Tzvi Moshe On Devarim: Your Right To Free Speech

This week’s Parsha begins the dash to the finish line of the Torah. Moshe Rabbeinu relates a complex narration that weaves together history, moral contemplation, Mitzva education as an eternally lasting ethical will. His own words become a book of Torah. Let’s examine this.

We can begin with the following question posed to us by the Midrash in the start of the Parsha. Way back in Parshas Shemos, Moshe has his first interaction withHaKadosh Baruch Hu. God’s presence appears in a burning bush and commands Moshe to go and take charge in Egypt and free the Jewish people. Moshe responds by saying, “Lo Ish Dvarim Anochi!” I’m not suitable for the job, I’m not such a good speaker, literally – ‘I’m not a man of words.’

But after forty years in the desert we see a dramatic change. Parshas Dvarim (note the same word that we just used above) begins, “Eileh HaDvarim Asher Diber Moshe” These are the words that Moshe spoke. – Wait, what happened? What happen to the speech-impedimental shepherd from Parshas Shemos? Now we see that Moshe is not just speaking, but he goes on and on for an entire fifth of the Chumash! What’s going on?

The Midrash answers that Moshe merited a relationship with Torah and that released his tongue from the hindrances that prevented him from smooth speech. How does that happen? Torah is a Tree of Life - Eitz Chaym Hu L’Machazikim Ba, and the Passuk in Mishlei tells us, Merapeh Lashon, Eitz Chayim - What heals the tongue? The Tree of Life…Torah.

This Midrash leaves us with the need to ask a few questions. On the broadest scale – what is man’s power of speech? What is the goal of language? On a more specific level, what about the Torah helps with speech? The Midrash showed that it does help, but it didn’t tell us how it helps. And what were the processes that had to be undergone by Moshe in order to me meritorious to his relationship with Torah that Midrash described?

To begin answering our questions we need to put the following concepts on the table. God created the world through speech, “VaYomer Elokim Yehi Ohr” And Godsaid let there be light – and there was light. God’s speech creates our physicality. TheTanya explains that as long as God continually sustains the Ma’amaros, the statements that he created the world with, things remain intact and in status quo. If Hashem were to, in whatever way we can understand, remove his focus from any statement that upholds any facet of the universe, that thing would simply cease to be.

(An explanation: God said “Yehi HaRakia Let there be a sky. God’s Mind (in whatever way we can understand such things) is unique. By merely keeping the term Yehi HaRakia in the Godly consciousness, it ensures that the sky continues to exist.)

So all those statements that keep the universe going; where are they found? Chazal tell us that God used the Torah to create the world. Through the statements of the Torah, Hashem’s speech, K’Vayachol, creation has a predication. Without it, everything returns to naught.
All the books of the Torah are pointing to this. Bereishis, the creation story. How was it done? Speech. Shemos? Names are what I call something. A name is an identity in speech. Vayikra? And God called to Moshe. Bamidbar? The very letters of the wordMidbar, desert, spell Midaber, a speaker (we will return to the massive significance of this later on). And Devarim? These are the things with Moshe said. Devarim meaning ‘things’ also spells Diburim, meaning speeches.
All of Torah is pointing to speech.

So with in mind let’s continue on to our first major question: What is the power of speech, the Koach HaDibur? Speech is a Levush of a Ratzon. In English, speech is a dressing up of an internal will. We choose to think in words, but we can think images, or even emotions and desires. (How do you think a baby thinks before it has command of a language?) Any internal will that we express outwardly will first come across as words that we choose to vocalize. But that means, on a deeper level, that when I express words outwardly, the original intent is contained within - as the very soul of the words I’m saying.

Based on Rav Moshe Shapiro’s teachings, Rabbi Eytan Feiner (of the ‘White Shul’ – what a holy Jew!) explains the following: Like we said, everything in the world is a manifestation of God’s speech, “Bi’Divar Hashem Shamayim Na’asu.” Every Davar, (literally ‘thing’) is a manifestation of a Dibur, a statement.

But really all Dvarim ‘things’, are destined to become MiDabrim, ‘speakers’. God created everything with a purpose, and He did so through speech. Speaking, as we mentioned above is a revelation of what’s going on internally. And what’s going internally are my wills, my desires and my wants. The essence of any given item (ie: the reason that God created it), which is the driving force behind the statement that created it will eventually express itself on the day that Hashem reveals how all things were always moving and making there way to reveal Hashem’s total and unique dominance over all facets of reality. Any given item’s revelation and expression of its essential purpose is the way that it transforms from a Davar to a MiDaber.
Torah, as we said before, is the source of all the ‘Diburim’ and ‘Ma’amaros’ that give existence its possibility to be. All things find their root there. And what is the place of the Torah? The Midbar - the desert.The word Midbar also spells Midaber - ‘Speaker’. What is a desert? A desert is a place that expresses nothing about its purpose in this world; it radiates no overt meaning whatsoever, stirring us constantly to contemplate its underlying purpose. In the vast expanse of the silent desert we see nothing- no trees, no rocks, no sign of life. Precisely in such a background are the Aseres HaDibros (Note the common root ofDibur and Davar) given. Chazal even go so far as to say that the Dibros of the desert, and our acceptance of the Torah, re-affirmed and fortified the Ma’amaros that creation was enacted with. And with our understanding of the role of Torah, this makes a lot of sense.

In the Midbar we are all ears, listening attentively to any Dibur produced in an environment that is almost entirely bare, providing no distractions to our captivated attention. That is why Chazal tell us that Torah is only accepted by one who makes himself Hefker free and undominated, humble and not overly directed by worldly forces – like a Midbar. The desolate Midbar is thus the purest Midaber, leaving us to wait until it finally breaks out in unbridled Dibur, revealing to us its true purpose and the abundant beauty that lies beneath its surface.
With all of this we now understand how the desert becomes the perfect background for the acceptance of the Torah. The desert, a place that on the surface gives us zero insight into the ‘bigger plan’ becomes a place of such introspection that it becomes the source for getting a full perspective on that very plan. Because the Torah is given in it.

Moshe, the humblest of all men, Hefker like the Midbar in the truest sense, the leader of the desert-generation – Is it any shock that he is Zoche, meritorious to a deep relationship with Torah? He is so deeply connected to the Torah that things said of his own volition, from his mouth via free will – the become an official part of the Torah! He is, Ke’ilu a guest writer for the Chumash!

Torah is the root of the essential purpose of anything, and if it is the source of the words that give life to all Dvarim, then Moshe who was Lo Ish Dvarim Anochi, (via the Torah) can undergo his metamorphosis into Eileh HaDvarim Asher Diber Moshe.”

It is through Moshe’s connection to the source of meaning in all things that he gained the ability to express the will of Hashem so accurately that his words became infused with the Torah itself.
Torah taught Moshe Rabbeinu how to talk.


What does this mean for you and me? All of what we are saying boils down to a very simple message. Inasmuch as I am connected to Torah and Ratzon Hashem I can understand myself, the world around me and my role in it.


The more I work on my relationship with HaKadosh Baruch Hu the more I will automatically fit into the natural rhythm of the universe. If I’m in tune with what Hashem wants from the His world then it becomes easier and easier to structure my life in sync with that regularity.
B’Ezras Hashem we should be Zoche to form such deep relationships with Ratzon Hashem. Because it is our connections to the Divine that give us focus, drive, purpose and the ability to tap into our Koach HaDibur - our faculties of self-expression to their upmost. If we can do this there is no doubt that we will live lives if happinessand meaning moving closer to the Creator and ultimately the redemption.