Blessed are you, God of the Universe, who differs among the creations.

Questions:

•    How do you feel about having a bracha like this? Does it make you feel uncomfortable?
•    Does it embrace diversity or draw attention to it in an inappropriate way?
•    Should we bless God even for differences that our society classifies as disabilities?
•    Should people who would be classified in such a way also recite the blessing?

Moses, our great Biblical leader, is famous for having a speech impediment. During the scene at the burning bush, Moses refuses the mission that God sets before him (Ex. 4:10-12):

10. Moses said to God: Please, my Lord, I am not a man of words, either in the past or now that you are speaking to your servant; I am slow of speech and slow of tongue. 11. God said to him: Who gives man speech? Who makes him dumb or deaf, seeing or blind? Is it not I, the Lord? 12. Now go, and I will be with you (lit. with your mouth) and will instruct you what to say.

Shmot Rabbah  (Midrash written on the book of Exodus) on Ex. 2:10

“Pharaoh’s daughter used to kiss and hug him, loved him as if he were her own son and would not allow him out of the royal palace. Because he was so handsome, everyone was eager to see him, and whoever saw him could not tear himself away from him. Pharaoh also used to kiss and hug him, and he [Moses] used to take the crown of Pharaoh and place it upon his own head, as he was destined to do when he became great...The magicians of Egypt sat [before Pharaoh] and said: ‘We are afraid of him who is taking off thy crown and placing it upon his own head, lest he be the one of whom we prophesy that he will take away the kingdom from thee.’
 Some of them counselled to slay him and others to burn him, but Yitro [his father-in-law] was present among them and he said them: ‘This boy has no sense. However, test him by placing before him a gold vessel and a live coal; if he stretch forth his hand for the gold, then he has sense and you can slay him, but he make for the live coal, then he has no sense and there can be no sentence of death upon him.’ So they brought these things before him, and he was about to reach forth for the gold when Gabriel [archangel] came and thrust his hand aside so that it seized the coal, and he thrust his hand with the live coal into his mouth, so that his tongue was burnt, with the result that he became slow of speech and of tongue. “

Nahmanides (Ramban, R. Moshe ben Nahman Gerondi, 1194 – c. 1270, Catalan)

The Ramban focuses on Moses’ emphasis in verse 10 that he is not, was not, and is not at this moment a man of words. He argues that this phrasing accuses God of not removing Moses’ speech defect.
The Ramban continues: “Now Moses out of his great desire not to go [on the mission] did not pray before God, blessed be He, that He remove his defective speech from him, but he argued: ‘Since You have not removed my slowness of speech from me from the time You spoke to me to undertake this mission, do not command me to go, for it is inconceivable that the Master of everything should send a man of uncircumcised lips  to a king of the nations.’ And since Moses did not pray [for the removal of his defect], the Holy One, blessed be He, did not desire to heal him. Instead, He said to him, I will be with thy mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt speak.  ...Now had I wanted that you be a man of words, you would have been so...”
On verse 11, the Ramban offers the following: “The correct interpretation appears to me to be that God said to Moses, ‘Who hath made man’s mouth? Or who maketh man dumb?...Is it not I the Eternal who does all this? I could heal you. But now since you did not want to be healed, nor have you prayed to me about it, go and I will be with thy mouth and I will cause you success in My mission.’ It is also possible that there is a hint in the verse, And the anger of the Eternal was kindled against Moses,  that He did not want to heal him, and that He sent him against his will.”

Shmot Rabbah on Ex. 4:11

“God said to Moses: ‘Do not fear even if thou art not a man of words. Have I not created all the mouths in the world? I have made dumb him who I wished, and deaf and blind, and have endowed others with the faculties of seeing and hearing; and had I desired that thou shouldst be a man of words, thou wouldst be so, only I wish to perform a miracle with thee when thou art actually speaking, that the words may be appropriate, because I will be with thy mouth.’”

Questions:

•    Why did the rabbis feel a need to explain Moses’ speech impediment? Who is in control over the fate of Moses’ speech in the Midrash on 2:10?
•    Who controls the impediment according to the Ramban? According to the Midrash on 4:11?
•    Which of these three paradigms offered by the rabbis do you accept? Which trouble you? Why?
•    What do we learn about medieval medicine from the rabbis’ responses to the text? How would modern influences change contemporary religious responses to health and illness?

Compiled by Shira Wallach

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