Not that I am comparing British King George VI to Moses Moshe Rabbenu but I must say that when I saw the film The Kings Speech I couldnt help but think of the two together.
The movie is a true story about how King George VI unexpectedly became the king of England when his brother abdicated. I had not known the story or the history, so the film was informative and interesting. But it was so much more than that.
At the heart of this film is a story about an unlikely friendship, an amazingly tender, loyal and supportive marital partnership, and a person wrestling his demons into submission. Of course, it is also about how someone, with profound reluctance yet loyalty and bravery, boldly answers the call to duty.
In the book of Exodus, at the burning bush, one of the reasons Moshe says to G-d that he does not see himself fit to be the leader of the Jewish people is, I am not a man of words. Moshe cannot speak well.
G-d reassures Moshe that it is He, G-d, Who is the source of mans capacity to speak, so Moshe need not worry. G-d finally assuages Moshe by telling him that his elder brother Aaron will be his spokesman. He will ventriloquize Moshes wishes to King Pharaoh.
As we all know, this is what came to pass.
But we do see Moshe struggle with speech throughout the rest of his life. When Moshe is returning from the pinnacle of holiness and descending from Mount Sinai to bring the Ten Commandments to the Jewish people, he, upon seeing their sin and transgression, has no words. The tablets slip from his hands and shatter into smithereens.
When Moshe is told by G-d to speak to a rock in order to miraculously receive water for the Jewish people, now dehydrated in the desert, Moshe again responds with action and deed, instead of words. Against G-ds wishes to Moshe to verbalize his intention to the rock, Moshe famously and ever so sadly, for this is the source of Moshes deepest spiritual and emotional desire of entering the promised Israel not coming to fruition strikes the rock.
King George VI struggles with his speech. He is unable to find his voice and speak because he is psychologically scarred (as was Moshe, according to the famous midrash that, as a young child in the Egyptian palace, Moshe burned his mouth by the coals of his own hand). The King was scarred from childhood by the distant, formal and pressured infrastructure of royal relationships in the palace. King George VI is tight and fraught with pain and anxiety.
This inner turmoil bleeds into his speech, or rather his inability to speak.
It is very painful to watch his pain. Although his mouth cannot articulate the words, and although his face and neck are frozen in fear, King George VIs expressive eyes stab us in the heart, delivering and exposing the unsaid words and feelings: his humiliation, his sheer fear, human struggle and the ache of his heart.
The movie develops King George VIs journey as a stutterer to a pivotal moment when he crosses the threshold from a troubled speaker to not just triumphing over his long held psychological and physiological block, but speaking at a historical moment. The clouds of war are gathering. Not to mention, even though you know how his speech will turn out, you in the audience are holding your breath for him! He comes through, inspiring an entire country with flying colors.
It is a moment of great joy and release. Despite all of King George VIs hurdles and afflictions, he overcomes at the precipice of war, no less, in such a stellar, heartfelt way.
What is so touching through the film is the emerging friendship between the royal and the commoner. The speech therapist, Lionel Logue, is a bit of an eccentric, somewhat offbeat.
Logue uses unconventional methods for helping King George or, as Logue insists on calling him, Bertie, to help him find his way with words. To help him find his voice.
The truth is, Logues is more of an unconventional therapy than a speech therapy. King George VI becomes the disciple. Commoner (and failed actor) Lionel Logue becomes the teacher, the master. Between the two, a true friendship blossoms.
King George VI never looks to the crown. He personifies the opposite of even a smidgen of pompousness or of the attention-seeking type. He comes through and becomes King George VI when it is clear that the people of England really need him; there is an empty throne that needs to be filled.
As with our leader Moshe Rabbenu or with King David, there is something deeply humble, something very Jewish about that, which resonated with me.
