Shmot: Callings and Obstacles In this week’s parsha, Moshe is doing his best to run away from who he is and who he was meant to be. After being pulled from the reeds by Pharaoh’s daughter and brought up in Pharaoh’s home, Moshe is neither an insider nor an outsider. He kills an Egyptian taskmaster whom he sees beating a Hebrew slave and subsequently flees to the hills where he meets a wife, has a son, and tries to live a life as a simple shepherd. Until, of course, Moshe gets called. One day, an angel inside a bush causes the bush to burn without being consumed. Moshe stops and turns “to see this great spectacle” and he hears the voice of the Divine calling his name. “Hineni,” Moses answers, “Here I am.” God tells Moshe to tell the Israelites, who are enslaved, that they are going to be freed. Moshe pleads with the Eternal not to have to be the one who is sent: 11. But Moses said to God, "Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should take the children of Israel out of Egypt?"
וַּי ֹאמֶר מׁשֶה אֶל ָהאֱֹלהִים מִי ָאנֹכִי ּכִי ֵאלְֵך.יא :?ִ אֶל ּפ ְַרע ֹה ְוכִי אֹוצִיא אֶת ְּבנֵי יִׂש ְָראֵל ִמ ִּמצ ְָרי
10. Moses said to the Lord, "I beseech You, O Lord. I am not a man of words, neither from yesterday nor from the day before yesterday, nor from the time You have spoken to Your servant, for I am heavy of mouth and heavy of tongue." (chapter 4:10)
וַּי ֹאמֶר מׁשֶה אֶל י ְהֹוָה ּבִי אֲדֹנָי ֹלא אִיׁש.י ּׁשלְׁש ֹם ּגַם מֵָאז ִ ּדְ ב ִָרים ָאנֹכִי ּגַם מִּתְ מֹול ּגַם ִמ :ּדַ ּב ְֶרָך אֶל ַעבְּדֶ ָך ּכִי ְכבַד ּפֶה ּו ְכבַד לָׁשֹון ָאנֹכִי
Moshe’s doubt in himself and his worthiness and ability to undertake such a task is overwhelming. He immediately zeroes in on the part of himself of which he is most ashamed, his primary obstacle: his mouth. We are not sure if he has a speech impediment or a fear of public speaking, but Moshe says, over and over again, “I simply can’t do this thing you are asking me to do. This one heavy (“kaved”) obstacle stands in the way- my mouth and tongue.”
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The Holy One’s response is beautiful and instructive: Chapter 4: 11. But the Divine Unfolding said to him, "Who gave man a mouth, or who makes [one] dumb or deaf or seeing or blind? Is it not I, the Divine?
וַּי ֹאמֶר י ְהֹוָה ֵאלָיו מִי ׂשָם ּפֶה לָָאדָ ם אֹו מִי.יא י ָׂשּום ִאּלֵם אֹו ח ֵֵרׁש אֹו ִפ ֵּק ַח אֹו ִעּוֵר הֲֹלא ָאנֹכִי :י ְהֹוָה
12. So now, go! I will be with your mouth, and I will instruct you what you shall speak. "
ְהֹוריתִ יָך ֵ ְועַּתָ ה לְֵך וְָאנֹכִי ֶא ְהי ֶה עִם ּפִיָך ו.יב :ֲאׁשֶר ּתְ דַ ּבֵר
God asks, “didn’t I put every obstacle in every place? Aren’t I within the obstacle in order to pull forth its holiness and its part of the larger story?” Rabbi David Ingber, in a sermon he gave several years ago, asked the powerful question, what if this were true for the obstacles in our own life? What if the things we perceive are standing in the way of our success and our callings – like Moshe and his speech difficulties – were actually the clues and the signs that indicate what we are meant to do in this world? Rabbi Ingber argued that the way we usually think about obstacles is as foreign objects – sometimes within us, sometimes outside of us, that are obstructing our path to our desire and our goal. If you think for a minute about a place you feel stuck, something you can’t exactly see your way out of, you may find this to be the case. Here I am (like Moshe says, Hineni). Here, a bit further down the road, is the thing I really want. It may be to be successful in my work, to have a happy home life, to fall in love and get married, to have children, or to be the fullest expression of myself. And of course, here is the thing standing in the way. My boss is never happy with me, I never ask for what I need, I’m too old to make a change, I never date the right people, my body isn’t acting like I want it to…etc. There are these things in the way of what I want, of what I’m being called to do and fulfill in this world. These obstacles are preventing me from becoming and fully expressing myself. We have felt that pain of jamming ourselves against these obstacles over and over again. We have often tried every which way to surmount them and often we have failed. But if we pause and “turn our head,” as Moshe did, and look at these obstacles in a different way, a new possibility begins to emerge. “The desire does not reveal the obstacle,” psychologist Adam Phillips writes, “the obstacle reveals the desire.” (Phillips, On Kissing, Tickling and Being Bored). In other words, you don’t discover your obstacles on the way to achieving your desire, you discover your desire by
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coming face-to-face with the obstacles. You can touch the deepest longings, the most powerful yearnings of your heart, and you can understand what you were put on this earth to do, by examining what it is that’s getting in your way. In Moshe’s case, he says “I can not speak! It’s the one thing about me that is my central obstacle!” And God says, “it is because you have trouble speaking – that you have fixated on it, that you care about it so much. This shows how it is your life and your heart’s work to speak the truth. That is yours. That is your calling.” And indeed, we know he goes on to become the greatest prophet of the Jewish people. Rabbi Alan Lew, in his book One God Clapping, writes about how his entire life he viewed his constant need for attention as a neurotic and shameful part of himself. “And yet, if I hadn’t managed to get the attention focused on me, would I have been able to rally people to protect the homeless or bring meditation to a synagogue or do any of the things I was most proud of? It was this thing I was most ashamed of that was enabling me to do good things in the world.” (p. 299). I deeply identify with Rabbi Lew. I’ve often found my obstacle to be a shame around how much love I felt like I needed, and how much love I wanted to give. For most of my life, I thought it was unattractive, overwhelming, and simply “too much” to want to give and receive love in the way I wanted. I thought that in order to surmount the “obstacle” of this incessant need for love, I should just train myself to stop wanting it. Of course, now I believe that this “obstacle” was and is my greatest teacher. Trying to love others and feeling into the places that I desire love for myself has guided my life. It has been the cornerstone of my calling.
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