FINDING OUR VOICE

This Shabbat, we begin reading one of the most powerful and sustained speeches in history. Almost the entire book of Devarim (Deuteronomy) consists of the final address that Moses gave to the Jewish people before taking his leave from them.

“Eileh HaDevarim — These are the words that Moses spoke to all of Israel” (Devarim 1:1).

It is striking, then, to recall how Moses’ journey as a speaker began. Forty years earlier, when we first encountered him at the burning bush, he declined G-d’s mission on the grounds that he struggled with speech.

“Please, my L-d,” he said, “Lo Ish Devarim Anochi — I am not a man of words; not yesterday, not the day before, and not since You have spoken to Your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue.” (Shemot 4:10)

How did Moses develop from someone who felt unable to speak clearly into a supremely articulate leader, capable of delivering such a soaring and enduring oration?

The rabbis in the Midrash (Tanchuma, Devarim 1:1) ask this very question. Surprisingly, they don’t cite G-d’s direct reassurance to Moses at the time:

“Who gives a person speech? Who makes them dumb or deaf, seeing or blind? Is it not I, the L-d?” (Shemot 4:12)

Instead, as Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Weinreb points out, they turn to a verse from the prophet Isaiah that emphasizes human transformation with Divine help:

“Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened… and the tongue of the dumb shall sing aloud.” (Isaiah 35:5–6)

We know Moses as the greatest prophet who ever lived, the one who spoke to G-d face-to-face. But that was not how he began. When he first encounters G-d, he hides his face, afraid to look. He needs his brother Aaron to serve as his spokesman in the presence of Pharaoh. Over time, however, he grows—not just into the master prophet, but into a powerful orator capable of transmitting a timeless message to an entire people and to history.

In recognizing this transformation, Moses becomes a role model for each of us. Whatever our challenges or perceived limitations, we too can rise above them. With our own efforts and G-d’s help, we are often capable of more than we imagine. Like Moses, we too can transform ourselves—rising beyond our weaknesses to become more than we ever dreamed possible.