RAV MILLER: THE GIFT OF SPEECH – Words Matter koach hadibbur

Now, to understand that we have to go back to the foundations of Torah. That’s the rule, by the way. If you want to understand things in this world it’s important to refer back to the fundamental principles at the beginning of the Torah. And one of the great principles, one of the greatest, is the creation of ‘The Speaking Man’.

You remember when Hakadosh Baruch Hu made man, how He did it? ויפח באפיו נשמת חיים – Hashem blew into his nostrils the breath of life (Bereishis 2:7). The ‘breath of life’? What’s that? It can’t mean that He gave man the ability to live because it doesn’t say that by animals and they also have life.  Hashem didn’t breathe into the nostrils of horses. He didn’t breathe into elephants. And they’re alive anyhow. So you must say this procedure was something beyond the mere gift of life.

The Living Word

What was the result of Hashem’s breath? ויהי האדם לנפש חיה – Man became a living spirit (ibid.) And the Targum says it means a רוח ממללא – man became a spirit capable of speech. You hear that? The uniqueness of man, the greatness that he achieved when Hashem blew into him the ‘living spirit’ was the gift of speech. He can talk!  Nobody can talk in this world except human beings.

Don’t believe the fools, the academicians, who try to foist on us their childish fantasies; how over many eons we ‘learned’ how to speak and that monkeys can do it too only they’re a little behind yet. It’s as silly as could be! First of all, they don’t have the machinery. We have a complicated voice box, the larynx, that’s made especially for speaking.  And our teeth and lips and tongues are assistants to the larynx; they’re especially made to function in tandem with the voice box.

If a man chas veshalom lost his larynx in an operation, his lips won’t help him. His teeth and tongue won’t help him. The lips and the teeth and the tongue are only assistants to the larynx. And so man was created from the beginning with a voice box to be able to speak. The larynx of the monkey was made to grunt and hoot, that’s all.

The Gift of Speech

But more than that, Hakadosh Baruch never blew into them the רוח ממללא, the spirit that makes us capable of speech. It’s not merely that a man learned how to use his lips and his tongue and his palate and his teeth to express certain things that used to be mere grunts. No; it was the ruach of Hashem that made him a ruach memalleluh, a speaker. And it happened that way so that we should understand that it is words that make a man. We’ll see soon that your words are your ticket to greatness.

Only that it’s such a powerful tool, such a dynamic implement, that we have to study how to use it. It’s dangerous otherwise. That, by the way, is why we don’t thank Hashem every morning for speech. You know, we thank Him for our eyes. We thank Him for the ability to walk. We thank Him for the fact that we are able to stand up. Why don’t we thank Him for talking? We should say baruchatah Hashem Elokeinu melech haolam meisiach ilmim.

The Gift of Dynamite

The answer is we should make such a brachah but because it’s such a powerful gift, it’s also the most dangerous. It’s like dynamite; if you’ll give dynamite sticks into the hands of shotim, it’s big trouble. People who don’t understand the subject so for them talking is one of the biggest calamities. When they get to the Next World they’ll wish they had been incapable of speech like the monkey.

It’s a fact that most suffering in the world is a result of talking. Wars are fought because of words. All the fights going on in the homes are because of talking. Murders are committed because of talking. How many people became sick because of their mouths? How many became blind because of their mouths? How many died young? The mouth is the cause of all emotional disturbances.

And therefore although the mouth deserves a very big brachah – it’s one of the greatest blessings – however we are forced to postpone that brachah. In the Next World you’ll be able to thank Him – after you see that you succeeded. But in this world we have to be reminded, ‘Be on guard! When Hakadosh Baruch Hu created you, He gave you a most powerful tool. So powerful because it came from His breath!’

Divine Speech 

That’s what we are learning as a foundation of Torah. Man is not just a speaker. He’s a Divinely created speaker! And that’s why his words are so weighty, so powerful. We have no idea of the measure of the profundity and the sublimity of a human being’s words. They reverberate forever.

Now don’t think it’s such a surprising thing because actually, in the physical world it reverberates forever. You know that? Sound energy goes out into space and it lasts forever. Only it becomes so dissipated you can’t measure it anymore. But if you had the right instruments even if you’d be standing way up in the Andromeda, way past the solar system, you could measure those sound waves. It might be very faint, diffused, but it’s there. It’s scientifically true.

Now, I’m just saying this example to be mekarev el haseichel. But now we come back to the bigger truth because a person’s words are tremendously more powerful than even the sound waves. Because not only in the sense of physics is it true that the energy of your word doesn’t go lost, but also in the sense that it’s forever in a spiritual sense. A man’s words are tremendously more powerful than the sound waves. The fact that they travel out into space forever, that’s only a mashal for what your words are actually, for how powerful they are.

Now that’s a very big doctrine. It’s such a tremendous principle that it’s hard for us to assimilate. It’s difficult to think such thoughts because we live with gashmiyus and so we tend to forget the yesodos haTorah. But that’s what we learn in Torah; that the creation of man meant the creation of a man whose words are most powerful – words that reverberate in very many ways.

Words Make Man

External and Internal Effects

Now, when people speak about the power of speech it’s usually discussed in the sense of its effect on others. They’ll talk about lashon hara and onaas devorim; they’ll talk about words of anger and not being פותח פה לשטן. They’ll talk about its positive effects too; about speaking kind words, encouraging words, and giving blessings to our fellow Jews. That’s how the power of words is generally understood – the effect it has on others.

And all of that is very important, absolutely, but tonight I wanted to speak about something else, something even more important than that. And that’s about how your words affect yourself; how you are made by your words. Like someone once made a play on words about the possuk in this week’s sedrah that we began with: ככל היוצא מפיו יעשה – What comes out of your mouth, makes you. It’s a play on words but the idea is true. By means of words, of dibbur, a person is capable of bringing out from within him or her an almost infinite greatness.

A Breath of Great Air  

I’ll explain that. You remember, we said earlier that when Hakadosh Baruch Hu created Man by breathing into him, He gave him the power of speech. But it’s more than that because you know when you breathe into somebody, you’re breathing what your breath is. If you have onions on your breath, you’re breathing onions into him. If you have some sweet flavor in your breath, you breathe a sweet flavor into him. מאן דנפח מדיליה נפח – When a person blows, he’s blowing from inside, from himself.

So what does it mean that He blew into man the soul? Hashem has a breath? The Ramban says that it means that He blew from His wisdom into man. And he quotes a possuk on this: כִּי הַשֵּׁם יִתֵּן חָכְמָה – Hashem gives wisdom,  מִפִּיו דַּעַת וּתְבוּנָה – from His mouth comes knowledge and understanding(Mishlei 2:6).

When Hakadosh Baruch Hu breathed something of Himself, man became possessed of Divine wisdom. Not like we think if a person tries to learn, Hashem helps him gain wisdom. No, we’re not talking about wisdom that can be imported from the outside. We’re talking about a native fountain of wisdom, something that’s already there inside him.

The Wisdom of Attitudes

Now, when we say ‘wisdom’ it doesn’t mean a man has inherent knowledge of logarithms. It doesn’t mean he has the inherent knowledge of how to repair a television set. It’s not talking about that. The fundamental wisdom that is deeply seated in a man’s mind means the wisdom of attitudes, all the Torah principles and ideals.

In a man’s mind there is an Awareness of Hashem. How much? A tremendous amount! There is ahavas Hashem in a man’s mind. How much? An endless amount! There’s a deep well of bitachon, of emunah, of understanding Hashem’s ways, of ahavas Yisroel. All of the ideals that we came into this world to accomplish – the ideals we speak about right here all the time – are inside you. מים עמוקים עצה בלב איש – There are deep waters of wisdom within a man that seek to guide him, ואיש תבונות ידלנה – and the discerning person draws it forth (Mishlei 20:5). Hashem breathed it into you but it’s up to you to actualize it. You need to lower a bucket and bring it up.

And the best way to draw forth all of the greatness that Hashem breathed into us is by means of the koach hadibbur, the power of speech that He blew into us. That’s why it was given as one package: When Hakadosh Baruch Hu blew from Himself the potential for infinite greatness, along with that ‘breath’ came the power of speech. Man became a רוח ממללא, the one creation capable of speech, because it’s speech that helps you bring forth your greatness and to accomplish in this world.

Discover Life

In Mishlei it says כִּי חַיִּים הֵם לְמֹצְאֵיהֶם – The Torah is life for those who discover it (Mishlei 4:22). That means if you search, you’ll discover Torah; you’ll find within yourself these principles. And it’s more than principles, knowledge. You’re finding life.

It’s a tragedy that some people never think about achieving these attitudes. You’ll say ‘Awareness of Hashem’ and they look at you with a blank face. Gratitude to the Creator? A blank stare. AhavasHashem? It doesn’t register. If they’re polite they’ll nod, yes, yes. But they’re not doing it. Nodding, agreeing, is not enough. We have to work on discovering these attitudes because those who are מֹצְאֵיהֶם, who find them, they’re finding life.

But on this the Gemara says אל תקרא למוציהם – don’t read ‘for those who find it’, אלא למוציאהם – instead; ‘for those who utter them with the mouth’ (Eiruvin 54a). If you want to find these Torah attitudes, thinking is not enough. You have to verbalize them.

Now, the Gemara is telling us not that the thoughts are unimportant. Oh, the thoughts are very important! Like the Chovos Halevavos says, רוב ההפסד והתיקון – most of the injury that a man accomplishes in his life and most of the achievements that he accomplishes in his life are by means of his thoughts. Thoughts are supreme!

Talk Yourself Into Greatness

But now we are listening to the Gemara and it’s telling us how to sharpen our thoughts, how to give life to them. חיים הם למוציאהם – If you say it with your mouth then it’s life! Your ideas become alive. And because you are what you think so you become alive.

Speaking is the perfection of your mind because when you bring your thoughts forth in the form of speech it sharpens the thought. It brings the ideal into focus and it  becomes that much clearer. And you hear it too! That makes an impression because instinctively your conscience reacts; your seichelsays yes. ניכרים דברי אמת – The words of truth are recognized because they find an echo in your mind and in your soul.

And so the koach hadibbur, that’s the great implement for achieving perfection in life, for accomplishing great things in life. The Torah is given to you to verbalize the highest aspirations of life and to build up in your mind the most noble ideals.

Now, this eitzah is good for all the Torah ideals that we seek to acquire. […]. But we have to do something too! Ahavas Yisroel is included in the innate wisdom that was breathed into us but now you want to draw it forth.

The first step is to say, “I love my people, Yisroel.”

Don’t think it’s silly.  It’s silly to disregard it because this is the way you train yourself.

You never said it once in your life? You know after a hundred and twenty years when your time is up and you’ll come to the Next World, they’re going to ask you, “Did you love your people?”  […]

Words Make Man Great

[…]

Hishtadlus in Bitachon

Every day we read the following possuk in our davening: ואמרו הושיענו אלוקי ישענו – Say “Help us, the G-d of our salvation” (Divrei Hayamim 1 16:35).  Now the question is why does it have to say “And say”? It should say הושיענו – Help us! That’s where the sentence should begin. Why does the sentence begin with אמרו – And say? What’s that preface for?

And the answer is he wants to teach us how important it is not to keep the thoughts bottled up in your mind. Those words are beautiful! ‘Help us, the One Who brings us salvation’. So noble, so inspiring. But if they remain just a thought, it won’t have the effect it could. If you have a noble idea, let’s say the idea that you should trust in the salvation of Hashem, then be sure to say it. Imru! Say these words! Vocalize them and they’ll change you. […]

Love Learning 

What about loving His Torah? It’s an important ideal that a lot of people are unaware of. You have to love the Torah. You have to train yourself to love the Torah.  אני אהבי אהב –The Torah says, “I love those who love me” (Mishlei 8:17).

Here’s a yeshiva man who spends all day long in the yeshiva learning the Torah. Excellent! The yeshiva men, they’re the pride of our nation. The working men who learn in the morning before work, and then again in the evening, they too. The Torah learners, those are the ones we look up to.

But do they love the Torah?

So he says, “It’s silly. Sure I love the Torah.”

And it’s true, he does. But he never brought it to life! He’s learns Torah – why? Maybe because it’s an obligation; he wants to do what’s right. Or he’s ambitious; that’s also good. And deep within him there’s mayim amukim of ahavas Torah too, no question about it. But how does he best bring it forth, that’s the question.

The answer is by saying it. Start saying it. Whenever you open a sefer, in the yeshiva, wherever you are, say, “I love the Torah.”  Constantly. “I love Mesichta Bava Kama.” “I love Hashem’s Torah.” You’re walking to the beis medrash to learn with your chavrusa? Say it! “I’m going now to learn because I love the Torah.” And little by little, the love of the Torah begins to take shape in your mind.

All of you righteous people – it means all frum Jews – be happy in Hashem! (Tehillim 97:12). It means to be actually happy והודו לזכר קדשו – and grateful to the One Who is giving us the gifts of this world (ibid.).

A Happy Soul

Everyone has a deep store of happiness within him and the frum Jew has to draw it forth. There’s a deep well of happiness in us, but it’s bottled up. In a person’s mind there is an endless store of happiness; that’s included in ויפח באפיו נשמת חיים. It’s right here, inside you. There are thousands of things to be happy about only that you have to prime the pump. And we do that with the koach hadibbur.

The above is from R’ Avigdor Miller ZT”L, Parashas Mattot - Maasei, A Gift of Speech, https://torasavigdor.org