In Your Own Voice

The Book of Devarim, Deuteronomy, is different than the first four books of the Torah, in that Moshe is speaking in first person. Instead of “G-d said to Moshe” (third-person), this fifth book is said in first-person, in Moshe’s own voice. Yes, this fifth book is also holy, it’s also from G-d, but here Moshe makes it personal. This is a very important aspect of Torah learning, or any learning for that matter, that we absorb and internalize it, apply it to our lives and make it our own. 

The Talmud asks a question about a verse that splits between calling Torah “yours” and “mine” and the Talmud sees that as an ideal – make G-d’s Torah your own. Connect with it to the degree that it becomes yours. Another statement in the Talmud asserts that a normal person would prefer 1 bucket of his own to 9 buckets from a fellow. Better a Chevy you saved up for and earned than a BMW that you got as a gift. Well, maybe some of you would still prefer the BMW, but you get the point. 

Tanya chapter 5 speaks of how Torah shapes us, and how we in turn shape the Torah we learn. Everyone sees Torah through their mind’s filter, through the lens of their training and experience. Who we are influences how we learn it. And Tanya 5 also speaks of how Torah is compared to food which is only nourishing and sustaining (physically) when we break it down and digest it, absorbing it internally. Same with Torah that is only nourishing (spiritually, intellectually and emotionally) when we internalize it, connect with it, make it our own.

This ties right back in to a teaching of the Shaloh from Az Yashir (used as a Tanya intro) that we shared on a different occasion. 

Now, we don’t read the Book of Devarim until the summer, but this message is good all year round, no matter the Parsha. And it ties in this week because today is Rosh Chodesh (first of the Hebrew month of) Shvat, the very day 3000+ years ago that Moshe began to speak Chumash Devarim to the Jewish people before his passing and they entered the land of Israel. 

Obviously, you aren’t going to enjoy and connect with all of your classes at college. Some of it is just going to be regurgitating information back on tests and in papers, nothing personal about it. But hopefully, now and then, you’re going to have that amazing subject or teacher, and you’ll feel that personal connection, you’ll leave your mark on the subject and the subject’s mark on you, you feel its relevance, its meaning, you’ll make it your own, and like Moshe in Devarim, you’ll find yourself speaking about in your own voice.