Rabbi Avi Weiss’s Reflections on Aphasia for World Aphasia Shabbat

“I lost my words.”

That’s the refrain I often heard my own children blurt out when they were just learning how to talk. But this is a loss not limited to little children, but one that millions of adults worldwide live with moment by moment. No less a figure than the biblical Moses assumed leadership despite being “slow of speech and slow of tongue.”

No one is precisely sure how he was challenged. Perhaps Moses lacked confidence speaking publicly, or perhaps he stuttered, or perhaps he was stricken with aphasia, a condition that affects how one speaks. Whatever his issue one thing is clear: by the end of his tenure, he turns into a great orator, going on chapter after chapter in the Book of Deuteronomy as he shares his last dying spiritual will with his flock. Miraculously, the man who couldn’t speak, speaks – elegantly and eloquently.

Just a few years back I met a humble hero, Eitan, who in his own way is walking Moses’ journey. Eitan was self-employed, working as a property manager in Israel. But then, a serious stroke struck him leaving Eitan aphasic.

Life is full of challenges, but the key is not to ruminate on why something happened, but what to do when it does. As my Rabbi Yosef Dov Soloveitchik wrote: “our mission in life is to turn fate into destiny. An existence that is passive and influenced, to an existence that is active and influential” Paraphrasing this teaching, Esther Wachsman shared how she was able to continue living after her son was murdered by terrorists: “I had to ask myself – will I be a victim of my fate, or will I initiate a new destiny.”

Eitan, with the help of his heroic wife Leora, has done just that. Rather than becoming victims of Eitan’s disability, they have faced it head-on, educating themselves and the public – through counseling, seminars, and soon to be held World Aphasia Shabbat – on how it can be managed; at times overcome. For me, a rabbi-theologian, the suggestions they’ve made are the full embodiment of the verse from the Book of Proverbs “open your mouth to the mute.”

While many good people are understandably uncomfortable near a person who grapples with speech, Eitan and Leora suggest, intentionally sitting near those struggling with words – whether in prayer, or study groups, or when singing the national anthem – reading the words aloud, allowing the Eitans of the world to follow along. Fascinating, while Eitan fights to speak words, when he sings them they flow – all he needs is a friend to spark the melody.

More deeply, the phrase “open your mouth to the mute” may be a kind of “wow moment” when those whose voices are halting give greater meaning to those whose voices flow. Being present when Eitan struggles to find his words, or struggles to turn a word he knows into a word he says is spiritually uplifting. Seeing Eitan’s smile when a word or two or three come out, soars the soul.

Listening to the silence when Eitan’s words do not come out easily, or not at all, challenges us to open up a new form of communication. For most, silence in conversation is daunting, and yet silence can be suffused with meaning; in its emptiness there can be fullness. Speaking is not only hearing words, but listening to silent sounds. In this sense, “open your mouth to the mute” can be inverted as the “mute” can teach us how to “open our mouths” more meaningfully, reminding us that we all have disabilities. It’s not them and us, but we.

And who knows, maybe each of us, whatever our struggles, will travel the arc of Moses’ life and that of Eitan’s, never allowing what we cannot do, to control what we can do.