The unified voice whispering inside of me

 

In Megillas Rus the first pasuk tells a story, but it doesn't have the name of any characters. The second pasuk tells you the story from the perspective of the husband. The third Pasuk tells you the story from the perspective of the wife.  And, then the fourth pasuk tells you the story from the perspective of the sons. So, what is going on here?  The narrator of the story constantly changes, and we are trying to figure out why. Why is this change in narration so important in the book of Ruth?

We could imagine that in the process of a conversion that there are different voices. There is the voice of your past, the voice of relationships, and the voice of your inner drive to connect to something that's certainly there, but, as yet, beyond you.

 

Let’s look at these different voices in the context of Har Sinai. At Har Sinai there was         "Kieesh Echad Bilev Echad" -- right away, the first day B’nei Yisroel were there. Wouldn’t you think that it would make sense to have this idea of a unified voice later, on the actual day of Revelation? You know, different things happened at that time in the desert. In the days between the arrival at Sinai, Kieesh Echad Bilev Echad, we now have “one man with one heart”, and things began to change. Husbands and wives had to separate, some marriages had to be broken up because people were married to sisters or aunts. Many changes had to be made in this process at Har Sinai. And not only were there these external changes that had to be made…

 

If you recall the day of Har Sinai … it’s like … I wake up, okay, and then I hear Moshe Rabbainu saying, “Weinberg! What's the matter? Why don’t you get up?!” But, I don't know G-d is waiting for me over there at Sinai. And, you know, I jump up and put on my clothes, I get out so fast, I didn't even take a shower that morning. I have to tell you, it's just like jumping up. And then the minute I jump up, I hear thunder and lightning and all sorts of sounds! And they open up the door to my cloud and there's all sorts of major sound effects and stunning light effects. And I’m thinking, “Hey, man, there ain't no way I'm going there!” I'm too scared to go anywhere near there! But there’s Moshe, and he’s saying, “Weinberg! GET out here! Now! G-d is standing out there waiting for you the way the bridegroom waits for the bride. Come on!”

 

…Well, okay….

 

So … I had mixed feelings about going, yes?

 

And yet, even though I had mixed feelings about going, the Torah says that I was able to speak in a unified voice. But wait, how could I possibly speak in a unified voice with all of you, if I didn't even have a unified voice inside of myself?

 

If I don't know my own voice, can I really have a unified voice with all of you?

 

So how did we do it?

 

Shavuot was only just a couple days ago, so…? How did we do it?

 

I think that Parsha Naso juxtaposed next to Megillas Rus is telling us something very deep. The message is to elevate you, elevate you.  The “Har Sinai One Voice” and the “Rus different narrator voices” are stories about how to find your own voice, despite the fact that there are so many internal voices inside all of us. And part of this process, is … and we're going to go step by step … but ultimately the process will be that when you are learning Hashem's Torah, when you are davening to Hashem, or when you are observing one of the Mitzvos of the Creator, you will have to have sufficient clarity to understand that you are actually having an internal conversation. You are whispering to yourself, trying to unify all of the different voices.

 

Parsha Naso is taking you through steps that are necessary for you to learn how to have an internal conversation with yourself, and to resolve that conversation. Because one aspect of Torah is the way Torah was taught to Moshe Rabbainu – that Moshe overheard G-d speaking to G-d's Self.  That means that the “Hashem speaking to Himself” is part of the essence of Torah, which means that for you, that when you’re learning Torah, you have this capacity to channel this concept, and if you follow certain steps that are described in this Parsha, to have this internal conversation and to pay attention to it;  to hear the differing whispering voices and to resolve them, then we can try to master this internal conversation**.

Comments by Machberes Avodas Hashem

** See the next blog on “Nishmas” for more on this concept.