What is the Gift of Speech For?

This week we read Behaalotecha, from the Book of Numbers. It means, when you lift up, referring to the lighting of the Menorah. This portion contains the famous passage about Miriam and Aaron, siblings of Moses, who were speaking to each other about Moses’ family matters – speech that amounted to gossip. God reprimands them; and Miriam, who apparently instigated the discussion, was given a skin disease. Aaron begged Moses to pray for her. Moses immediately prayed on her behalf and Miriam was healed. By using her speech to separate, she herself was separated from those she loved; and she had to stay outside the camp for seven days. Earlier in the portion, there are several instances where speech is also used negatively: the Israelites complaining and carrying on about many things, including the food, and a demand by servants of Moses for two prophets to be imprisoned. There are also a few instances in this portion, where speech is used positively: for blessing. Some people who had not been able to celebrate Pesach, because of a burial, approached Moses to ask how and if they could serve God and celebrate Passover. They were allowed to observe it in the following month. A commandment was given to make and use two silver trumpets to ask God to help them when they went to battle, among other occasions. And Aaron’s using speech to ask Moses to pray for Miriam as well as Moses’ prayer itself, were holy uses of speech. Finally, Moses’ asking God for help, was an appropriate use of speech, resulting in the creation of our high court, the Sanhedrin.
So this portion has examples of how to use our speech positively and negatively. The sages have said, “A human being is treated according to how he or she treats others;” and there is a teaching quoted in the Mussar literature, based on a work called Ways of the Righteous, by Orchos Tzaddikim, that tells this story: “A rabbi made a banquet and asked his servants to prepare meat, some of it cooked until soft, while the rest of it was left still tough. The rabbi placed the meat before his students, who selected the tender meat. He said to them: ‘Look what you are doing. Just as you selected the tender and left the hard, so, too, let your tongues be tender to each other.’” The Israelites of the Torah were attempting to create a holy community. In this synagogue, too, we attempt to be there for each other as a spiritual community. What purpose can we serve for each other? Certainly friendship and acceptance. A place to ask questions and sometimes to ask for help. A place to pray for ourselves and others. A place where we are all teaching each other and learning from each other. But not only that. My teacher, Rabbi Gelberman wrote that our speech is an outward expression of an inner feeling. This tells us that intention is vital. We can ask ourselves, what do we mean to accomplish with our speech? Is it drawing people together and not separating them? If our intention is to help, and love, and support each other, then we will accomplish the goal of inspiring each other. We will create a place where we can model holy behavior for each other and learn and grow together. We can be a family in the best sense of the word, where we build each other up and not tear each other down. This is what the great gift of speech is for and what a holy community can be for: to inspire and motivate ourselves and each other so that we can be lifted up, as in the title of this Torah portion, and together kindle our and each other’s great inner light.