Disir
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- Sep 30, 2011
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Have you ever felt inadequate to a task you have been assigned or a job you have been given? Do you sometimes feel that other people have too high an estimate of your abilities? Has there been a moment when you felt like a faker, a fraud, and that at some time you would be found out and discovered to be the weak, fallible, imperfect human being you know in your heart you are?
....How did Moses know this? Because he had experienced something similar himself. When God told him to confront Pharaoh and lead the Israelites to freedom, he repeatedly insisted that he could not do so. Reread his response to God’s call to lead the Israelites out of Egypt (Ex. chapters 3-4), and they sound like someone radically convinced of his inadequacies. “Who am I?” “They won’t believe in me.” Above all, he kept repeating that he could not speak before a crowd, something absolutely necessary in a leader. He was not an orator. He did not have the voice of command:
Then Moses said to the Lord, “Please, my Lord, 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.” (Ex. 4:10) Moses said to the Lord, “Look, the Israelites do not listen to me. How then will Pharaoh listen to me? Besides, I have uncircumcised lips.” (Ex. 6:12).
Moses had a speech defect. To him that was a supreme disqualification from being a mouthpiece for the Divine word. What he did not yet understand is that this was one of the reasons God chose him. When Moses spoke the words of God, people knew he was not speaking his own words in his own voice. Someone else was speaking through him.
When Weakness Becomes Strength (Shemini 5778) - Rabbi Sacks
It never occurred to me that Moses had a speech defect. The whole piece is fantastic but that stuck out.
....How did Moses know this? Because he had experienced something similar himself. When God told him to confront Pharaoh and lead the Israelites to freedom, he repeatedly insisted that he could not do so. Reread his response to God’s call to lead the Israelites out of Egypt (Ex. chapters 3-4), and they sound like someone radically convinced of his inadequacies. “Who am I?” “They won’t believe in me.” Above all, he kept repeating that he could not speak before a crowd, something absolutely necessary in a leader. He was not an orator. He did not have the voice of command:
Then Moses said to the Lord, “Please, my Lord, 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.” (Ex. 4:10) Moses said to the Lord, “Look, the Israelites do not listen to me. How then will Pharaoh listen to me? Besides, I have uncircumcised lips.” (Ex. 6:12).
Moses had a speech defect. To him that was a supreme disqualification from being a mouthpiece for the Divine word. What he did not yet understand is that this was one of the reasons God chose him. When Moses spoke the words of God, people knew he was not speaking his own words in his own voice. Someone else was speaking through him.
When Weakness Becomes Strength (Shemini 5778) - Rabbi Sacks
It never occurred to me that Moses had a speech defect. The whole piece is fantastic but that stuck out.