Mazal Tov nooseisko, I covered for you last week, but you still owe is one. I can’t ask you to do another for this week (especially with a newborn at home), so I went looking through my emails to post one of your wonderful pieces which I have saved.
(Note: nooseisko has been sending these divrei torah out via email for a long time, Only recently have I been able to convince him to post them here as well).
Here is one from the archeives, copied and pasted to maintain the same standards of grammar and editing we have come to expect from nooseisko 😉
As kids we all knew 1 thing about moshe………he stuttered, and our gentile neighabors also knew one think bout moses……..he had horns. Anytime someone made fun of a kid for having any speech impediment, the responsible adult would always say “well moshe had one too, and look how far he got”. Now i’m not actually sure what Moshes exact impediment (is that word ever used without the word “speech” coming right b4 it?), but it’s quite clear from the torah that he indeed has something going on…………..or did he?
This parsha (as well as this entire chumash [a.k.a chomesh- which is actually the correct way to pronounce it]) is one long speech from moshe rabeynu. U cant go and make such a huge, long, detailed and important speech with a speech impediment!!!
So maybe moshe was miraculously healed over the years? ( and indeed through the course of history described in the torah it seems to imply that indeed he did, we see that at first moshe describes himself as a “lo ish dvarim anochy”, and now he all of a sudden becomes a “eyle hadvarim” type of person!
So who exactly is moshe?
Lets go back to the “first” moshe, at the time of moshes dramatic afore mentioned statement, which was some sort of last ditch effore to get off the “shlichus” job, but now what type of argument was it? here is a guy that is talking to hashem for crying out loud, now if his speech is good enough for hashem, its obviously good enough for anyone else no? so why was moshe so scared, impediment and all, to speak to paro way back when?
Moshe indeed had an impediment, but he was not embarrassed of it (according to the medrash, it actually came about, by saving his life), he was not scared to speak to anyone, in any situation, and as we see in our parsha he had no problem giving a month long speech, of his own accord, to the entire jewish ppl (the nation which it is probably hardest to speak to!!!!!!), what he was scared of was speaking to a rasha.
Many ppl r very good public speakers, they know wo to speak to their peers, they know how to speak to their superiors, but they in no way know how to speak to ones under them, for that u need an exceptionally good speaker.
Moshe was never scared of his “stutter” it’s what hashem gave him, and he was more than happy with it, it never stopped him in the past, he rebuked the jew for hitting his friend, he spoke up in favor on yisros daughters, but paro……thats a different issue.
Speaking to reshaim is so complicated cuz if u do it even a bit wrong, it will be in the best case scenario pointless, and most probably even detrimental (MENTAL!!!).If u speak to a tzadik and u get mixed up a bit, the tzadiik will still judge u favorable, understand that u were just a bit nervous, and not take what u said in a harmful way, but to a rasha……………. even when u present yourself exactly in the way with which u planned it is still quite unlikely that the rasha with take your words to heart, he will simply distort what u said, and use it for his own twisted advantage.
And we see that indeed (for a certain period of time), Aharon was appointed as moshes lips, Aron the master of making peace had much experiance with speaking to respective “reshaim” throughout his carear, therefore better equipped with dealing with such a man.
When i say rasha……i dont only mean someone like paro, each and every one of us (me) has the areas with which he is a rasha, areas in which he will under no circumstances listen to anyone trying to speak to him, areas in which he twists every word to make it fit within his own idea. And if Moshe was scared that he would not be able to reach paro in this accord, we can see just how serious this matter is………hear yee all yee talkers and listeners