וארא - גלות הדיבור

Then the Israelites cried out to the LORD

[In Egypt] the power of speech was in exile.

You can shout loudly in a “ small still voice.” You can scream without anyone hearing you shouting with this soundless “small still voice.”

Anyone can do this. Just imagine the sound of such a scream in your mind. Depict the shout in your imagination exactly as it would sound. Keep this up until you are literally screaming with this soundless “ small still voice.”

It is much easier to shout this way without words. When you wish to express words, it is much more difficult to hold the voice in the mind and not let any sound escape. But without words it is much easier

“I am in the midst of the exile” (Ezekiel 1:1). The inner, essential “I” – whether of the individual or of the community – appears within [an entity] only in relation to its holiness and purity [and] in relation to the degree of its supernal power suffused by the pure light of an elevated illumination, flaming within it. “We and our forefathers sinned” (Psalms 106:6). Adam sinned. He was alienated from his essence. He turned to the consciousness of the serpent and lost himself. He did not know how to give a clear answer to the question, “Where are you?” (Genesis 3:9), because he did not know himself, because he had lost [his] true “I,” with [his] sin of bowing to a strange god. [The nation of] Israel sinned. It “ran after foreign gods” (Deuteronomy 31:16). It abandoned its essential “I.” “Israel rejected goodness” (Hosea 8:3). The earth sinned [during the week of Creation]. It denied its essence. It constricted its power. It went after [limited] goals and purposes. It did not give forth all of its hidden power so that the taste of the tree would be equal to the taste of its fruit (Sukkah 35a). It raised its eyes to look outside of itself, to think about [its trivial] future, its “career.” The moon complained [at that time] (Hullin 60b). [As a result,] it lost its internal orbit, the joy of its portion. It was dreaming of a superficial beauty of royalty. Thus does the world continue to sink, with the loss of the “I” of every [entity] – of the individual and of the whole. Learned educators come and focus on the superficial. They too remove their consciousness from the “I.” They add straw to the fire, give vinegar to the thirsty, and fatten minds and hearts with everything that is external to them. And the “I” grows progressively forgotten. And when there is no “I,” there is no “He,” and how much more is there no “You.” The Messiah is called “the breath of our nostrils, the anointed one of God” (Lamentations 4:20). This is his might, the beauty of his greatness: [that] he is not outside of us. He is the breath of our nostrils. Let us seek Hashem our God and David our king. Let us tremble before God and His goodness. Let us seek our “I.” Let us seek ourselves – and find. Remove all foreign gods, remove every stranger and illegitimate one. Then “you will know that I am Hashem your God, Who takes you out of the land of Egypt to be your God. I am Hashem your God” (cf. Numbers 15:41).

The second soul in Israel is truly "a part of God above," as it is written: "and he blew into his nostrils a soul of life"(Genesis 2:7); "And You blew it into me." (Siddur, Morning Prayer). It is written in the Zohar "he Who blows, blows from within him," that is to say, from his inwardness and from his innermost being. For it is is of his inward and innermost vitality that a man emits through blowing with force.