Words

Dr. Bernard Lown, Nobel Prize winner, tells of a middle-aged librarian, Mrs. S, who had difficulty with her heart, specifically the tricuspid valve.  The chief cardiologist of Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston came in to the patient’s room and said to other attendant physicians, “This woman has TS.”  He then turned and left the room.

As soon as he walked out of the room, Dr. Lown noticed that S she looked frightened; her breathing rate accelerated.  Not long after the woman’s lungs filled with fluid.

Bernard Lown looked at S and asked her why she looked upset.  

“Because he said I was TS.  I know that is medical jargon for a terminal situation.”

Dr. Lown explained that was not what the physician meant. For him, TS stood for “tricuspid stenosis”

The words of Dr. Lown didn’t help.  Later that same day Mrs. S died of heart failure.

Words are only beginning.  Like seeds or viruses they quickly embed themselves, germinate and then creep & grow until consume us all.

What difference does it make when a car races by, its windows rolled down and foul words yelled at passersby, maybe you.  They did not assault anyone.  They committed no crime. And yet. Would you be surprised if they spoiled someone’s day?  Would you find it incredulous if that hurt person then took it out on someone else?

Swastikas painted on a local synagogue are a malicious act of property destruction.  Charlottesville, New York, Colorado Springs, Chicago, Madison are a few of the communities that experienced this defacement in the past couple of months.  Does it really mean anything?  Just a scrubbing, a new coat of paint and all is remedied.  Right?  What about the vulnerable members who feel like they have been violated?  The staid and contented folks who lived there for decades who suddenly wonder, “Who hates me?  And Why?”

           James Bird, a black man was tied, attached to truck and dragged until died.  This comes well before al the recent acts of violence.  Eric Garner and the Emanuel Nine?  Their families still wonder, “Where did this hate come from?”

Countless churches across the Mideast have been burned.

Remember Matthew Shepherd?  Shepherd, of Laramie, Wyoming, was brutalized then crucified on fence.  An item not often cited in the press was that his face was thickly caked with mud.  And still through that raked earth could be seen jagged slivers running from his eyes to his chin.  Matthew Shepherd cried as he slowly died.

You will wonder “why”?  Why do people do such terrible things to one another?  Do they not realize the magnitude of pain and horror they inflict?

I suspect not.  You see, it all begins with words, words misused, misspent and abused.  Those words then convert into small acts of nastiness that inflict great psychic pain. It begins with words, innocuous things that are only vapor and as I often ask, how many people did Hitler personally kill?   All he did was speak.

            Good people must never be silent.  When you hear someone defaming a person or group, tell him or her they are birthing hatred.  Even something as innocuous as speaking ill of another (lashon ha-ra) is enough to cause dangerous lesions that can infect and kill. 

It all begins at home. 

A Thought as the Year Draws to a Close

Middle School.  As a child, I intently read George Orwell and wondered if Big Brother would really be watching me in 1984.  I remember watching 2001 A Space Odyssey with rapt attention.  To me it seemed pretty realistic at the time since space exploration was sprinting toward the newest frontier.  I was breathless with anticipation.

Frankly, each New Year does the same thing to me on a slightly smaller scale.  The news magazines list the necrology of the past year while the very next article delineates the coming advances of the techno-age.  Invariably, I forget what year it is for weeks after the change of the last digit.  What this year brings is the turn of all four digits, something humanity has not seen in one thousand years.

When 1984 arrived it was a bit anti-climactic.  We still lived in a democracy.  Nothing even close.

2001 came and went and HAL (that renegade computer in the distant expanses of space) is still he stuff of fantasy (but getting closer every day), I realize that progress is not as novel and frenetic as my imagination would paint it.

My confession: I wanted to be a space cowboy.  As a child I dreamed of rocketing off to the reaches of the universe in pursuit of the great secrets of that dark, diamond-studded universe.  I wrote to NASA and obtained their latest information on lunar probes, the lunar mobile, satellites, the space station and fact sheets on astronauts that I proudly hung on the wall above my bed.  The disappointing reality is that we are on the eve of the second millennium and I am tooling around in a car just like my dad’s 1970 Olds.  Bummer.

I guess my childhood hope was that time was going to create quantum leaps in the way I lived.  I too, have listened to many of my colleagues –both Jewish and Christian – as they revealed their secret belief: with time we become more civilized, better people.  Both our dreams have proved to be nothing more than fantasies.

An ancient belief states that there is no experience that does not contain the kernel of a great truth.  Our task?  To uncover that truth.

What these disappointments have proven is that time is not a vehicle; it is a gift. 

Remember the trips where we invested copious amounts of energy in the planning?  Anticipated for months, we finally embark on our journey only to find that the vacation turns out to be a dud.  The lesson?  Maybe the trip itself wasn’t supposed to be the best part.  Maybe the passage of time is the greatest gift to be celebrated.  Stopping for a drink, seeing the rolling hills, laughing with one another may be better than arriving.

Time is holy.  It is to celebrated.  Whatever happens along the road is simply to be absorbed and enjoyed.  In fact, time is much more holy than space.  Think of it: holy days mark our religious and secular calendars.  They are simply moments set aside.  Abraham Joshua Heschel, a Jewish theologian of the past generation, said that when we appreciate and sanctify time, we build glorious castles out of those moments. Expectations of what will come invariably disappoint.  Reality can never match the creations of the mind.  Instead, our job is to enjoy the holy passages of time.  What happens if we are preoccupied with thinking about what should happen rather than revel in the present?  Time goes and it can never be recovered.  There are no ‘make-ups’ in real life.

Perhaps the greatest blessing of the second millennium is that it has the potential to make us aware of the holiness of time.  I don’t know what will happen on December 31 and January 1 but I am willing to bet it will be a unique event.  As unique as January 2, 2018.

What in A Name?

God.  I don’t know where that word comes from.

HaShem means “The Name.”  We use this appellation to describe God as the unmentionable.  The other, more familiar names of God are exclusively reserved for prayer.  All told, there are some seventy names for God.  And those are just the Hebrew ones!  Some are in the feminine form, others are masculine.  There are no neutral words in Hebrew.   Every word has a gender. 

God is a rabbi, sage, healer, and creator….  God is even called “A Man of War.” Look closely at the few names mentioned for God; they are all specific and limiting. Every word describing God must be inaccurate.  God is more than a “name”. God is beyond a rabbi: Not just a healer, God is all things.  In fact, words get in the way.  They may stand as forces that prevent us from entering the Palace.

On the Holy Days we saw how references to God were almost exclusively as a melekh, a king.  Rosh Hashanna and Yom Kippur are events when we imagine God as a king on a throne.  What does a king do?  He judges.  The image is austere and forbidding.

As a child, the vision of God sitting on a throne, pensively gazing out at His subjects, was the most natural picture to conjure up when thinking about God.  It makes sense.  After all, children are used to authority figures telling what to do and mysteriously knowing their most secret places.  ‘God must be like that too’, they consider.   We do the same in a more worldly fashion.  At times of seething anger God becomes the “Avenger’ or “man of War”.  During moments of intense pain God is the “Healer of Shattered Hearts.”

In other words, we name to name God.  We are inner directed to find words that sum up our needy feelings.  That is why when Moshe rabbenu asks God by which name he should call Him, God responds, “I am that I am”.  Nothing else is needed.  I guess God knew that as quickly as word would spread of God’s existence there would be an infinite number of names attached to His Presence (that’s another one).  We need associations that make us feel as if God were comprised of attributes that directly answer our needs.

That is why the Rambam called any name that we apply to God a metaphor.  It simply must stand for something else.  God is too great to be limited by a pint-sized word.  Any attempt to label God is absurd.

I lived for several years in London.  During the first months of living there I discovered how often my English was misunderstood.  Even something as simple as holding up two fingers for the ‘peace’ sign invited some rather painful responses.   Someone once called the United States and Great Britain as “two countries divided by the same language.”  Only shared experiences yields understanding.  In fact, I find it amazing that we understand as much a s we do.  I suspect that most of what we understand from others derives from a visceral comprehension.  That is, we only understand what touches us emotionally.  The cadence, voice fluctuations, emotional vibes all frame our understanding of the spoken word.  The words themselves are inadequate at best; at worst, they lie.

All this is to say that often what gets in the way of the pray-er is the wall of words, which has mounted between God and us.  We do not quite get it.  What do the words of this Psalm have to do with me?  What if my metaphor for God does not work here?  Then it is time to do one of the most difficult things any religious person can ever do: daven.  Not just mouth the words.  Not just fulfil the mitzvah of prayer.  Daven.   While most Jews have sung and recited the words of the siddur with some frequency few of us have risen to the level of really speaking to God about matters of the heart. 

It does not matter what we call God.  Language obfuscates, it confuses, and makes the art of davenning a little too facile.  What God wants is for someone to speak with Him.  Consider all the Hasidic tales, which are about prayers not being strong enough to enter the portals of heaven.  That is because they lack the soul, neshama, necessary to give them flight.  Odder yet, is that is precisely what the soul demands as well.  It yearns to speak the deepest thoughts that lurk within.  “The Lord is near to all who call upon Him, To all who call upon Him in truth.”  Truth emanates from the heart.

Advice to Graduates

           Shimon, the son of Gamliel, thought hard.  When asked this question he could not help but search through years of lessons, discussions, and arguments.  “Sometimes,” he reflected, “they embraced each other; other times they stormed off in a discernable anger.”  He saw the greatest scholars of all time scratch their heads in wonder.  And now here he was being asked the question, “What is the greatest truth that you know?”

Shimon understood, after all the learning he had been exposed to, that this was the hardest question he had ever been asked.  Slowly, Shimon opened his mouth.  “All my life I have been raised with Sages.  What I have learned is that the best to learning the truth is silence.  When I am quiet and do not rush to make others hear my opinions I am free to hear the full story first.”

They nodded, listening.

Shimon drew in a breath and continued.  “Practice is more important than study.  After all, you can memorize facts galore but what a person does is more important than what he knows or says.”

A cool breeze blew through the orchard as if agreeing with the young scholar.  No sound was heard as Shimon continued.  “One who speaks too much brings sin into the world.”

Shimon, son of Gamliel, really lived in Israel two thousand years ago.  These words were actually spoken by him.  He said three things that I want the graduating class of any time or year to absorb.

1. Listen.  Do not make snap judgements.  If you are too busy speaking or contemplating what you will next say your mind will not be open to what is being uttered by others.

2. Be good.  Do good.  Words are cheap.  They can be spewed forth and be meaningless.  If you really want to make a difference in the world, follow the mitzvot.  Be a Jew.

3. If you prattle on and just let words gush out, sooner (rather than later), you will hurt someone.  It is so easy to wound another by careless words.  Think first.

Now make these words and truths yours and we will always be proud of you.

Rabbi Jonathan Case