03 Feb YISRO: REMEMBERING FROM WHENCE ONE CAME

As an aside to the
mention of Yisro’s
arrival in the camp,
the Torah records
the names of the
two sons of Moshe,
and the reasons
why they were called by these specific
names. Gershom was called Gershom
because Moshe declared, “I was a
stranger (ger) in a strange land.” Eliezer
was called Eliezer because Moshe
declared, “The G-d of my father helped
me (b’Ezri) and saved me from
Pharaoh’s sword”. [Shemos 18:3-4]
This seems out of place and superfluous.
The Ramban comments: Even though
this is not when they were born (and the
Torah already mentioned at least some
of this information when they were
born [Shemos 2:22]), the Torah
mentions it here because Moshe wanted
to express gratitude – now that he in
effect became the King of Israel – for
the earlier kindnesses the Almighty had

done for him.
Rav Simcha Zissel Brody, in his sefer
Sam Derech, elaborates upon this
Ramban. When Moshe was a fugitive
and was running away for his life from
Egypt and was able to escape to Midyan,
get married, and have two sons – at that
point – he felt a great deal of gratitude
toward the Almighty and named his
sons accordingly. However, it is the
tendency of human beings to have the
attitude, “that was then and this is now”.
At this point, Moshe is in an entirely
different world and in very different
circumstances. Then he was an
anonymous fugitive, a poor shepherd in
a foreign land. Now he is the King of
the Jewish nation. Moshe stood up to
the most powerful empire in the world,
and with G-d’s Help, he bested Pharaoh.
He brought Pharaoh and the Egyptians
to their knees. To top it all off, he led his
people through the Yam Suf and they
witnessed the total destruction of their
enemies. Suddenly, Moshe Rabbeinu

became “big stuff”. The Torah
nevertheless tells us that even when he
reached the zenith of his career, he still
had the same recognition of gratitude
(hakaras hatov) that he had when he
was a fugitive.
“I still remember when I was not
considered a significant person. I
remember back then how G-d saved me
from the sword of Pharaoh and how he
protected me in a strange land.” Moshe
constantly reviewed the names that he
gave his children and the reasons for
those names so that the gratitude he felt
back then would never leave him.
This is a challenge. All too often, we
find that someone was down on their
luck and then received a job or a big
break from a benefactor. At the time, of
course, there is great appreciation for
that employer. However, as time goes
on, as one thing leads to another, and
this formerly unemployed worker now

becomes the CEO of a multi-million-
dollar corporation, how likely is it that

he will still show gratitude and Hakaras
Hatov to that benefactor of so many
years ago? Most people forget the
people who gave them their first break.
They expressed gratitude at that time,
but “what have you done for me lately?”
Moshe’s greatness was that he did not
act like this. It is for this reason that the
Torah repeats the reasons for naming
his sons at the beginning of Parshas
Yisro, the zenith of Moshe’s career. He
always kept that original gratitude on
his lips and in his consciousness. This
attribute of “remembering from whence
one came” is indeed an attribute worth
emulating.