5783 - "And Yisro heard." What report did he hear that made him come? Rashi: "The splitting of the Reed Sea and the war with Amalek." Why specifically these two miracles? Rabbi Shimon Zonnenfeld with a wonderful insight on the parsha,…

00:00 Speaker 1 Rabbi Sonnenfeld, please.

00:01 Speaker 2 “And Yisro, the priest of Midian, Moshe’s father-in-law, heard.” Rashi immediately asks there: What did he hear that made him come? Rashi answers: the splitting of the Sea and the war with Amalek. But a question arises: the verse says, “All that Hashem had done for Moshe and for Israel.” It says so explicitly in the verse. So what is Rashi asking—what did he hear that made him come? It’s written in the verse.

00:32 Speaker 1 The beginning of the verse, right.

00:35 Speaker 2 The verse spells out exactly what he heard. So what does Rashi mean by asking, “What did he hear that made him come?” The emphasis is on what he heard that made him come. What brought him to Moshe Rabbeinu? What brought him to receive the Torah? He could have stayed where he was, with all the honor in the world, and studied Torah—after all, he had converted. What brought him into the desert, to Moshe Rabbeinu? What did he hear that made him come? To this Rashi answers: the war—the splitting of the Sea and the war with Amalek. What does that mean? There were other miracles. All the plagues that Pharaoh suffered were miracles too. Why were these two things what brought Yisro into the desert, to Moshe Rabbeinu? At the splitting of the Sea, the result was: “Then the chiefs of Edom were terrified; the mighty men of Moav were seized with trembling; all the inhabitants of Canaan melted away. Terror and dread fell upon them.” The entire world trembled when the Sea split, because all the waters in the world split. It affected the entire world. A maidservant saw at the Sea what Yechezkel did not see in the vision of the Divine Chariot. There was such a revelation of G-dliness at the splitting of the Sea that it affected the entire world. And after such a revelation of G-dliness, there could still be a war with Amalek. Amalek came and fought—the whole world had been affected, yet Amalek came and fought Israel. How could such a thing happen? That’s what Yisro said. What did he hear that made him come? When he heard about the war—the splitting of the Sea and the war with Amalek—that after all the revelations at the splitting of the Sea, Amalek could still come and fight Israel, he realized that apparently you have to go into the desert, to Moshe Rabbeinu. You have to connect yourself to Moshe Rabbeinu. You have to travel to the Rebbe, right? Because otherwise, even with all the revelations you’ve experienced, Amalek can still come afterward. So what did he hear that made him come? The splitting of the Sea

02:46 Speaker 2 and the war with Amalek. In other words, you have to come to the Rebbe. You have to travel to the Rebbe.