PARSHA-PIX Parshat Yitro

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Parsha Pix
Lots of graphic images to get your children and/or Shabbat guests into the Parshat HaShavua mode and mood.
Upper-left is the hearing ear of VAYISHMA YITRO, and Yitro heard. You can ask and/or answer the famous question, what did he hear that brought him to Judaism. And you can add another meaning to the hearing ear by relating it to what Bnei Yisrael heard at Sinai. And what they saw, which is usually heard. This refers to the statement that they saw the thunder and lightning. Does that mean that they saw thunder also, or does it just mean that one verb is sometimes used for two objects, where the verb is appropriate only for one. It is okay in English, for example, to say that they saw the thunder and lightning, rather than saying they saw the lightning and heard the thunder, or they saw and heard the thunder and lightning. Each of the last two sentences are clumsy, compared to They saw the thunder and lightning. This figure of speech is known as a zeugma. Or maybe, they did see the thunder! The people experienced things that did not follow the usual laws of nature. It is very possible that each of the senses was opened up to ranges of stimuli that in "normal" life cannot be experienced. Just as an example: normally, our sense of sight is stimulated by a range of electromagnetic radiation that ranges from red to violet. We cannot see infra-red or ultra-violet "light". But if the peoples' sense of sight was increased to include IR and UV, then they would see it. And the expansion of range can include things that we call sound, because we hear them (and cannot see them). Sorry. Got carried away. Hope you got something out of that explanation.
B"H in upper right iway said by Yitro when he heard all the things that G-d had done for Israel. From that we are taught that one makes a bracha on miracles.
The scales represent the justice system, Yitro's suggestions, Moshe's response, etc.
One of the outcomes of Yitro's advice was the assignment of "captains" of groups of 1000, 100, 50, and 10 - represented by the Roman numerals M,C,L,X.
When Bnei Yisrael arrived at Har Sinai, they displayed a unity that is captured by the word VAYICHAN, and as Rashi puts it, we were like one person with one heart. That's the graphic under the ear.
The Shofar is one of the symbols of the Sinai experience, as we more than mention on Rosh HaShana.
The washing machine is for the people to clean their clothes during the preparatory days for Matan Torah.
Wine cup is for Kiddush (ZACHOR) and the negation circle is for the prohibition of Melacha, including writing, watering plants, digging, sewing, building.
Do not steal (the Xed out thief) and do not go up to the Mizbei'ach with steps (the negated ladder) are two other prohibitions in the sedra.
The volcano represents Har Sinai all smoking from the fire of G-d’s presence “upon” it.
The tongs are from the haftara. An angel flew to the Heavenly Mizbei'ach and picked up a glowing coal in a pair of tongs. He then touched the coal to Yeshayahu's lips, representing a purifying process that would allow the prophet to speak on behalf of G-d.
The MEM SOFIT, which is better called a "Closed" MEM, appears in the haftara in the middle of a word, rather than at the end, where we are used to seeing that kind of MEM. Not a bad idea to point it out to the Maftir in your shul before he reads the haftara, so he won't mistakenly read it as a SAMACH.

TTRIDDLES...
are Torah Tidbits-style riddles on Parshat HaShavua (sometimes on the calendar). They are found in the hard-copy of TT scattered throughout, usually at the bottom of different columns. In the electronic versions of TT, they are found all together at the end of the ParshaPix-TTriddles section. Some TTriddles are alsopresentedforcall-insolutiononTorahTidbitsAudio(Arutz-7,Thursday night). The best solution set submitted each week (there isn't always a best) wins a double prize a CD from Noam Productions and/or a gift (game, puzzle, book, etc.) from Big Deal

Last issue’s (B'SHALACH) TTriddles:
[1] Buttermilk & Dale
[2] What does it come before in B'shalach and in Avot?
[3] ALEF & HEI for them; VAV for her
[4] Avraham (2), Lavan, Moshe, and whom?
[5] Dov's Zeta & 80
[6] Population promise & Egyptian morgue

And the envelope, please...
[1] For those of a certain age and background, who grew up with the TV Westerns of the 50s and 60s, and those who are trivia-philes, this was an easy TTriddle. Besides Dale Carnegie, the other famous Dale was Dale Evans, wife and companion of Roy Rogers. Who's he, you ask? Then forget about Buttermilk and Dale. Roy's horsewas Trigger, their dog was Bullet, their sidekick was Pat Butram who rode the jeep named Nellie Bell while Roy and Dale rode their horses. Dale's horse was Buttermilk. And the TTriddle is a reference to the main image of the aftermath of the Splitting of the Sea, an image that is part of the song of Moshe and Bnei Yisraelas well as Miriam's addition. SUS V'RO-CH'VO... Horse and rider He (G-d) cast into the sea. (The TTriddle could have been Champion & Gene, Topper & Hop-along, Silver and the Lone, Scout & Tonto, Tornado & Zorro, Joker & Jingles... or - Whirlaway or Citation and Eddie (Arcaro, the only jockey to win two Triple Crowns).
[2] Apologies for the typo in the posing of this TTriddle. Nonetheless, it was solved by some solvers. "It" refers to DERECH ERETZ, which comes before P'LISHTIM in B'shalach and, as is well-known, before TORAH, in the famous saying from Pirkei Avot.
[3] The beginning of the song sung by Moshe and Bnei Yisrael (them) is ASHIRA LASHEM, I will sing to G-d... That's the word SHIR with an ALEF (before it) and a HEI (after it). When Miriam (her) takes the women and adds her song, She says SHIRU LASHEM... that's the word SHIR with a VAV (after it).
The first three TTriddles were solved, more than once each.
[4] Even though the TTriddle said AVRAHAM (2), it should have said AVRAM, AVRAHAM, as you will soon see. The question MA ZOT ASITA... what have you done? is posed four times in Chumash, and one additional time in the Booklet of Yona. Par'o asks Avram what he did by not telling him that Sara was his wife. Avimelech asksthe same question of Avraham on their second famine driven flight. Yaakov asks it of Lavan, following the Leah-Rachel switch. And in B'shalach, the people (when they saw Egypt pursuing them) ask of Moshe, what did you do by taking us out of Egypt. Yona's shipmates ask it of him when they determine that he is the causeof their being stuck at sea with deadly weather conditions and an inability to reach shore. There are four additional occurrences of MA ZOT with a form of ASA. G-d asks Chava, MA ZOT ASIT (eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil). Yosef's brothers ask what G-d has done to them, MA ZOT ASA ELOKIM... Par'o andhis servants wonder what they had done by letting the Israelites go (also in B'shalach). Some time after Yehoshua's death, an angel of G-d asks the people what have they done... in not keeping the covenant with G-d. Interestingly, there is only one other occurrence of the phrase MA ZOT in Tanach, the only one of 10 notfollowed by some form of ASA. It is a pasuk made fsmous by the Pesach Hagada. When your child will ask you on the morrow, MA ZOT? You will tell him...
[5] All right. Too difficult. Instead of DOV, read BEAR. GREAT BEAR. URSA MAJOR. As in the constellation of stars in the sky. (How many constellations are there? 88. Same as keys on a piano. Significance? None. Did you know that there are 88 keys on a piano? Sure, you say. But do you know how many strings in a piano? 220.)Stars in the sky are named by the constellation they are in, and a Greek letter. usually in order of brightness. The alpha star of a constellation is usually the brightest star, etc. Usually. Not always. After the Greek alphabet is sed up, the rest of the stars are numbered. In addition, there are other scientific waysthat stars are identified. And many of the naked-eye stars have personal names too. And sometimes nicknames. For example, the North Star (nickname) a.k.a. the Pole Star (nickname) is Polaris (proper name), is the brightest star in the Little Dipper, which is formally known as Ursa Minor, the Little Bear. Polaris' scientificname is Alpha Ursae Minoris. It also designated as HD 8890 and several other star catalogue numbers. It even has a rarely used Greek name, Cynosura, meaning "tail of the dog". But we digress. Back to the Great Bear. The group of stars within the Great Bear that is probably the best-known asterism (group of stars, not aconstellation in and of itself) in the sky (for star-gazers in the Northern Hemisphere) is the Big Dipper, called the AGALA (wagon) in Hebrew, and the Plough by many people. It is made up of 7 fairly bright stars, the bowl of the dipper consisting of four stars and the handle of another three stars. The middle star ofthe handle of the Big Dipper is the zeta star of Ursa Major. Its proper name is MIZAR. There is a much fainter star that seems to be very near Mizar. It is known as ALCOR and is designated as 80 Ursae Majoris. Mizar and Alcor are known as the Horse and Rider, hence this is another TTriddle for SUS V'RO-CH'VO. But alongthe way, we had an astronomy lesson, as part of our periodic MA RABU MAASECHA HASHEM series. In fact, this particular "lesson" on star names and numbers brings to mind another pasuk, and it is in line with that pasuk that puts a healthy haskafa on the study of astronomy. The pasuk is T'hilim 147:4 and is part of our dailyP'sukei D'Zimra.
MONEH MISPAR LAKOCHAVIM, L'CHULAM SHEIMOT YIKRA
[6] This one was solved by several solvers (as opposed to the previous two TTriddles). S'FAT HAYAM, the shore of the sea. The phrase appears only twice in the Chumash. The first time, Avraham Avinu is promised that his descendants will be as numerous and countless as the grains of sand on the shore of the sea. (Interestinghow this TTriddle relates to the previous one that dealt with the stars of the heavens, the other population promise to the Avot.) Therefore, S'FAT HAYAM is a population promise. But in B'shalach, it was the place where the People of Israel saw the bodies of the Egyptians, hence it is the Egyptian morgue.
Top honors this week go to MM/Bklyn who came out of a recent slump with a fine solution set. MM/Bklyn recently visited Israel and included the Israel Center in his itinerary to pick up several prized owed to him as one of our ace TTriddles solvers.
We repeat our challenge to TT readers to send in even one sol'n. Noam CDs and Big Deal prizes await.

This week's TTriddles:
[1] Common, but not exclusive verb of the sedra people
[2] Continue on fathers' right
[3] Always, always, fair judgment
[4] Moshe's description of Egypy was whose self-description?
[5] Up 5, down 4
[6] Color me purple (or maybe violet)
[7] Davidson's middle's finale's male counterparts

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