“And Yisro heard” (Shemos 18:1)
RASHI says “What news did he hear to make him come? About the splitting of the Sea and the war against Amalek”

Yisro heard about these two miracles that happened for the Jews and decided to convert to Judaism. Many commentators point out that Yisro was not the only person that heard about these events; they were very well publicized. Although there was no CNN, news of these miracles traveled quickly and everyone knew about them. The question is obvious: why weren’t there millions of people wanting to convert to Judaism? Why was Yisro the only one that saw G-d is on the Jew’s side and run to become one of them? The unfortunate answer is that people can see clear and open miracles but not change one bit.

Last week, I heard two amazing stories regarding the situation in Eretz Yisroel. One is that a missile was fired at a school in Israel and landed in between two kindergarten classrooms. For some unexplainable reason, the missile did not explode and the classrooms were not harmed. The second story is about a troop of around 1000 soldiers. One night, the troop found an abandoned building to sleep in. In the morning, one of the soldiers walked outside and, in the morning light, he saw there was a wire on the ground. He followed it and found it was connected to explosives. The building was booby-trapped and should have killed or at least injured all of these soldiers. But for some unexplainable reason, it did not explode and all of the soldiers were safe.

Of course, it was not “some unexplainable reason” that these things happened. They were clearly miracles that G-d made.

How do we respond to hearing these stories? Do we just go on with our life like nothing that special happened or do we respond like Yisro did when he heard about clear miracles G-d performed? We need to increase our connection to spirituality. After hearing about the miracles that happened in Eretz Yisrael these past few weeks, our davening should be different. We should try to spend more time learning. We should take one mitzvah and make it more special. We should do something! We cannot just sit back and go on with life. G-d does not just perform miracles for Himself, but does them to inspire us. Let’s work on following the example that Yisro taught us about how to properly respond to seeing miracles!

Good Shabbos!
-yes
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