Rosh HaShanah: Watching Our Words
Sermon by Rabbi Jennifer Hartman
2016/5777
“The time has come
The walrus said
To talk of many things:
Of shoes- and ships-
And sealing wax-
Of cabbages and kings-
And why the sea is boiling hot-
And whether pigs have wings.”
With words such as these we are pulled into Lewis Carroll's famous book, Alice and Wonderland, in which Carroll so vividly paints a mystical magical world for us through the use of his pithy phrases, short anecdotes and even, gibberish. We follow as Alice, bored with the conversation of grown-ups, finds a topsy-turvy, upside down universe filled with entertainment and adventure.
As a little girl, I loved to escape behind the looking glass with Alice. I was introduced to these stories by my grandfather. Still a man of few—but powerful—words, he has always connected best through the wit and wisdom of books. Whenever we were together, we had a nighttime ritual. Once I was in bed he would come into my room and tell me a story. Using the characters from Alice and Wonderland, he created an imaginary world and sent Alice, with me as her sidekick, on an adventure. I could not help but be enchanted by the reality he created.
On one of my recent visits to my grandparent’s home I found Carroll's book amongst the vast array of volumes overflowing my grandfather's shelves. I picked it up and began to read. I was quickly reminded of Carroll’s brilliance and his mastery of the English language. His riddles stay with us as their logic, combined with their whimsical nature, reverberates in our minds. It is his creative genius and wordplay that keeps us engaged in the story. Words have that power. They have the ability not only to impart information but also to engage, motivate and transform.
The great speeches of our time are remembered for more than the speaker's personality or charisma. They are remembered for the anecdotes that speak to our hearts and endure in our minds. “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” “I have a dream.” I get chills just thinking about these words that marked such astonishing human achievements - the celebration of space exploration, a President summoning us to be our best selves, and the greatest civil rights leader challenging the status quo. They are motivational and inspirational. They move us to act, they propel us forward, they enable us to envision a brighter future and bring that vision to reality. These are words that have the strength to inspire us to action.
Our Jewish tradition understands the power of words. In just a few weeks we will begin the Torah anew with these words: “Bereshit barah elohim et hashamayim v’et haratz. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1) God spoke and the world was created. It is through God’s words that the world came into being. With words we humans also create. When a new couple stands beneath the wedding chuppah excited and nervous to begin their lives together, they exchange vows - Harei at mekudeshet li - that bind their lives together. With their words they build a family. For any of us who have had the privilege and the honor of witnessing this moment we can feel its power, its exhilaration, its hope. In that moment we witness creation.
Words, however, also have the ability to harm. We have all been at the other end of a snide remark, a hurtful comment, and a bad joke. We all know that the nursery rhyme “sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me,” is far from true. Words hurt, a lot. They get under our skin and attach to our soul. We carry harmful words around with us like bricks weighing us down. They make us look at ourselves differently. They deflate our confidence and cause us to question our being. Now, more than ever, it seems we cannot escape the critical words that aim to tear us down. They are everywhere. They are on our many screens, in our pockets, at work and sometimes even at home.
Do you know that there are people today who are surfing the Internet with the sole purpose of criticizing others? They are called trolls, which is Internet slang for a person who sows discord by starting arguments or upsetting people, by posting inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community. Factors like anonymity and a lack of authority strip away the morals that we as a society have spent millennia building, giving people the freedom to attack others. They use social media to perform pranks, harass and threaten their victims.
This is not a new issue or a new concern. Entire books have been written on the dangers of having an evil tongue. The Torah refers to the slander as lashon hara - derogatory speech about another person. The prohibition against this is found twice in the Torah, both in the third book, the book of Leviticus. “You will not go up and down as a tale-bearer among thy people” (Lev. 19:16), “You shall not wrong one another with speech” (Lev. 25:17). The Talmud teaches us that the act of lashon hara kills three people - the person who speaks it, the person who hears it and the person about whom it is told. In fact, the rabbis went as far as to say that slander, tale bearing, and evil talk are worse than the three cardinal sins of murder, immorality, and idolatry. In truth, it is with words that we can affect others to the point of causing these latter three offences.
This is why sins committed with our words hold a central place in our confessions on Yom Kippur. Of the 43 sins enumerated in the Al Cheit confession recited on Yom Kippur, 11 are sins committed through speech. According to Jewish tradition the tongue is the most dangerous of all instruments. For this reason it must be kept hidden from view, behind the two protective walls of the lips and teeth, in order to prevent its misuse.
I would argue that our lips and our teeth are not doing their job these days. The words that we are hearing from our pre-school children to our politicians are mean and alarming. This summer I was at Camp TEKO sitting with a first grade group as they ate their snack when I heard one camper say to another, “Donald Trump is racist and hates woman.” The camper responded “Hillary Clinton is a liar and a cheater.” While it would be unwise to underestimate the aptitude of Camp TEKO first graders, I am fairly certain that our campers did not come up with these assessments on their own. They were merely repeating what they heard around the kitchen table. While they may not fully understand the words they are saying, they do know they are unkind.
We have come very far from the debates over the white picket fence author Bill Bishop describes in his book, The Big Sort. He writes that although “America is more diverse than ever coast to coast, the places where we live are becoming increasingly crowded with people who live, think, and vote like we do. We've built a country where we can all choose the neighborhood and church and news show — most compatible with our lifestyle and beliefs. And we are living with the consequences of this way-of-life segregation. Our country has become so polarized, so ideologically inbred, that people don't know and can't understand those who live just a few miles away.” This trend is apparent in the way in which we speak to one another about the topics over which we disagree.
This year’s political discourse has been characterized by a certain coarseness and demeaning quality. Instead of news that teaches us about the merit or problems with each candidate’s policy suggestions, we are reading and hearing personal attacks on politicians themselves. And we, as private citizens, are repeating and perpetuating these campaign smears while also applying our judgment to our peers. We are attacking each other for our political opinions. I regularly see Facebook posts threatening to end friendships over politics. We question the intelligence and sanity of those with whom we disagree. We are using our words to attack one another’s very being. We are judging people’s souls based on their political leanings. We are assuming that because their thoughts differ from ours they are evil, malicious and going to cause the destruction of the country. We have replaced listening with judging.
Sh’ma Yisrael, Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai Echad. Listen Israel Adonai is our God, Adonai is one. Listen Israel. These are the words that Jews are commanded to say each time we pray, they are the words that our on our lips when we go to sleep at night. They are on the doorposts of our home. We teach them to our children. They are the last words we say before we die. These words teach us to pay attention. We are not just to let the sounds pass by our ears. We are to use the skill of listening, not just the physical ability to hear, which not all of us have. Yet, we can all listen to the words being communicated to us, whether it be through speech, sign language or the written word. In fact, listening, paying attention, Sh'miat Haozen, is one of the virtues we are to aspire to. When we are committed to attentive listening we have the ability to understand and learn from one another.
The Torah is full of times when God is trying to get our attention. “Listen well, O heavens, and I will speak.” (Deuteronomy 32:1)– only if we are paying attention will God talk to us. This idea of listening is of utmost importance in the Torah. Torah does not mince words. Tradition tells us that every word is used for a purpose. It is no accident that we are commanded time and again to pay attention. The Israelites were not very good at listening. They rarely understood what was being communicated to them. Instead, they interrupted with their list of grievances. Too often, we are like the ancient Israelites.
If we are honest with ourselves we know that we don’t listen very well. And when we do, we are often listening for what we want to hear. We have made a decision about what the other person will say and we are biding our time, waiting for when we can interject with our own opinion, or discredit the speaker with a counterpoint. Rarely do we slow down enough to ask questions, to dig deeper, and to understand another’s point of view and core values. Rarely do we hear, let alone look for, the truths that differ from our own assumptions or understandings. Rather than using our conversation to learn something new, we use them to convince others of our side. All too often this leads to yelling and arguing, instead of listening and understanding.
We all know how much better we feel when others pay attention to us. This is when we feel most valued, most understood, most important. It is also when we are most able to listen to another’s point of view. It is in this duality that we are able to find common ground where our paths, our passions and our concerns meet and where we can find solutions that were never imagined.
As hard as it is to choose our words carefully, it is even harder to listen to those with which we disagree. Game of Thrones is a TV series, based on a book, that shows the best and worst of humanity. It happens to be much too gory for me, but I still can’t stop watching when Mike has it on! There are characters in it that are so despicable it hard not to root for their destruction. Then there are others whose wisdom far exceeds their position or stature. One such character, who happens to be my personal favorite, Tyrion Lannister, remarked: “We make peace with our enemies, not our friends.” Guarding our tongue and listening attentively are two crucial skills to living together amongst families and within communities.
In a conversation with the Mad Hatter, Alice begins a sentence “I don’t think…” Before she has a chance to finish the Hatter jumps in with: “Then you should not speak.” This of course frustrates Alice to no end, for the Hatter is clearly not listening to her. In fact, in many ways it is the lack of listening that propels the story of Alice forward. But, in this instance, it is not the art of listening that the Mad Hatter is trying to teach us. He wants Alice to realize that she is not choosing her words carefully. So often we don’t think, but we do speak. We speak out of anger and frustration; we speak out of boredom or to fill the silence. We use our words without discretion. In so doing, we forget the power we have to create and to destroy. Instead, we view speech as a credit line with no limit, rather than the most valuable possession we have. And the value of our credit is plummeting.
It is time for us to take back the importance of speech and relearn the art of listening. It is time for us to work toward understanding one another. Our words, once released, are like an arrow. They cannot be recalled; the harm they do cannot be contained. Just as the feathers in the well-known parable cannot be put back into the pillow once they have been shaken out into the wind, our words have a tendency to fly away to places unknown where we are unable to collect them and the damage they do cannot be undone. But, as is said in Proverbs, kind words are like honey, they are sweet to the soul and healing to the body. They promote kindness and compassion.
Therefore, as we celebrate this New Year, we have a choice to make. Will we use our speech to heal or to harm? Will we speak rashly like the thrust of a sword or bring healing with the wise tongue? Will we use our words to light fires in our minds or to wring tears from our eyes? And to whom will each of us commit to listen? Whose opinion will we try to better understand? Whose fears will we begin to acknowledge? Now is our chance to change the conversation. For:
“The time has come
The walrus said
To talk of many things”
Shana Tova