The Ishbitzer in Mei haShiloach
explains that this parsha is an introduction to what Torah is all about. Yisro worshipped every avodah zarah in the
world -- he was a priest to avodah zarah!
And still, Yisro was drawn to Torah.
There is no tumah that is so strong that it can prevent a kabbalas
haTorah if a person wants to receive it.
Those last words are key -- a person
has to want to make a kabbalah. The
gemara says that when Moshe went up to get the Torah the angels put up a
protest and did not want Torah to be given to mankind. Hashem told Moshe that he should answer
them. The Maharal (Derush al haTorah)
asks why Hashem told Moshe to answer the angels – why didn’t Hashem himself
intervene and give them an answer? After
all, it was Hashem who decided that he was going to give his Torah to the
Jewish people! The Maharal answers (and
this is a good vort to keep in mind for Shavuos) that G-d’s giving the Torah to
mankind instead of angels is predicated on mankind wanting the Torah. The desire for Torah has to come from within
us and be expressed by us – it has to be our answer, not something G-d can
thrust upon us.
According to one view in Chazal it
was hearing about the splitting of Yam Suf that drew Yisro to Klal
Yisrael. What was it about this event in
particular that caught Yisro’s attention?
The Beis Ya’akov explains that kri’as Yam Suf revealed something significant. Hashem created the world with
boundaries. We read in Parshas Braishis
how Hashem divided the land from the sea so that the oceans stay in their place
and the land exists in its place. There
are boundaries as well between people and between nations. Klal Yisrael is distinct from the rest of the
world and has a relationship with Hashem like no other people. Kri’as Yam Suf revealed that those boundaries
are not absolute -- what was once a sea can become dry land. If so, reasoned Yisro, the boundary between
himself – an outsider, a foreigner -- and Klal Yisrael could be overcome as
well.
This same message is also reflected in
the other view that holds that Yisro came because he heard about the battle
with Amalek. As we discussed last week,
when Moshe lifted his hands and caused Bnei Yisrael to look up in tefillah, the
tide of battle turned in their favor. Picture
the two armies of Bnei Yisrael and Amalek deadlocked in battle, each bound by
the limits of their own efforts and own strength. Suddenly, the people see Moshe’s hands raised,
they turn to Hashem, and they break through the enemy lines. The boundaries that had been there before,
whether the boundaries of the enemy lines, whether the limits of their own
ability, were no more. Again, boundaries are not absolute. With enough will and enough tefilah, they can
be broken.
I didn’t see it in the Beis Ya’akov
(I didn’t go through all the pieces), but perhaps this is why the Torah prefaces
mattan Torah with the story of Yisro. What greater boundary exists than the
boundary between heaven and earth? This
was the angels complaint – how could a heavenly Torah be sent down to
earth? And irony of ironies, the parsha of
mattan Torah itself stresses that the people had to remain in the boundaries
set aside for them, distant from the mountain, to obey the mitzvah of
hagbalah. We therefore need to first
read about kri’as Yam Suf, the battle with Amalek, the coming of Yisro, to appreciate
that not all boundaries are absolute – moral Moshe can go up to shamayim,
Hashem can come down to har Sinai, and human beings, with all our frailties,
can receive a Torah as well.
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