|
1) Real Leadership Means Seeing Who You Are Leading - (even if they are just worried about their cows)
What was Moshe teaching before Matan Torah? The pasuk describes him working from dawn to dusk, judging and teaching relentlessly. Yisro even warns him: "Naval tivol", you'll collapse under this burden. But if this occurs before Sinai, before the mitzvos were given, what exactly was Moshe sharing with Bnei Yisrael that consumed every waking hour?! Perhaps it was something more than divine wisdom that he was offering.
Rav Amital –– recounted in R’ Moshe Taragin’s recent sefer on his rebbe –– offers a terrific insight with a Chasidic tale, and then with a real story of R’ Moshe Feinstein, zt”l: the Gadol HaDor spent an entire hour with a woman whose only request was help translating a letter from Russian relatives. The shamash was shocked – why would Rav Moshe dedicate precious time to such a mundane task? Because, Rav Amital explains, she didn't come for translation –– she came for connection! True gedolim, real leaders, understand that people seek presence, not just solutions.
This should transform our understanding of leadership entirely. Moshe was doing more than just transmitting information –– he was creating bonds of trust and connection that would sustain the nation through revelation. The lesson: sometimes complaining about "cow with a headache" (see the Chassidic tale inside) is just a pretext. The real avodah is showing up, being present, and recognizing that human connection itself is sacred work.
Every person must ask: Who needs my attention? I may not have all the answers that people seek. But who needs my love, my warmth, may care?
2) The Thrill of a Lifetime
In a truly compelling (and, to me, startling) drasha on the reunion between Moshe and Yisro, Rabbi Lamm zt”l argues that the "thrill of a lifetime" isn't found in power or conquest, but in the shocking discovery of a leader who has completely "subdued his ego". While Yisro expects to meet a "haughty son-in-law" intoxicated by the success of Yetzias Mitzrayim, he instead finds a man so "unselfconscious" that he credits every miracle to God and the community rather than himself. Rabbi Lamm challenges us to achieve this same "thrill" through gemilas chasadim — acts of kindness so "weaned" and clean from egotism that they are performed without a single thought of self-interest. It is a real meditation on the paradox of greatness: that "the more you forget yourself, the more you will find the real and enduring value of yourself".
3) The Sound of Silence at Sinai
The midrash describes total silence at Matan Torah before Hashem's voice emerged: "Ani Hashem Elokecha." Why emphasize the silence? Wasn't the dramatic theophany – thunder, lightning, the mountain ablaze – enough to create the setting for revelation?
In his book, Mindfulness, Dr. Jonathan Feiner quotes from Rabbi Shimshon Pincus z”l, who offers a great insight: The silence wasn't just “absence of noise.” It was the essential machshavah for the moment –– when there is total silence, a preexisting truth can come forward. In other words, we must sometimes close our ears to hear the truth. This explains why so many tzaddikim were shepherds (Hevel, the Avos, Shivtei Yisrael, Moshe Rabbeinu). Rabbeinu Bachya notes that solitude creates space not just for hearing external truth, but for hearing oneself –– gaining a deeper understanding of priorities and identity.
The midrash teaches that Torah was given as white fire inscribed with black fire. The white fire –– the space between words –– is as essential as the words themselves. Rav Moshe Shapiro zt”l explained that a student, recording his shiurim, once used a recorder that would skip silent moments. He insisted that those pauses remain: "The pauses allow the teachings to be internalized." In our rushed world where we race from task to response to opinion, Parshas Yisro can be a stark reminder: Sometimes the most profound Torah emerges not from more words, but from the sacred silence between them.
4) See Last Year’s Chomer Here.
| 
