The Power of Speech
A Message for Parashat Matot 2017
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Moshe had just learned that his life was soon
ending. He was first commanded by God to climb Mount Avarim in order to catch a
one-time glimpse of the Land of Israel, as he was reminded that he would not be
entering there (Bemidbar 27:12-15). He was then instructed to teach the people
several final rules (28:1-30:1), and ultimately told to wage war on the
Midianites (31:1). In the moments prior to that last request of him, however,
Moshe seized the unprompted opportunity to teach the nation a particular set of
laws:
And Moshe spoke to the
heads of the tribes of Bnei Yisrael, saying: “This is the thing that God has
charged: Should a man take a vow or make an oath to God to take upon himself a
binding pledge, he shall not profane his word. According to all that issues
from his mouth he shall do… (30:2-4)
What is the significance of the rules of vows
and oaths to these final moments of Moshe’s life?
S.Y. Agnon, the renowned Israeli Nobel Prize
laureate writer, once wrote about the importance of the Council of Four Lands,
the legislative body that governed Polish and Lithuanian Jewry for almost two
hundred years. His narrator thus explained the difference between a monarchy
and an ideal Torah leadership:
When
a king establishes a police force to subdue the people by rod and whip and
impose his decrees, they flaunt those decrees, and many are the rebels who sin
against the king’s will. Yet the holy people Israel willingly accepted all that
was placed upon them by the eminences of the Council of the Lands, which was
like the Sanhedrin in the Chamber of Hewn Stone in the Temple.[1]
Agnon highlighted the ironic strength wielded
by a system that is governed by words over one that is enforced by might.
Bilam, the gentile prophet whose words
outlasted him as a parashah in the
Torah, was never admonished by the angel of God for his evil intent of cursing Am
Yisrael, but rather for his unnecessary use of brutality when he struck his
donkey three times (22:32). The angel’s underlying message to Bilam at that
time related to ideal authority and control: words are preferred to force.
Indeed, the Hakhamim taught this very lesson when they explained that Moshe’s
fatal sin at Mei Merivah lay in the
fact that he defied God’s word by hitting
the rock instead of speaking to
it.[2]
God’s subsequent decree that he not enter the Land of Israel, then, stemmed
from Moshe’s failure to lead the people with words instead of force.
Understanding that his reign as their leader
was nearing its end, Moshe imparted to the people a moral that was undoubtedly
running through his mind in those very moments: the importance of speech. He stood in front of them as a teacher who
could instruct from a hard-learned experience as he implored them to value the
power of their words. Though masked as a narrow set of rules regarding oaths
and vows, Moshe’s message spoke a truth further reaching than that. It taught
that an ideal leader speaks not with his muscles, but with his words.