Shmos 5769 – The G-dliness of Your Shortcomings

Shmos is not just the start of the process of geula, but there’s another macro-process occurring – it’s the transition from the name of E-lokim to the name Havaya. The passuk in next week’s parsha says “u’shmi Hashem lo nodati” – the Avos didn’t have the full revelation of Havaya, but now HKBH is going to share Havaya with Klal Yisroel.

The full revelation of Havaya is at Har Sinai, with Anochi Hashem, but the transition process starts in our parsha. When Hashem tells Moshe to go to Mitzrayim, Moshe resists and says לֹא אִישׁ דְּבָרִים אָנֹכִי, he says כִּי כְבַד פֶּה וּכְבַד לָשׁוֹן אָנֹכִי. I’m not the best speaker.

HKBH responds: מִי שָׂם פֶּה לָאָדָם אוֹ מִי יָשׂוּם אִלֵּם אוֹ חֵרֵשׁ אוֹ פִקֵּחַ אוֹ עִוֵּר הֲלֹא אָנֹכִי יְהוָֹה:

Shemos 4:11

“Who makes a person speak, who makes a person mute? It’s Me, Anochi Hashem.” Here HKBH uses the Anochi Hashem, them shem HAVAYA, which is the same Anochi Hashem that will be revealed at Har Sinai.

But there’s a problem with HKBH’s presentation. We can understand that HKBH gives a person the ability to speak, but what does it mean that HKBH makes a person not speak? Speaking is the positive injection of a ko’ach. Not speaking is simply the absence of a positive.

L’mashal: If I walk into a room and the light is on, I can ask who put the light on. But if I walk into a room and its dark, I don’t ask who put the darkness in. The darkness is the default. Light requires a positive input, but darkness doesn’t.

The same thing by speech. The default is there’s no speech until someone positively introduces it. So what does HKBH mean when he says “Who makes a person mute?”

The same question can be asked by light itself. We say “Yotzer Or u’vorei choshech.” What does that mean HKBH is “borei choshech” he creates the absence of light?

Another question: A Navi needs to have many qualities. He needs to be strong, an ashir, a chacham. These are all great qualities that a Navi should have. But if you want to know what is the most important quality of a Navi – it’s gonna be his ability to speak!

This reminds me of a ma’aseh with Rav Chaim Brisker, which probably isn’t true, but it nonetheless illustrates this point. There was a city that needed to hire a Chazzan, and they had a couple of candidates. Now, a Chazzan needs to have many qualities. He needs to be married, he needs to be “m’urav im habriyos, he needs to have a beard, he needs to be yorei shomayim, he needs to have a good voice. There’s a whole list of qualities.

There were two candidates for the position. One of them had a good voice but none of the other qualities. The other had all the other qualities, but he had a lousy voice. Which one should the city hire?

So, the way the story goes, Rav Chaim said to hire the Chazzan with the good voice. Ay, but the other guy has so many more of the qualities!? The teretz is, very nice, but you know what the essential quality of the Chazzan is? It’s the voice! You have to be able to separate the niceties from the essential.

(Agav, they use this masseh as a classic illustration of what Rav Chaim introduced with is derech ha’limud – the ability to cut thru the niceties and hon in on the essential.)

Well, the same thing by a Navi! Imagine you have someone speaking on behalf of Hashem, he’s going to be Hashem’s spokesman, and he’s got all the ma’alos: He’s a great guy, brilliant, great middos – but he just can’t speak. You won’t know whether you should laugh or cry. Speech is the essential feature!

And yet, here, by Moshe Rabbeinu, HKBH is giving him the job of spokesman? How can you justify this?

The Ran asks this question, and his answer is that historically shakranim were successful at moving and swaying the masses to follow their sheker – because they were skilled speakers. HKBH wanted to clear the record, and He made sure that Moshe’s speaking skills would not have the ability to sway people, and it’s only because of the emes of Klal Yisroel’s experience that they would follow him.¹

It's a great answer – but is there a relationship between Moshe’s inability to speak and our context of moving from the name E-lokim to the shem HAVAYA?

Let’s use a passuk in Breishis to explain:

The passuk says – וְהָאָרֶץ הָיְתָה תֹהוּ וָבֹהוּ וְחֹשֶׁךְ עַל פְּנֵי תְהוֹם. What is Tohu va’Vohu?

So Rashi says: בהו. לשון ריקות . An Emptiness.

And then Rashi says: תהו ובהו. תהו לשון תמה ושממון, שאדם תוהה ומשתומם על בהו שבה. A person wonders and asks why the world is so Empty. Why is the world so empty? Is that a question? Why shouldn’t it be empty? When a person builds a building and someone walks in asks why is there no furniture? Who says there should be furniture? This is like we asked above – it’s the absence of a positive, and absence is there by default. Rashi is a teima! Why should someone be asking on the absence of a positive? What does Rashi mean?

Let’s give a mashal: You go into a person’s house and you see every room has it’s light, it’s paint, it’s furnishings, etc. And then you see a room that’s unfinished. You notice it but you chalk it up to the homeowner not having the funds to finish the room, or they’re just too busy so they didn’t get around to it yet.

But then you go into a Meuseum, like the Smithsonian, and you enter a room that’s unfinished – there’s barely any lights, the walls have cracks, the floors are undone. You don’t chalk it up to them not having enough money or time. The Smithsonian has hundreds of millions of dollars. They plan projects for years. Every room has a designer and a crew. It’s not that they didn’t get around to it, but instead you can actually read into the absence that there was intent. They were trying to create a mood, or to create a visual break between themes, etc. When lack is not an issue, then any lack is by design. I’m being given a message by what’s not there.

This perspective is what we being introduced to in our parsha.

When a Goy looks at the world – a frum Goy! – they will describe how they see the presence of G-d. There’s a force that makes the world go round. He orchestrates and controls everything. This force is the almighty G-d. Great! And this is what’s expected of every thinking person.

Seeing an almighty G-d is relating to the world of E-lokim. E-lokim is HKBH as the most powerful force in the world.

Klal Yisroel however has a deeper havanah, expressed in the shem HAVAYA. HAVAYA means existence. Not the most powerful force in existence but everything in existence. All of existence, the powers and the absence of powers, is mevusus in HKBH.

The Ran explains the passuk above using this Havanah. מִי שָׂם פֶּה לָאָדָם אוֹ מִי יָשׂוּם אִלֵּם. And we asked what does it mean that Hashem made the mute. The mute is an absence, and the absence is the default. Listen to the words of the Ran:

וזה אמנם הוא באדם. אך הש"י אינו כן. כי כמו שהוא סבת כל אופני קנין. כן הוא סבת כל אופני ההעדר.

Drashos HaRan

He explains that you’re right – absence is the default when dealing with the forces in the world. When the force does something, there’s the positive presence of something, but when the force does nothing, we default to nothing.

However, that’s not the case by HKBH. By HKBH, just as HKBH is the reason for everything in the world, so too He is the reason for everything that is NOT in the world. Just like in the Museum, we can understand that something is being communicated in the absence. HKBH made the absence with the same intent He used when He made the presence. That’s why we approach the absence with the same inquisitiveness as we approach the presence.

When we deal with HKBH as E-lokim, we only deal with what is there. However, when we deal with HKBH as HAVAYA we are also dealing with what’s NOT there.

This is what the shem HAVAYA is doing in our parsha. Moshe’s whole tayna was that he couldn’t achieve a result because he was missing the ko’ach hadibur. HKBH’s response was, you’re seeing the world thru the lens of E-lokim, where powers are jocking for the upper hand. מִי שָׂם פֶּה לָאָדָם אוֹ מִי יָשׂוּם אִלֵּם הֲלֹא אָנֹכִי יְהוָֹה. We’re now moving into the revelation of a world of HAVAYA, where even the powers that are NOT there, are intentionally not there to achieve the result. Like the Ran said earlier – HKBH davka wanted someone who did not have the finesse of speech to be the one give Torah to Klal Yisroel.²

HKBH is trying to say something b’davka thru the absence. As we say “mi kamocha ba’eilim Hashem” which chazal say “mi kamocha ba’ilmim” – HKBH speaks to us even with ilmus!

Usually, these conversations about the names of HKBH are seen as mystical or kabbalistic. If these things remain mystical and irrelevant, I don’t see any point in it. However, this is Toras Chaim, and these parshiyos are shayich to us.

We think of ourselves as believers because of all the good things we have. B”H we have health, parnassa, mishpacha. Look at all the positive! That’s good for Umos Ha’Olam, but not for Klal Yisroel. With that picture you’re missing the full HAVAYA picture. HKBH gave you shortcomings. HKBH gave you challenges. And you may think that if only I didn’t have these chesronos, I could accomplish so much – but I don’t, so Ones rachmana patrei! But who said you needed those kochos to accomplish what needed to be achieved?

L'mashal: You may think that in order to be mashpia on the bnei Yeshiva, you need to have an iluyishe kup, or have spent decades in the beis medrash, where you can razzle-dazzle everyone with shas & poskim. Who says? Adraba, quite often it’s the bachur who had to shvitz and struggle, and he gave it all he had to make a pashuta leining – that’s the thing that inspired the rest of the beis medrash. It was davka because he didn’t have the iluyishe kup that endeared him to everyone and made him more relatable, approachable, admirable – and ha goofa was his ko’ach. His absence was his ko’ach!

It's very tempting to excuse ourselves with a claim of what we don’t have. However, emuna in HAVAYA means what we have and what we don’t have are equally the ko’ach HAVAYA within us. From the perspective of HAVAYA you lack nothing. Even that which you’re missing becomes the ko’ach that you bring to the world.

Good Shabbos!