Parashat Yitro is named after Yitro, Moshe Rabbenu’s father-in-law, who had been an idolater and then decided to embrace Judaism and join the Jewish People. When he arrived, Moshe and the people greeted him with great respect, and them Moshe spoke with him, telling him את כל התלאה אשר מצאתם בדרך ויצילם ה' – “all the travails which they met along the way, and that G-d saved them.”
This is very surprising – Moshe told Yitro, a newcomer, who had just arrived to join the Jewish People, not just the miracles which Hashem performed for them, but also כל התלאה, all the trouble and hardships which the nation had endured along the way. If he wanted to excite Yitro, why would he tell him all this? Why put a damper on all the excitement by telling Yitro of all the difficulties Beneh Yisrael had been through?
Moshe here teaches us something very important about Jewish life.
Jewish life is not just about food coming from the sky, and water coming from the ground. It’s not just about miracles. Judaism is not meant to be easy!! Judaism is about growing, and the way we grow is through hard work, struggle, and challenges. There are no shortcuts!!
This is a mistake that a lot of people make. They think that Judaism gives us some kind of magical solution to all our problems, and a quick way to get what we want. They think Judaism is about getting a blessing from a great Rabbi, or praying at the right grave, or performing the right segulah, and just like that, we get exactly what we’re looking for.
But this isn’t true. Of course, there is value to receiving blessings from great Rabbis, praying at graves of tzadikim, and performing traditional segulot taught to us by our Rabbis. But in no way does any of that guarantee a smooth, easy life. Because Judaism is not about having a smooth, easy life. It’s about working hard, struggling, and overcoming challenges to become great.
Many people have the custom to recite פרשת המן, the section of the Torah that discusses the miraculous manna which fell from the heavens each morning in the desert, on the Tuesday before Shabbat Parashat Beshalah. Reciting פרשת המן at this time is considered a segulah for material success. This is certainly a beautiful practice, which I would never discourage. But let’s think about it. Can we imagine Hashem ever saying, “I had decided that so-and-so should not make any money this year, but since he read some pesukim on the Tuesday before Shabbat Parashat Beshalah, I’m going to make him rich!”?
Or, can we imagine Hashem saying, “So-and-so deserves a hard life, but since he started wearing a red string, I’m going to give him an easy, happy life”?
This is not how it works. Torah life is about praying, crying, learning, changing, growing. There are no shortcuts!
Nothing precious ever comes without hard work. Torah life is precious and beautiful – but we need to work for it. We should never look for shortcuts, or ever expect it to be easy.