Vaera. Retrieving our voice

Something always moves me when I read parashat Vaera.It is the anxiety of a hero.

As God was giving him instructions to go speak to Pharoh, twice moshe said

אֲנִי֙ עֲרַ֣ל שְׂפָתַ֔יִם וְאֵ֕יךְ יִשְׁמַ֥ע אֵלַ֖י פַּרְעֹֽה

“I am a man of blocked lips, so how will Pharaoh ever listen to me?”

Shemot 6.30

Whether it is a perception or it is facutally true, it always moved me.

Yes, the career of the one who will become our teacher, our most eloquent advocate and a beautiful inspiring lyrical leader, started perhaps as that of many of you: in dread that we won’t be up to the task.

Moshe meets his destiny with a mixture of courage and dread, caught in the paradox between the calling he can’t deny and a strong desire to withdraw.

I remember hearing that Jim Morrison from the doors used to sing his first concerts turning his back to the audience, and that Leonard Cohen ended up in intense zen practice to help him withdraw of his habit of getting himself drunk on wine to overcome his stage fright.

But what does this expression of uncircumcised lips symbolizes?

According to the Zohar, the problem of Moshe is that he had a voice ( kol), but no speech (dibur).

This is because he had no milah (word).

Now Milah is non other than the word we use for circumcision.

Here the Zohar takes Moshe’s discourse very literally, but turning to the other meaning of the same word, in order to take us much deeper:

Moshe doesn't have his own words yet.

The fact that we have a voice, that is, the capacity to speak, doesn’t necessarily mean that we are able to make use of it.

We then need to learn to put words on our emotions, on our desires and on our intentions.

We need to learn to articulate our vision.

And perhaps most of all, we need to trust ourselves just enough in order to believe that our own unique voice is worth being heard.

And this is where the journey is interesting.

After all, isn’t that why we are here on this earth for?