Finding Strength in the Face of Insecurity - Tehila Gimpel: The Land of Israel Fellowship

hey everyone so I want to continue an idea that we started talking about last week last week I brought up this conversation that Moshe has with Hashem where he's saying I just I'm not good at talking and hashem's kind of perplexing answer you know I said that that well you know Hashem is our father and as a parent What In Your Instinct be to try to just you know make Moshe feel better like Moshe you're not so bad at talking or or just to fix this problem like okay I'm Hashem of course I can take away your problem hashem's answer is very surprising he says who do you think gives people their challenges and their impediments now last week we saw that appear one time but in this portion moshe's concern about his speech impediment comes up another two times and in each time hashem's answer is surprising and different so what I want to suggest is that these three appearances of moshe's concern about his inability to Bear the task that Hashem is putting on him is sort of a road map for what Hashem is trying to teach us about facing this in life because moshe's speech impediment is really a paradigm for all of those times that we feel like the path Hashem is sending us on it's just it's too heavy it's too hard I can't do this right and you say Hashem I can't do this I just don't have what it takes I'm not good enough and Moshe says this to Hashem three times and I want to kind of take a bird's eye view at these answers and see the path that it's putting out before us for how to handle that situation so as we talked about last week the first time Hashem says Hashem truly says well you know I'm the one who gives a person their challenge in life meaning step one is to recognize that your shortcomings are nothing to be ashamed of or afraid of but rather they are the sort of set of skills and challenges that Hashem has given you in life that are perfectly matched to what you need to do but then it's not enough for Moshe because in this week's Parsha because in this week's partial Hashem says to well now it's time to go to Paro and once again he says but I can't I'm not a good speaker I don't know how to speak now this second time where Moshe brings this up it looks in the verses as if Hashem is just ignoring him there's no answer and many of the commentaries say well why doesn't Hashem answer him but when I was looking in the verses something very strange happens it's true that Hashem doesn't give him a direct answer like Thus Spoke Hashem to Moshe but right after that just one you know if you Skip One verse later out of nowhere in the middle of this dialogue about Moshe and our own having to go to speak to Paro to free the Israelites out of nowhere suddenly the Torah starts to list the names of the generations says these are the heads of the houses of Israel and it starts to go through all of the different you know leaders of the tribes and it seems totally out of place because right after that list finishes it goes right back to the story of Moshe and our ongoing to pharaoh what is that suddenly it hit me maybe that is hashem's quiet answer to moshe's question because Hashem said because Moshe said I can't do this Hashem doesn't seem to answer him but Hashem gives a list of the ancestors and the forefathers maybe that's another piece of this puzzle like when you think about it every single person that is alive today is alive because there are countless people before us that survived in unbelievable hardship like the fact that I am sitting here right now means that I had ancestors who were willing to sacrifice to give birth to my ancestors you know they came after them to give birth to feed them to sacrifice their their energy their sleep their food their money whatever they had I mean the amount that went into you or me sitting here is just unbelievable so the fact that we are alive means that we come from greatness just by the virtue of the fact that we're sitting here and you know and that that's that's you know that's something to draw strength from because somebody thought that you were worth fighting for and worth sacrificing for to be here and we can look back at what our ancestors went through which is just so unfathomable and draw strength from that and it's also you know a forward-facing guidance I've been thinking a lot lately about how open are we to our children's questions when they need guidance it's like the Taurus saying you know our children are going to have times you know if Hashem is our father and his treatment of Moshe is like a paradigm for us also as parents are we always as open as we could be for our children to feel that they can come and ask us questions I cannot tell you how many people in this very Fellowship have said to me oh when I was growing up they didn't like me I asked too many questions or in my community that I used to be part of they didn't like me much because I had a lot of hard questions fundamental you know culture of Judaism is to encourage questions from the younger generation to the older generation like when we have the you know the Seder on Passover the main kind of story there the the the the fundamental Narrative of that night is how do we get our children to ask us questions the songs are the children asking questions the stories are about children asking questions to their parents you know the story of the four sons and how each one of them asks their questions to their parents in different ways are we you know always promoting to Art you know opening ourselves up for our children to always know that they can ask us anything the best thing my mom ever did to me when I was growing up and I always tell her this is that when I was growing up my mom said to me you might think that you're a weirdo you might think you have a question that's so weird no one's ever thought of such a stupid question before but I promise you however stupid your questions are I've thought of something stupider so you can always ask me whatever seems to you to be the weirdest stupidest question you can think of and that was so heart opening for me so you know I feel like that's the second guidance is when you feel like you can't handle it we draw strength from the people that came before us and we pass that on to our children that they can draw strength from our life experience and our wisdom and they can always turn to us but that's not enough for Moshe again most of the third time says Hashem I just can't do this and then what does Hashem say he says let me tell you I'm gonna Harden paro's heart meaning you think you have problems here's the good news it's gonna get worse you know it's like Hashem is saying your fears they're not unfounded things are going to be rough Hashem is giving him a realistic expectation you think you know that I'm Hashem so I'm sending her on this Mission and it's just going to be successful it's not going to be successful before you're successful you're going to crash and burn you're gonna crash and burn so hard because the people are gonna be mad at you and everything is gonna go terrible but then from that will come out the Redemption it's like we talk about this a lot you know like Abraham's experiences he follows Hashem he goes to the land and then there's a famine Jeremy and I talk about this often like we you know came to the farm and then get smacked with lawsuits from you know these from from from left-wing European organizations it's like Hashem is saying yes at that moment where you feel like you can't handle it it might go bad for a while but you have the expectation and you know that that's part of it you draw strength from knowing that after that their Hashem has a plan and it will lead eventually to the Redemption and I was sharing this with my friend Jesse over Shabbat sort of this reading and he said that what he hears when Hashem is answering Moshe is saying the outcome is not on you that's on me you know what you need to do you need to show up with everything you are your shortcomings and your you know your blessings your things that are you know that your talents and the things that are your handicaps you show up with all of that but you have one job and that is to show up on your mission the outcome that's on Hashem and so it's like these three times that Moshe comes to Hashem with his insecurity together hashem's answers although they seem perplexing at first can be sort of a holistic guide for us on how to approach that kind of feeling that I know that at least happens to me a lot and I bet for a lot of you as well so with that I wish you guys a great week and be well