Lessons on speech from Elephants - Rabbi Larry Rothwachs

sure i'm not the only one who has some very fond childhood memories of going to the circus as a child i used to love going to the circus and perhaps one of the highlights for me was seeing the elephants the elephants of course being massive animals and they all seemed always seem to be smiling whether they were actually happy or not is a discussion for another time and one of the questions you have to wonder and think about is how do they get these big big big large animals to stand in place how do they get them to become so disciplined after all every trainer recognizes and realizes that all it takes is one smack with the trunk or one stomp with the foot and the elephant can completely overtake his trainer but yet elephants in captivity in the circus always came across as being quite obedient so how do they actually get them to stand in place how do people complain typically sometimes people do complain with their hands and their feet but generally speaking what we use to express our displeasure uh when we're frustrated when we're angry with our people with other people we use our mouths that's how we complain our mouths even though they may not seem on the surface like they can be terribly destructive but we know that words can in fact be quite destructive and perhaps perhaps moshe was being instructed over here by kadash baruch who to demonstrate to the jewish people that words actually do matter words are not just ideas words are actually things when you think about it the word in hebrew for word is davar that is a thing and it is also the same word that we use for word so that same three-letter shoresh dalid means thing and it means word and perhaps through kodesh we are being enlightened to understand and to recognize that words actually matter they are real real things and they are not to be just simply dismissed as well you know sticks and stones can break my bones but words will never harm me that's not true words can cause great harm they can be very destructive words come out can actually be very constructive as well words could literally create in fact if you take a look at the very beginning of the torah when hashem creates the world the world is created through speech god spoke and brings the world into being and later on in history when hashem gives the torah to the jewish people at the moment of mahmoud sinai when he introduces himself so to speak to the jewish people he does through does so by delivering what we call the assailadros the we translate as commandments but it's not really commandments god speaks to the people so speech can be very powerful perhaps moshe rabbenu was being told you know what now you have an opportunity to go ahead and to demonstrate to the people that you can actually speak and it really matters it has a real effect i have the staff in my hand but i don't need to use it by my speech alone i can actually go ahead and and that cutters borough who's helped with his assistance bring water forth from this rock and so perhaps the great failure of the part of moshe have been over here was that there was an opportunity to really teach to demonstrate as a in a way that perhaps could have been inspiring that they could have taken a moment to reflect upon their own use of speech and say you know what we're always complaining we're always using our mouths in such a destructive way but there is a tremendous potential when it comes to the koa khadibor when it comes to the ability to speak we can be very constructive it can be very positive it could literally bring water forth from iraq obviously that's not something that you and i can do but in the right setting with the right seat of the anything is possible with words and so what i was told is the way that the elephants were actually trained to stand in place is that when they are very young and relatively small you know that elephants are large even when they're born but relatively small so they'll take a stake and put in the ground and take a chain and put around the elephant's foot at that point the elephant is is not strong enough to go ahead and to walk away and so the elephant tries moves a little this way a little that way and realizes i can't go anywhere and the next morning the elephant once again tries and realizes as long as there's a chain around my foot so there's nowhere for me to go slowly but surely the elephant continues to grow and mature and becomes a very very very large animal thousands of pounds at any given point the elephant could just go ahead and decide to get up and walk and to move away but what's remarkable is that it chooses not to we also don't always realize the incredible potential that we have specifically within the realm of dboy when it comes to speech we have incredible strength we have incredible power and potential when it comes to the koa khadibo when it comes to speaking