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Why does the Sifri identify Pharaoh's "let us deal wisely with them" as the harm to the Jews, before any decree was enacted? The shiur develops the principle that Yisro fled because the meeting presumed Jews were a problem—the agenda preceded the inquiry. True justice asks "is there a problem?" not "how do we solve the problem?" This applies equally to asking she'eilos: framing the question to get the answer you want defeats the entire purpose of seeking Torah (תורה) guidance.
Rabbi Zweig opens with a textual difficulty from Parshas Shemos and the Haggadah. The Sifri, cited in the Haggadah, interprets "the Egyptians did evil to us" (Devarim 26:6) as referring to Pharaoh's statement "come, let us deal wisely with them" (Shemos 1:10). But this seems perplexing—the actual harm came in the next verse, when Pharaoh imposed taskmasters and slave labor. Why does the Sifri identify the meeting itself, rather than the subsequent decrees, as "vayarei'u osanu"—the harm done to the Jews? The shiur then shifts to an equally puzzling Gemara (גמרא): Yisro's reward for fleeing Pharaoh's counsel was that his descendants sat on the Sanhedrin two thousand years later. But Yisro received immediate, tangible rewards—he became Moshe's father-in-law, the grandfather of Pinchas, related by marriage to Aharon HaKohen. His descendants became Kohanim Gedolim. Why does the Gemara highlight a reward millennia in the future when his actual reward was so great and so immediate?
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Shemos 1:9-11
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