The Word

Words spoken at the wrong moment can have dramatic and long-lasting consequences.  The same is true for words that have not been thought-out, a spontaneous blurt.  Reflect for moment on the residual insults, slights, and wounds you bear.  More often than not, we are not victims of physical assaults but have all been are verbally abused.

Long after the words were spoken, long after the person who said them forgot what he said, we still remember.  Those words keep us up at night.  They come to us in dark moments and cause us to cringe…often decades later.

The internet has hastened the verbal decline in the psychic abyss.  Words sent with abandon are read and re-read, each time extracting new unintended meanings.  Deler licebit quod non edideris; nescit vox missa revert.  “You can change what you did not write - but words written you can never retract,” wrote the Roman poet Horace.  I know people who hold onto excoriating notes written to them years later and grow angrier every time they read them.

Perhaps that is why Rashi identifies the aspect of man that was “made in the image of God” as the gift of speech.  When we speak we build or destroy; we heal or hurt.  Just as God cast the world into being with words so too we become creators with what we say.  Words are never meaningless or empty; they are filled and volatile vessels.

It is interesting that the Hebrew for “words” is the same as for “things” (devarim).  I suspect that the ancient ones knew that words are things.  Once spoken they become alive.  They embed themselves quickly into the minds of the listener and become part of their being.  Kabbalah goes so far as to tell us that letters and words the building blocks of the physical universe.  The letters themselves are like the foundation which undergirds everything.  Without their power the universe would collapse on itself.

In tefilah, prayer, one word can have a tremendous impact.  One single word uttered with focus and intention can elevate a moment or even a lifetime.  In life, a word of praise spoken at the right time can redeem a lifetime of regret and despair.  A wrong word can destroy a person and even ruin their family.

The power invested in humanity by God through the gift of speech is overwhelming.  We are charged to use it well – for the sake of building life and not tearing it down.   Be compassionate in word.