“Moav said to the elders of Midian”(Bamidbar 22:4). Rashi: “And what did Moav see to take counsel with Midian? Since they saw that Israel was supernaturally victorious [in their battles], they said, “The leader of these [people] was raised in Midian. Let us ask them what his character is.” They told them, “His strength is solely in his mouth.” They said, “We too will come against them with a man whose strength is in his mouth.”
At first glance, speech (dibur) appears to be a means of expressing internal feelings and ideas. We all have desires, thoughts and needs – speech is seemingly a way of bringing these to the fore and revealing them to the outside world. According to this understanding, dibur is no more than a conduit to carry out and reveal our inner selves.
However, our parsha shows us that the power of speech is much more than merely a conduit. It has its own independent strength. What is that special strength?
In any spoken communication, it is not sufficient that the person speaking understands the ideas that he wants to convey; his words need to be adapted to the listener. If those words are not adapted – in their content and style – then the ideas they contain will never be properly received or absorbed.
Dibur is that step of adapting inner wisdom to practicality – converting an intellectual idea into a worldly reality. The ‘mouth’ is strong when it performs that function successfully.
Moshe Rabeinu’s strength was the spoken word. He brought Divine wisdom of the Torah down and adapted it for Klal Yisroel in a finite, limited world. As the pasuk says: “So shall you say to the house of Ya’akov and tell the sons of Israel” (Shemos 19:3) – and he did this without compromising any of the Torah’s infinite truth.
This is really the depth behind Hashem’s commandment to Moshe to “take” the Levi’im (Bamidbar 8:6). Rashi writes: “take them with words – praiseworthy are you that you have merited to be amongst the servants of Hashem”. It was not enough that Moshe should just tell them verbatim what Hashem had told him and simply command them to “become His servants”. Rather he had to adapt those words and make the job seem fitting in the eyes of those who were to perform it.
This process of adapting ideas to reality – which we call dibur – applies in every area of knowledge. Many times the ideas of very clever people are not applicable in reality, as when their ideas meets reality, challenges arise in how to adapt them practically. Ideas need the power of dibur to make them impactful in the world.
We need to be attentive to the power that we have with our dibur. This is relevant in our communication with others – investing thought into how to adapt our ideas such that they will have the desired effect of empowering the listener.
Many times we hear about a particular act of an adam gadol, and immediately try to duplicate that act. Yet it is reported that Rav Yechezkel Abramsky זצ”ל would say that if someone heard his schmooze and then went and immediately implemented the lesson conveyed, it indicated that he had not actually understood anything! What Rav Abramsky meant was that ideas need to go through the process of adaptation. Immediate implementation indicates listening devoid of intelligence.
We sometimes occupy ourselves with elevated ideas, yet struggle to adapt and translate them into our daily lives. Those ideas then become devoid of their power, lacking the koach ha’dibur which allows them to be practically effective.