In this week's Torah portion, Vaera, Moshe complains to God that he is a bad speaker, literally “uncircumcised of lips,” and thus cannot go to Pharaoh. God’s solution is to send Aaron with him to be the speaker. But just before this, we are told Moshe tried to talk to the Jewish people, and “the Jewish people did not listen to Moshe due to shortness of breath and hard labor.”
Rashi comments that when someone is in pain and works hard then they have trouble breathing and listening. Nachmanides adds that if not for the hard labor of slavery, the Jewish people would have listened to Moshe and trusted him. The Ohr HaChaim adds that it was not just the physical slave labor which made it hard for the Jewish people to pay attention to Moshe’s message of redemption but a spiritual problem: “Perhaps because they were not studying the Torah they could not hear Moshe, since it is the Torah that expands the human heart.” It seems according to the Ohr HaChaim that the Torah has the ability to help prepare the ground of the mind and heart to hear something new, to widen the consciousness.
But whether the Jewish people were unable to listen for physical or spiritual reasons, what good would it do to send Aaron to speak? Why would the Jewish people be more inclined in this compromised state to listen to Aaron over Moshe? What is so special about Aaron that the people can hear him in a way they cannot hear Moshe?
Moshe is known for his humility, but something is lacking in Moshe that Aaron has. Moshe is not of the people since he has grown up in the palace. He does not fully know them and how to relate to them, and so he cannot really love them, thus they cannot fully hear him. Moshe cares about the people but Aaron grew up with them and loves them. As it says in Pirkei Avot, “Hillel said: ‘Be of the students of Aaron, love peace, pursue peace, love the creatures and bring them close to Torah.’”
When you see the Divinity in others as Aaron did and can feel love and respect for them, it changes them as a result. When we are heard, when the image of God is recognized in us, we, in turn, can hear others and can think larger, in a more spiritual vein, and can see a better future. We get stuck in our reality and it is very hard to think differently, to see outside our space of persecution and smallness. It takes another person to turn toward us and see the Divinity in us, to help us grow and expand our mind and soul. This was Aaron’s greatness. He is of the people and loves the people, and therefore can inspire them.
We must be like Aaron, loving peace and loving all people to bring them close to Torah. We do not need to proselytize to other Jews; just loving them, seeing their Divinity and living our religious lives will help others to see a larger possibility and brighter future.
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