I was once in Toronto, where there is an extraordinary yeshiva for deaf boys, which has been operating for decades. The rosh yeshiva himself is deaf, as is his wife, and the students. At the time, there were about twelve boys, ages fifteen through eighteen. I can say without exaggeration that they are among the happiest, most radiant boys I have ever encountered. Not superficially happy, but deeply and genuinely alive.
Before my visit, I received a call from their interpreter. She told me that the boys usually daven with the neighboring yeshiva, but they had one request. Since I was in town, they wondered if they could have their own minyan, just to daven together with me.
I’ll be honest. For a moment, the technical questions ran through my mind. A minyan? Kaddish? Are we yotzei? Then I stopped myself. You’re being offered the opportunity to daven with twelve deaf boys whose sincerity pierces Shamayim. Why would I ever miss that zechus? And I can tell you: the Shechinah was present in that minyan in a way few places ever merit.
I told her I would absolutely be there.
That Thursday night, when I arrived in Toronto, she called me again and said, “The boys are beside themselves with excitement!” Afterward, she said, I would speak with a signer translating. “No problem,” I said.
When I walked in, they greeted me with hugs and pure, overflowing joy. I’d spoken to audiences before, but I had never received so much warmth in my life. If anyone ever feels down, I strongly recommend getting on a plane and going to that yeshiva. These boys are extraordinary and so filled with happiness, love, and an openness of heart and soul.
When we began to daven, the chazan stepped up. He was a young man with a cochlear implant, able to articulate more clearly than some of the others. And then he began to pronounce the words more carefully and with more concentration than people who have been davening fluently their entire life. Each word mattered. The boys davened—some vocally, some silently—but all wholeheartedly.
Then we reached Shema Yisrael. They stood there, hands over their eyes, saying Shema as best as they could. And as they did, I broke down crying.
Shema means “listen.” Shema Yisrael—listen, Israel. But these boys cannot hear! I found myself crying out silently: “Hashem, I don’t understand. How can they say Shema Yisrael?”
And then the Shema continued. “Baruch Shem Kevod...” —the words recited by the angels, as the Midrash teaches (Devarim Rabbah 2:36). And then the Shema goes on even further with the next paragraph: “Ve’ahavta es Hashem Elokecha bechol levavcha—Love Hashem with all your heart.”
And suddenly it hit me. Shema does not mean listening with your ears. It means listening with your heart. And in that room, it was deafening. The intensity of their hearts filled the space. And I thought to myself: They have one up on me. I may think I hear, but they hear far more than I do. Not with their ears, but with their hearts.
After davening, I stood up and spoke to the boys. I told them my famous elevator mashal about a person who gives up just one step before the breakthrough, not realizing success was within reach.
Later, when I addressed the broader community, I said something I meant with complete sincerity. Toronto is protected, I said. As long as those boys are learning Torah in that yeshiva, as long as that minyan exists, there is nothing to fear.
And yet, listen to this. At the time, the boys were learning in trailers. I said to the community, “These boys don’t deserve trailers. They deserve a castle.”
We are allowed to ask questions in life. Moshe Rabbeinu asked questions. But Hashem told him something fundamental: “You can ask, but you are misunderstanding.”
“I am Hashem,” he told Moshe. I bring people into the world who can hear and people into the world who cannot hear. But it is all the same Hashem. I do not “run out of parts.” I don’t suddenly realize I’m missing components—missing hearing here, sight there, intelligence here. Everything is deliberate. Everything has meaning. Everything is exact.
And what you see is not what you get.
That is what Hashem was teaching Moshe Rabbeinu. And Moshe was far greater than we are. Yet even Moshe said, “You sent me to save them? You sent me to make things easier. And look what happened; it got harder. What is going on?”
And Hashem’s response was: Hold on. Parshas Va’eira begins with the words, “And G-d spoke to Moshe, and He said to him, ‘I am Hashem’...”
The Names Elokim and Hashem are the same, Hashem told Moshe: If I am doing this, I am doing it intentionally. Nothing here is accidental. I wanted Pharaoh to make it harder because one plague was about to become ten, and ten were about to become two hundred and fifty at the sea.
This was not a setback. This was a setup.
And when we learn to not simply hear with our ears, but with our hearts, we can pick up the faint whisper of Hashem telling us, “I am Hashem... I am here with you.”
