My Shabbos She Took Neshamah and Ran For The Whole Week

Shabbos was nice - what a lukewarm word. Details are key to writing and to life. Shabbos included sitting next to a student (now in medical school) in Shul, and having another student (now in eleventh, who I taught in tenth) come over to shake my hand and say Good Shabbos. Shabbos included stumping a table with the question, what four people in the Torah say Baruch Hashem. Then I was stumped by a trick question - what one letter doesn't appear in Parshat Yitro. I also accidentally stumped a sixth grader by mentioning Yitro instead of Yisro. I witnessed a three year old move from cold anger to warm love in about fifteen minutes time. I discussed Tourette's with someone who has it and confirmed that the tics are the key. So someone I know seems to have been sloppily slapped with the label. I ate no cake/dessert at both meals. A friend of mine recently pointed out the simple logic of not eating dessert after you just ate a meal. Why do that to yourself? It reminds me of Rabbi Abraham Twerski's anger at a Gadol studded Melave Malka years ago, where after the lavish meal a lavish (obscene?) Viennese table was brought out. He wondered aloud why no Rav commented on the inappropriateness of such a spread in light of Kedoshim Tihiyu as understood by Ramban (and canonized into Judaism 101).

I heard that the Gra spoke at the lavaya of Graf Petofsky of the holiness of a convert. I think it was Dovid who said "Baruch atah Hashem." And someone else great (Avraham or Moshe?) said three words before Hashem's name, but Yitro said just one word. Cool.

I also heard in the name of the Shemen HaTov that the greatness of Yitro's baruch Hashem was that it was said about the good fortune of others! This reminded me of the Gemorah which says that if you daven for someone else you get answered first. I think the idea is that there's something spiritually sophisticated about recognizing that G-d is the G-d of everyone, not just you. To the extent that you realize that (as illustrated by sincerely praying for another) that then G-d will meet your human need of getting an answer to what you asked for.