We read in yesterday's parsha:(18:1-5)’Yitro ..heard everything that G-d did to Moshe and to Israel, His people’, and ‘he came to Moshe..to the wilderness where he was encamped’.
Rashi asks:’What שמועה: tidings did Yitro hear, that led him to come to Moshe, in the wilderness’?
He answers:’The parting of the sea, and the battle with Amalek’.
Rav Yosef Salant asks:’The miraculous parting of the sea הרעיש: ‘made waves’ throughout the world, whereas the battle with Amalek cannot compare with it; true, Yehoshua weakened Amalek in this battle, but Amalek also killed some of Bnei Israel, in this battle.
‘If hearing of the parting of the sea did not lead Yitro to join Bnei Israel, why did hearing of the battle with Amalek, lead him to do so?’.
He answers:’Hashem brought Amalek to fight Israel, because they were still weak in Emunah. As Rashi comments: Despite all the miracles that they had seen Hashem perform for them, they still asked:’Is Hashem in our midst?’
Explains Rav Salant:’They had lingering doubts that perhaps all the miracles had been wrought, not by Hashem, but by Moshe, and his ‘enchanted’ staff.
‘Therefore Moshe removed himself, and his staff, from the battle against Amalek, and charged Yehoshua to lead the battle.
‘And they then ‘saw’ that when they lifted their hearts to Hashem, they were victorious; and, when they did not do so, Amalek was victorious!’.
Adds the Rav:’If Bnei Israel had these doubts, how much more so, did the other nations, who did not see the miracles that Bnei Israel had seen.
‘Therefore only upon hearing of the battle with Amalek, and that Moshe did not take part in it, did Yitro conclude that Hashem alone had performed all the earlier miracles, including the parting of the sea.
‘And, being a seeker of the truth, as our sages relate, Yitro immediately acted, and came to Moshe, to become part of the Only G-d’s People.
Rav Israel Salanter offers a different answer:’What moved Yitro was that he saw, that even
after the miraculous parting of the sea, which ‘shook’ the whole world, Amalek, in his wickedness, was still not ירא אלקים: in fear of Hashem.
‘He concluded that the effect of the even most powerful התעוררות: ‘awakening’, does not long endure.
Therefore, even though he was living separately from the people of Midian, who had removed him from his position of importance, and put him ‘in cherem’, Yotro concluded that he could not, as he had thought, remain in Midian and there serve Hashem, by not being in contact with the local population; but, that he had to physically join the Nation of Hashem, if he was to remain faithful to Hashem’.
And so Yitro came, and, say our sages, converted, and became part of Am Israel.
לרפואת נועם עליזה בת זהבה רבקה ונחום אלימלך רפאל בן זהבה רבקה, בתוך שאר חולי עמנו.