21) When you approach Me, says G-d, don't try to drag spirituality down to your level. Rather, raise the earth to where it can be an altar to Me. (R' S.R. Hirsch) |
