Parashat Matot-Masei: Don't Let Your Prayers Go to Waste

אִישׁ֩ כִּֽי־יִדֹּ֨ר נֶ֜דֶר לַֽיהוָ֗ה אֽוֹ־הִשָּׁ֤בַע שְׁבֻעָה֙ לֶאְסֹ֤ר אִסָּר֙ עַל־נַפְשׁ֔וֹ לֹ֥א יַחֵ֖ל דְּבָר֑וֹ כְּכָל־הַיֹּצֵ֥א מִפִּ֖יו יַעֲשֶֽׂה׃

If a man makes a vow to the LORD or takes an oath imposing an obligation on himself, he shall not break his pledge; he must carry out all that has crossed his lips.

This week’s Parasha begins with a focus on speech. Sometimes we do not connect how our speech impacts our spirituality and on the person we are as a whole. Many commentators take advantage of this week’s Parasha to try and inspire us to focus more on our speech. We also know that often the Parashiyot connect to the time of the year and, therefore, there must be a connection to the Bein Hametzarim - Three Weeks that we are now in.

Rav Avraham Schorr reminds us that in the world of Korbanot and Kodshim brought in the Beit Hamikdash, it is our speech that infuses regular animals or items with kedusha. As the Sfat Emet says on our Pasuk in this Parasha, “he shall not break his pledge,” means that שלא יעשה דבריו חולין - you should not make your words mundane. This implies that by default our words are holy and we can do holy things with them. Rav Schorr also says that now we understand why we read this Parasha during the Three Weeks. The root of all the sins that led to the destruction of the Beit Hamikdash was the lack of controlling our speech. The Chofetz Chaim in his introduction to Shmirat HaLashon that the foundation of Sinat Chinam is lashon hara. Therefore, during these three weeks we need to be especially careful with guarding our speech.

We know that it is speech that distinguishes human beings from animals. If we consider that carefully, we find that our speech has huge ramifications on the person we become. We can either learn to guard our mouths from lashon hara, obscenities and profanities and elevate ourselves, or G-d forbid the opposite. 

Many of us have all been taught this before and it does not always motivate us to make consistent changes in how we speak. So I want to suggest another strategy. Rav Schorr brings earlier sources that teach us that how we speak impacts our prayer. We know the value of prayer and we put a lot of effort and kavana into them. The commentators metaphorically say that when a person speaks lashon hara or with profanities it creates a thick cloud between us and the heavens that prevents our prayers from reaching Hashem. But there are different types of bad speech. One one level the clouds prevent our tefillot from reaching the heavens, but if we try hard enough and pour tears into our prayers we can crack a hole in the clouds and our prayers can reach the heavens. But there are just some words that cannot be rectified. Certain speech is so bad that the clouds block our prayers completely from reaching the heavens.

To me, the part that hits home, is the need for our tefillot to be effective and the fact that our speech can really hold us back. Unfortunately, many of us only put the emphasis on our prayers and not on the rest of how we speak. Let us all learn the lesson of this Parasha and hope that it will contribute to rebuilding the Beit Hamikdash so that this year we celebrate Tisha B’av in Yerushalyim.