Yisro, Moshe Rabbeinu's father-in-law, merited that a parsha of the Torah was called by his name. Why? What did he do that was so special?
From the very beginning of the parsha we can get a small glimpse into Yisro’s greatness. Yisro heard, the Torah said...Yisro heard and acted..
What did he hear? Milchemes Amalek verias yam suf. Two things... He had heard of our battle with the nation of Amalek, the forerunner of all evil in this world and the miracle of our victory therein. And the splitting of the sea. Yisro immediately left his homeland to come and give the children of Israel chizuk.
In the piece immediately preceding parshas Yisro, the Torah speaks of the sins of Amalek, it uses the phrase “asher karcha baderech...” to describe them. They cooled you off. Everyone was afraid to hurt us, to start up with the holy nation of Israel. After all, our G-d was obviously omnipotent. Everyone that is, except for one startup nation, Amalek.
Hell-bent on our destruction, they knew that if they started up with us, that would show the world that we were not a holy and protected nation anymore...They literally cooled the world off. They created the space for the whole world to live in denial of Hashem's greatness, and made it fashionable to hate Jews. Sound familiar?
Contrast this with Yisro’s behavior... He heard of our travails, our journeys, our G-d. And he came to bring warmth and show adulation. He wasted no time once he arrived. Building us up with his knowledge, his experience. and his passion and advice. This is what being Jewish is all about.
He got it... This is the whole Torah, as Rabbi Akiva says. Ve'ahavta le reacha kamocha. Be concerned. Care about the community... Don’t live life halfway. We must love each other. Not only act as if we care...but truly try to kill the deadly cells of apathy we are inclined to feel sometimes.
In fact as the commentaries point out, that since the Torah is given in Parshas Yisro – wouldn’t it have made more sense to call it the parsha of Kabbalas HaTorah?
But no...Yisro symbolized what the Torah is all about. His behavior encapsulated the reason we received our holy mandate. His warmth, his chizuk, his love for our nation was overflowing. He could not stay home. We too must fulfill the spirit of the Torah by following in Yisro’s path and forging close relationships. It’s our job as parents to notice the good in our children and build them up. Parenting is not a spectator sport. We have to not be embarrassed to love, appreciate and cherish our spouses.
Let’s start appreciating the characteristics that we were born with. Yisro as a ger chose our nation. Let’s start choosing us too. Let’s choose to see all the positives about our community. Every day we have the opportunity to choose again. We can choose to see the positive in our children or continue pointing out the negative. We can choose to be happy to be grateful that we have a spouse, a family or we can shut down our feelings because we think it is the manly or socially correct thing to do.
Let’s choose warmth and vulnerability. Let’s learn from Yisro. Let’s choose achdus and positivity, and only good news will result!
