Parshas Yisro - Parsha Stumpers and Something to Think About

פרשת יתרו

Parsha Stumpers and Something to Think About

1. What did Yisro hear that no one else did?
2. According to the one who holds that Yisro was attracted by the fact that B'nei Yisroel won the 
   
   
   war against Amalek, what was so special about it? Granted they were untrained, but still the 
   
   
   B'nei Yisroel had an army of 600,000 men between 20 and 60. Certainly it couldn't have been 
   
   
   
   
   such a tremendous surprise that they won.
   
   
   
   
3. Rashi writes that Yisro had 7 names. One of them was Yeser – which became Yisro after he 
   
   
   
   
   converted. If so, didn't Yisro really only have 6 names at any given time?
   
   
4. Yisro came over to Moshe and asked “What are you doing?” Moshe responded, “Judging the 
   
   
   people and helping them with their questions.” Yisro then clarified and said that he meant why is
   
   
   Moshe the only one judging instead of creating a system of ranks where more people could be 
   
   
   
   
   helped at a time. What was this conversation between Moshe and Yisro? And why didn't Moshe 
   
   
   
   
   think of this himself?
   
   
   
   
5. When describing Moshe's two sons the Torah writes “Shem Ha'echad Gershom...” and “Shem 
   
   
   Ha'echad Eliezer...” The Torah refers to them both as “The first” even though Gershom was 
   
   
   older because Eliezer was named for an earlier event that Moshe experienced. What is the 
   
   
   significance behind each of their names? And why did Moshe name his first son for a later 
   
   
   event and his second son for the earlier one?

6. The Aseres Hadibros are a Pangrammatic Lipogram (consists of all the letters in Hebrew Aleph 
   
   
   Beis except for one). Which letter is missing? Why?

7. The Aseres Hadibros in this week's parsha are slightly different from the ones found in Parshas 
   
   
   Va'eschnan. What are the differences? Why are there differences?