A Leadership of Silence

“I have never been eloquent...”

— Exodus 4:10

This week, we will open up the book of Exodus in synagogues around the world a day after America's presidential inauguration. The time feels ripe to think about the relationship between speech and leadership. Words can communicate hope, or they can confirm hate. Words can lift the spirit or send listeners into a depressive tailspin. Words can be a tool of the arrogant or an obstacle to the humble.

Moses complained multiple times about his speaking inadequacies related to content, to the mechanics of speech and to his own unworthiness to represent his people. "'So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.' But Moses said to God, 'Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?'" [Exodus 3:10-11].

Moses could not agree to a plan that he felt unworthy to represent. Moses countered again. "Moses answered, 'What if they do not believe me or listen to me and say, 'The Lord did not appear to you?' Then the Lord said to him, 'What is that in your hand?' 'A staff,' he replied. The Lord said, 'Throw it on the ground.' Moses threw it on the ground and it became a snake, and he ran from it," [Exodus 4:1-3]

This would surely have moved Moses to action, but still he protested. "Moses said to the Lord, 'Pardon your servant, Lord. I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue.' The Lord said to him, 'Who gave human beings their mouths? Who makes them deaf or mute? Who gives them sight or makes them blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say.' But Moses said, 'Pardon your servant, Lord. Please send someone else,'" [Exodus 4:10-13]

Later, in 6:12 and 30, Moses added an additional, puzzling complaint: he has uncircumcised lips, a very odd expression that suggests some kind of blockage that prevents his words from achieving the mellifluous peak necessary to be an influential leader. Moses failed to understand why he specifically was chosen, why anyone would listen to him and where the source of speech would come from for a man of few words. Although we have classically understood Moses to be a stutterer or have a stammer, this reading may be too literal. Moses may have felt stymied by his lack of elegance rather than by any physical problem. Rashi observes that verse 4:10 should be read this way: "In heaviness, I speak." Words were neither light nor trivial to him. This he regarded as a political liability. In politics, words can become weapons of insurrection or popularity or insincerity. These were realms not familiar to the young man born in trepidation and suddenly transferred to a house of royalty.

Avivah Gottleib Zornberg in her new and excellent book, Moses: A Human Life, comments that Moses' "...destiny is yoked with his people's in ways that he cannot at first fathom. Heaviness is everywhere, both inside his mouth and in his relation with a people who are 'his' only by way of a mother who has receded into oblivion. He has been shot into a future that he cannot recognize as his own." Instead of curing Moses of a speech problem that plagued him, God wanted Moses because of his speech deficiencies: "Moses' mouth is precisely what God has chosen. But He will be with his mouth, He will implicate Himself in the issues of his mouth. God invites Moses to open his whole being to a kind of rebirth. Already twice-born, he is to surrender to yet another transfiguration."

God used Moses mouth as a conduit until Moses developed his own gift for language. More importantly, Moses with his staff, his brother and his miracles showed his people that action is more important to leadership than words will ever be. Moses felt trapped by speech and would only be able to free himself and his people when he overcame this incapacity to let words inspire action. They need not be many words either. "Let my people go" may not constitute poetry, but as the language of freedom against oppression, these three Hebrew words and four English ones have been a clarion call to revolution for centuries.

Moses' humble objection to leadership set the standard for the rest of us. Even when we agree to a task, the question "who am I?" should be a whisper in our ears always. It helps us appreciate that great leadership is about influence rather than power, modesty rather than publicity, deeds rather than words.

Shabbat Shalom

A Leadership of Silence

“I have never been eloquent…”

Exodus 4:10

This week, we will open up the book of Exodus in synagogues around the world a day after America’s presidential inauguration. The time feels ripe to think about the relationship between speech and leadership. Words can communicate hope, or they can confirm hate. Words can lift the spirit or send listeners into a depressive tailspin. Words can be a tool of the arrogant or an obstacle to the humble.

Moses complained multiple times about his speaking inadequacies related to content, to the mechanics of speech and to his own unworthiness to represent his people. “’So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.’ But Moses said to God, ‘Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?’” [Exodus 3:10-11].

Moses could not agree to a plan that he felt unworthy to represent. Moses countered again. “Moses answered, ‘What if they do not believe me or listen to me and say, ‘The Lord did not appear to you?’ Then the Lord said to him, ‘What is that in your hand?’ ‘A staff,’ he replied. The Lord said, ‘Throw it on the ground.’ Moses threw it on the ground and it became a snake, and he ran from it,” [Exodus 4:1-3]

This would surely have moved Moses to action, but still he protested. “Moses said to the Lord, ‘Pardon your servant, Lord. I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue.’ The Lord said to him, ‘Who gave human beings their mouths? Who makes them deaf or mute? Who gives them sight or makes them blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say.’ But Moses said, ‘Pardon your servant, Lord. Please send someone else,’” [Exodus 4:10-13]

Later, in 6:12 and 30, Moses added an additional, puzzling complaint: he has uncircumcised lips, a very odd expression that suggests some kind of blockage that prevents his words from achieving the mellifluous peak necessary to be an influential leader. Moses failed to understand why he specifically was chosen, why anyone would listen to him and where the source of speech would come from for a man of few words. Although we have classically understood Moses to be a stutterer or have a stammer, this reading may be too literal. Moses may have felt stymied by his lack of elegance rather than by any physical problem. Rashi observes that verse 4:10 should be read this way: “In heaviness, I speak.” Words were neither light nor trivial to him. This he regarded as a political liability. In politics, words can become weapons of insurrection or popularity or insincerity. These were realms not familiar to the young man born in trepidation and suddenly transferred to a house of royalty.

Avivah Gottleib Zornberg in her new and excellent book, Moses: A Human Life, comments that Moses’ “...destiny is yoked with his people’s in ways that he cannot at first fathom. Heaviness is everywhere, both inside his mouth and in his relation with a people who are ‘his’ only by way of a mother who has receded into oblivion. He has been shot into a future that he cannot recognize as his own.” Instead of curing Moses of a speech problem that plagued him, God wanted Moses because of his speech deficiencies: “Moses’ mouth is precisely what God has chosen. But He will be with his mouth, He will implicate Himself in the issues of his mouth. God invites Moses to open his whole being to a kind of rebirth. Already twice-born, he is to surrender to yet another transfiguration.”

God used Moses mouth as a conduit until Moses developed his own gift for language. More importantly, Moses with his staff, his brother and his miracles showed his people that action is more important to leadership than words will ever be. Moses felt trapped by speech and would only be able to free himself and his people when he overcame this incapacity to let words inspire action. They need not be many words either. “Let my people go” may not constitute poetry, but as the language of freedom against oppression, these three Hebrew words and four English ones have been a clarion call to revolution for centuries.

Moses’ humble objection to leadership set the standard for the rest of us. Even when we agree to a task, the question “who am I?” should be a whisper in our ears always. It helps us appreciate that great leadership is about influence rather than power, modesty rather than publicity, deeds rather than words.

Shabbat Shalom

A Hearing Problem

“They have ears but cannot hear”

— Psalms 135:17

Are you overly-aware of the ambient noise in a confined space? Does the crunching of someone else’s popcorn at a movie theater ruin the movie for you or the sound of sniffling become so distracting you cannot pay attention in a meeting? Join the club. My friend Rebecca directed me to a New York Times article about misophonia – hatred of sound - a hearing condition described as acute irritation when hearing certain noises. Dr. Barron Lerner in “Please Stop Making that Noise” shares his own frustration at sounds that make him absolutely crazy and drive him to distraction. A 2013 study identified the noises that irritate misaphones most: lip smacking, swallowing, pen clicking, typing, breathing and other nostril noises.

Lerner observes that for him one of the greatest irritants as a sufferer is what he calls the “incredulity factor.” It is hard for him to believe that other people are not as irritated as he is by the same sounds. It is as if they simply cannot hear these noises when, in fact, they were not registering them as significant or distracting. Friends and relatives would get frustrated that Lerner was paying too close attention to sounds they easily tuned out.

This dissonance made me think of the biblical expression above that appears in a number of places, both in the singular and plural: “They have ears but cannot hear…” We tend to interpret this verse as not listening to what one is told to do: the sin of unresponsiveness. But perhaps this can also refer to the fact that some people hear what others do not. There are those who are acutely aware of the sounds of injustice. Others don’t hear the cry. There are mothers who hear the sound of their own children crying but are impervious to the whimper of someone else’s child. Our selective hearing never ceases to amaze.

We find one example of this in Jewish law as it relates to prayer. Maimonides in the fifth chapter of his Laws of Prayer creates a list of eight acts people should do to prepare for moments of supplication and contemplation. One is “controlling one’s voice.” Maimonides explains: “A person should not raise his voice during his silent prayer [the Amida] nor should he pray silently. Rather, he should enunciate the words with his lips, whispering so that he can hear himself. He should not make his voice heard to others unless he is sick or distracted. In such instances, he is permitted [to be audible] except when praying with others lest they be disturbed by his voice.”

I must confess to being a shul misaphone. I appreciate that it is difficult to strike a balance between praying so that you can hear yourself – an exercise in amplifying intention and concentration – and making so much “noise” that it gets I the way of the prayer space of others. Often people who articulate each word out loud are regarded as particularly pious, except by those of us who regard this behavior as spiritually selfish. Prayer hogs – ironic, I know - chant with the Torah reader, pray loudly and hum tunes with the cantor or hazan. Misaphones unite.

We live in community, which means we have to tolerate the conversation, opinions, noises, smells and behaviors of others. This is a challenge for misaphones who hear what others ignore. What’s the solution? The Talmud [BT Ketubot 5b] asks a few questions about human anatomy that have to do with our ears. In the spiritual rather than anatomical view, why is it that an earlobe is shaped to fit inside an ear perfectly and why do the tips of fingers fit so easily into the ear? It’s so that these two parts of the body can be used to close up the ear from gossip, tale-bearing and harmful speech.

And yet, even so, we do not walk around with our lobes or fingers in our ears. We would look odd. Perhaps this passage of Talmud is offering us a metaphor that we must teach ourselves to close our ears much the way we teach ourselves to close our eyes so that we can live with others whose noises would otherwise disturb us.

And then – when tolerance for others runs low – there are always noise cancelling headphones.

Shabbat Shalom