This Shabbat, we begin the fifth and final book of the Torah: Devarim, (Deuteronomy).
The book of Devarim opens as follows: “These are the words which Moshe spoke to all of Israel” and is full of long and passionate speeches delivered by Moses as he prepares to leave his people. This is the same Moses that said in his first meeting with God, “I am not a man of words . . .I am heavy of mouth and heavy of tongue.”
What happened here? How did Moses transition from “I am not a man of words” to “These are the words that Moshe spoke?”
Sivan Rahav Meir shares in the name of our sages that Moshe Rabbeinu is given a task and a mission by God. He must take the people out of Egypt, teach them Torah, and lead them to the Promised Land. When we have a purpose and a goal, we can overcome many difficulties, including negative professional diagnoses and our own mistaken view of ourselves. Within each of us lies hidden, powerful potential and the reality we see before us today is not static. The same Moshe who initially said “I am not a man of words” became Moshe Rabbeinu, an eternal leader whose words we have been studying every day for more than 3000 years.
I believe this is what Rabbi Sacks meant when he said the following: I want to quote you a line from Shakespeare that I found life-changing. It comes from Twelfth Night and it goes to the very heart of what it is to be a Jew. He says, “Some are born great. Some achieve greatness. But some have greatness thrust upon them.” I realised of a pretty early age I wasn’t born great and I wasn’t going to achieve greatness, but at a certain point in my life at university I suddenly realised that if you’re a Jew you have greatness thrust upon you.
Find your mission and you might succeed in transforming your greatest impediment into your most remembered virtue.