It is brought in Chazal that the reason we went down to Egypt was to rectify חַ טָּ אֵ י הַ לָשׁ וֹן – the sins of the tongue or speech. Moshe Rabbeinu goes out to see the welfare of his brothers, he sees an Egyptian man striking a Jew and kills him using the Shem HaMeforash. The next day, he sees a Jewish man striking another Jew and he attempts to intervene, only to be told by the aggressor:
He said, “Who made you a man, officer and judge over us? Do you intend to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?” Moshe was frightened, and he said, “So the matter is known.”
What exactly was known? In addition to the straightforward meaning of Moshe’s earlier actions were known to the authorities, Rashi says, Moshe was puzzled about what sin Bnei Yisrael committed more than all the seventy nations to be subjugated to such hard labor. And he now understood. He saw they were deserving of it because amongst them were wicked informers – רְ שׁ ָ עִ י ם דֵּ ל ָ ט ו ֹ רִ י ן, and as a result, perhaps they were not worthy of redemption. The Kli Yakar adds this is why Hakadosh Baruch Hu revealed Himself to Moshe Rabbeinu from within a thornbush and not a flowery bush or tree. Bnei Yisrael were in distress more than all the nations because there are informers among them who raise their voices in insults and blasphemies like thorns that make noise when they burn in a fire. Bnei Yisrael, even while the fire of trouble burned around them, were a thorn of pain to one another – hatred and jealousy was pervasive and their tongues (speech) made them unclean.
Since we went down to Egypt because of the sins of speech, Chazal say, therefore the redeemer was כְבַד פֶּה וּכְבַד לָשׁ וֹן – heavy of mouth and heavy of tongue, to signal to them that their problem was with speech. Additionally, when Moshe Rabbeinu asks Hakadosh Baruch Hu what signs to show the people should they not believe him, he was given two signs directly related to this root cause: transforming his staff into a snake and having tzara’at appear on his hand. The first to speak lashon hara in the world was the snake in Gan Eden, and for sins of lashon hara one receives tzara’at. Lastly, they were brought to Egypt, whose leader’s name, פּ ַ רְ ע ֹ ה, is a formation of the words פּ ֶ ה רַ ע – a bad mouth, and they left Mitzrayim with a mouth that spoke in holiness – פּ ֶ ה שָׂ ח or פּ ֶ סַ ח.
Chazal say (Vayikra Rabbah 32:5), for four things Bnei Yisrael were redeemed from Egypt – that they did not change their name, nor their language, they did not speak lashon hara, and there was not found among them one who was immoral. Accordingly, we can understand a Pasuk that we say every day:
אָ נֹכִ י ה' אֱ - לֹהֶ יךָ הַ מַּ עַ לְ ךָ מֵ אֶ רֶ ץ מִ צְ רָ יִם הַ רְ חֶ ב פִּ יךָ וַאֲ מַ לְ אֵ הוּ
What is the connection that Hakadosh Baruch Hu took us out of Egypt to "open your mouth wide and I will fill it"? The answer is very simple. If the entire reason we went down to Egypt was because of the sins of speech, then when Hakadosh Baruch Hu took us out of Egypt, we were automatically rectified from these sins, and this is the meaning of הַ רְ חֶ ב פּ ִ י ךָ – your mouth is rectified from the sins of the tongue, therefore וַאֲ מַ לְ אֵ הוּ – it will now be filled with words of Torah at Har Sinai!
