Va'era (Exodus 6:2-9:35)
OVERVIEW
On first approach, Moses has unsuccessfully confronted Pharaoh. Rather than heed God's instruction to let the slaves go, Pharaoh increases their workload and makes their situation even more difficult. Moses goes back to God, and is reassured that the Israelites will indeed be redeemed. The lineage of Moses and Aaron is given, and then they re-approach Pharaoh. When he will not listen, the battle of the plagues begins. However, Pharaoh will not be moved. After the sixth plague, when Pharaoh still fails to relent, God "hardens" Pharaoh's heart, and then the final plagues upon Egypt commence.
IN FOCUS
But Moses appealed to the Eternal, saying, "The Israelites would not listen to me; how then should Pharaoh heed me, a man of impeded speech!" (Exodus 6:12)
PSHAT
Complying with God's orders, Moses approaches the Israelites to tell them of the coming redemption. But, after he speaks to the Israelites as God instructed, they ignore him. The text explains this by saying that they would not listen because their spirits had been crushed by the cruel bondage. God then instructs Moses to go and speak to Pharaoh and demand that the Israelites be freed. Moses, discouraged by his lack of success with his own people, is not confident that he will have any more success with the King. And so he appeals to God using what would later become a classic form of Talmudic argumentation, applying the outcome from a minor case to a major case (kal va-homer): if the Israelites would not listen to me, then why should Pharaoh? But Moses takes it one step further, by blaming his speech impediment for his lack of success. Literally, he refers to himself as being "a man of uncircumcised lips." God seems to ignore Moses' concerns about his bad track record so far, but he does assign Moses' brother Aaron to serve as his spokesman.
DRASH
This phrase "uncircumcised lips" seems to be a red flag, given the pivotal importance of circumcision in Jewish tradition. What is Moses really concerned about here? Rashi explains that the Hebrew 'aral ("uncircumcised") simply means "obstructed" and gives a variety of examples of its use in other parts of scripture. Therefore 'orlah (foreskin) is simply an obstruction over the head of the penis, and Moses' 'aral s'fatayim - "obstructed lips" - simply refers to the physical deformity of his lips, causing a speech impediment.
But "uncircumcised" is also a clear sign of inappropriateness. When Jacob's daughter Dinah is defiled by Shechem, who then wants to marry her, her brothers object saying, "we cannot give our sister to a man who is uncircumcised, for that is a disgrace to us" (Genesis 34:14). Moses, then, seems to be implying that he is not only unable, but somehow unfit or impure for this important task, to serve as God's messenger.
But our tradition sees this act of extreme humility to Moses' credit. He was not drawing attention to his disability to get out of serving God, but rather to try and explain the behaviour of the Israelites. As it states in the commentary Sefat Emet (as quoted in the anthology Itturai Torah), "The reason they do not listen to me, Moses implied, is not because they do want to hear the voice of God, but because I am of uncircumcised lips."
But another commentator, (Derashot Ha-Ran, also in Itturai Torah) sees it as all part of God's plan. It states that, Moses was gifted with all the qualities necessary for a prophet, so that everyone would realize his divine mission. The only quality he did not possess was fluent speech. This, too, was because of God's divine plan, so that people should not say the Israelites were following him because he was a demagogue. Indeed, in the case of a real demagogue, people listen to him even when he lies."
In the end, we must assume that it was all part of God's divine plan, but that humility was one of the many qualities that made Moses such a great leader. Moses was not superhuman. Above all, he was an ordinary man, with normative human weaknesses and defects. Realizing that, we can appreciate even more what an extraordinary leader he must have been.
DAVAR AHER
"And the Eternal spoke to Moses and Aaron and gave them a charge to the Children of Israel..." (Exodus 6:13).
Even though the Children of Israel refused to listen, "for impatience of spirit and cruel bondage" (Exodus 6:9), the Eternal commanded Moses and Aaron to continue speaking to them. For the words of God must of necessity leave a profound impression; they may not take effect all at once, but eventually they must accomplish their purpose, for holy words can never be lost on a person. (Sefer Emet)
