A Holy Mouth before Pharaoh: Guarding Speech

1“Moshe said to Hashem, ‘Please, my Lord, I am not a man of words, neither since yesterday nor since the day before, nor since You first spoke to Your servant, for I am heavy of mouth and heavy of tongue.’”¹

2But how is this an excuse for not carrying out Hashem's command? And a more basic question: how could Moshe Rabbeinu argue with his Creator at all? Notice, too, Moshe's double wording, “heavy of mouth and heavy of tongue.” Why did he say both?

3aThe explanation, it seems, is this. Moshe Rabbeinu certainly wanted to carry out the command of his Creator, Who was sending him to Pharaoh. But he argued before the Holy One, blessed be He: why must the mission to Pharaoh be carried out by speech and not in writing? “How can I speak with Pharaoh, king of Egypt, the very source of all the impurity of Egypt, ‘the nakedness of the land’?² Surely this will make me ‘heavy of mouth.’ After speaking with that loathsome, wicked man, I will no longer be able to speak words of holiness with such a mouth.” This is what the double wording “heavy of mouth and heavy of tongue” hints at. The mouth and the tongue are the two precious limbs that set man above the animal. Moshe was asking how these two limbs would look after he had spoken with Pharaoh.

3bWe find the same idea in the commentators, the Daas Zekeinim and R' Chaim Paltiel, who explain Moshe Rabbeinu's words “Please send by the hand of whom You will send”:³ “If You want me as Your messenger, please send a letter that I can carry in my hand. It will be my mouth and my spokesman, for I am not a man of words.” That is the meaning of “send by the hand.” In other words, Moshe Rabbeinu was afraid to speak, because then he would become “heavy of mouth,” but a mission carried out by letter did not frighten him.

4The Rashbam, Rashi's grandson, explains it this way: “I am not fluent in the Egyptian language and cannot speak it clearly, for I fled from there in my youth and now I am eighty years old. So too we find in Yechezkel that one who is not fluent in the language of the kingdom is called by this name.⁴ Moshe Rabbeinu did not stammer; he simply was not fluent in the language of Egypt. Could a prophet whom Hashem knew face to face, and who received the Torah from His hand into his own, have stammered?” So far his words.⁵ We may say that the Rashbam's words also fit our explanation of Moshe's fear: the pure tongue of Moshe Rabbeinu could not speak the impure language of Egypt.

5To this the Holy One, blessed be He, answered, “Now go, and I will be with your mouth and will instruct you what you shall speak.”⁶ The word for “I will instruct you,” vehoreisicha, comes from hora'ah, a halachic ruling, a halachah that has been decided. Hashem was saying: “I Myself will rule for you what to say. Then you will not stumble, and speaking with Pharaoh will not harm you, because you will be speaking on My mission. You have nothing to fear.”

6As is well known, the covenant of the flesh, the covenant of circumcision, corresponds to the covenant of the tongue.⁷ In other words, a person who does not keep his mouth properly clean cannot possibly become holy and pure. Blemished speech was the personal exile of Egypt. As has been explained elsewhere, there were two exiles in Egypt, one calling for a general redemption and the other for a personal redemption, and the personal redemption was needed because their speech was blemished. We also know that each week's Torah reading awakens what that time holds. We are now in the days of Shovavim,⁸ days for repairing Yesod, the sefirah bound up with the covenant. In Parshas Shemos itself, at the opening of the days of Shovavim, we are given a hint that the covenant of the flesh is repaired by guarding the tongue. The days of Shovavim are especially suited to repairing both covenants, and this can be done only by toiling in the holy Torah.

7So let us take this opportunity to establish two practices for the days of Shovavim. The first is to say the first four chapters of Tehillim, which, as is taught in the name of the Arizal, are a safeguard against everything opposed to holiness, and afterward to learn one's set session without interruption. The second is to guard one's eyes from the moment one wakes up until after the morning prayers, so that they do not wander here and there. By keeping these practices you will feel yourselves rising in holiness, and you will be privileged to learn Torah in holiness, purity and separation from the physical, with a broad and settled mind, and with all good, selah. Amen.