Parshat D’varim/Shabbat Hazon

This week’s parashah, D’varim, begins:  “These are the words that Moshe taught to the whole community of Israel.” As his death approaches, Moshe begins to teach the Torah one last time to a new generation. And he does it with great power and  eloquence. The Moshe that we hear now is a stark contrast with the young Moshe who complained that he was “not a man of words.” Between then and now, how did Moshe find his voice?

The Sfat Emet explains that, in his youth, Moshe had not been able to express himself because he had not yet received the Torah. It was the Torah that unlocked his voice, that enabled him to say what was inside him.

It is the same with us. We all have moments of expanded vision, moments when we sense that we are in this world to serve a larger purpose. But often those insights remain locked away inside us because we have no language to express them, even to ourselves. Torah is a language that enables us to give voice to those insights. It has the power to unlock our hearts, to say what superficial speech cannot say. And when our hearts are truly open, our words become words of Torah too.