Is Silence is Golden?©
Parashat Vayikra, 2018/5778
Rabbi David Baum,
Congregation Shaarei Kodesh
There is an old saying, silence is
golden, which surely is not a Jewish statement. If anything, Jews
are anything but silent. I will never forget the first time my wife (who wasn't my wife at the time) came to my home for a big family dinner. In the middle of dinner,
she asked for ear plugs and renamed us the loud family.
Unfortunately, I couldn't hear her.
But honestly, our tradition does think
that silence can be Golden. But, on the other hand, silence can also
actually be harmful.
The book of Leviticus opens up with the
virtue of silence.
וַיִּקְרָ֖א
אֶל־מֹשֶׁ֑ה וַיְדַבֵּ֤ר יְי אֵלָ֔יו
מֵאֹ֥הֶל מוֹעֵ֖ד לֵאמֹֽר׃
The LORD called to Moses and spoke to
him from the Tent of Meeting, saying:
Here is the situation – the Mishkan
is completed – it has been dedicated, so now, what's next?
What's puzzling in this very first
sentence, God calls out to Moses, and then, God speaks to Moses. The
question is, why does God call out to Moses and then speak to him?
Rashi notes that sometimes we see this verb, call out, Vayikra,
before Dibbur, speaking, as it divides up large sections of dialogue.
He says, the following: “It gave Moses an interval for reflection
between one division and another and between one subject and another
— something which is all the more necessary for an ordinary man
receiving instruction from an ordinary man.”
We live in a time of rapid
communication – when something happens, it seems like we have to
comment almost immediately. If someone asks us a question, we have
to answer it, no matter if we know the answer or not. Here we see
something very interesting – Moses, the greatest Jewish mind ever,
needed time to reflect, he needed time for silence which leads to
reflection, and ultimately, to growth.
It got me thinking of a teaching from
the Ethics of Our Fathers:
שִׁמְעוֹן
בְּנוֹ אוֹמֵר, כָּל יָמַי
גָּדַלְתִּי בֵין הַחֲכָמִים, וְלֹא
מָצָאתִי לַגּוּף טוֹב אֶלָּא שְׁתִיקָה.
וְלֹא הַמִּדְרָשׁ הוּא
הָעִקָּר, אֶלָּא
הַמַּעֲשֶׂה. וְכָל
הַמַּרְבֶּה דְבָרִים, מֵבִיא
חֵטְא:
Shimon, his son, says, "All my
days I grew up among the Sages, and I did not find anything good for
the body except silence. And the exposition [of Torah] is not what is
essential, but the action. And whoever increases words brings sin."
Again, this teaching just doesn't seem
Jewish! Think about the difference between a library and a Beit
Midrash, a house of learning. Libraries are really quiet, if you
talk, you are immediately shushed, but stepping into a Beit Midrash
is like stepping into a bees nest. There's a buzz that you can hear
around the room, and it's energizing. But what happens when the
words stop there?
Rambam, Maimonides, gives a fascinating
teaching about different types of speech, but I wanted to highlight
one short teaching: “One's deeds should match his words, as they
said, "Pleasant are the words that come out of the mouth of one
who does them."”
Which brings me to my next teaching,
also found in this week's parashah:
Chapter 5:1 “A person incurs
guilt—When he hears a public imprecation and although able to
testify as one who has either seen or learned of that matter – he
does not give information, so that he is the subject of punishment.”
In this week's Torah reading, we find
this passage that lists a person as a sinner, although he committed
no positive sinful act. What was the sin? He/she was a witness who
had vital information--but withheld it. He/she did not come forward
even after the court issued an order for all those with evidence to
appear in court. This person didn't lie, or cheat or steal: this
person simply remained silent. The Torah tells us that staying silent
when you have evidence is a sin--a sin of omission if not of
commission. One must atone for the sin of remaining silent. It is a
moral outrage; it is a desecration of the teachings of Torah.
Even if a person commits no overt sin,
he/she may be guilty of sin simply by remaining silent, by looking
the other way, by sidestepping responsibility.
As human beings in the digital age,
every person has a soap box, and boy do we love commenting on
everything, whether we know anything about it or not, but if we take
these two teachings together, the power of silence in order to say
what is really important, and then, the obligation to act on these
words once said, is the essence of what it means to be a Jew.
I think we are seeing this from the
teenagers who are leading the March for Our Lives movement. It is
interesting how Jewish this movement seems. The taglines are
#NeverAgain, they demonstrated, many places in silence, on the
shloshim, the 30th day of the shooting. As kids who were born in an
online world, they are mixing their online presence with a presence
in person - taking action through marching, but also, through
advocacy in government. And it is working – Florida, which has
both a Republican house, senate and governor, passed and signed a gun
control bill that raises the age limits for gun purchasing, bans bump
stocks, creates a waiting period, but does some other things that the
students did not ask for, like the arming of certain school
employees. It doesn't ban assault weapons, or high capacity
magazines, or strengthen background checks, but it is the first piece
of gun legislation passed in decades in the state of Florida. Majordepartment stores like Dick's Sporting Goods and Walmart will no
longer sell Ar-15s and will only sell to people 21 and over.
It broke a cycle around mass shootings:
first, politicians offer thoughts and prayers, then, after a few
days, or a few weeks at the most, talk about gun control fizzles out
and the national conversation moves on to other topics without any
meaningful action being taken to prevent the next massacre, and then,
another mass shooting, and more lives needlessly lost. This is the
price of talking without action, and it is the price of silence.
Silence is golden only when it allows
us to listen to each other, to learn from each other, to articulate
our own beliefs, and then, to act upon them – to make sure our
actions match our words. And, we can learn from our teens that if we
believe in something, then we must step forward and play our positive
role to advance the cause. If we withhold our commitment, loyalty and
resources, we are voting against the very causes we claim to espouse.
We no longer sacrifice animals to show
our service to God, rather, we use words through tefillah, Avodah
She'Balev. We aren't silent when we pray though, we must actually
say the words loud enough that only we can hear them, but no one
else. Perhaps it is so that we listen to what we say, and act upon
these prayers in our lives.
Praying is not limited to a sanctuary
and a prayer book. Erica Brown wrote the following in the Voices and Visions project, "We pray when we live our values with the totality
of ourselves." Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel was a fierce advocate for
civil rights and social justice in America in the 1950s -1970s, when
marches and rallies were the norm. He spent a lot of time in study
at the Jewish Theological Seminary, but he also took the to streets
to march with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. When asked about his
experience marching across the bridge with Dr. King in Selma, he
famously said the following:
"When I marched in Selma, I felt
my legs were praying."
Let us talk less, and listen more, but
let us never remain silent, and may our words inspire us to take
action.
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