Thoughts
on The Parsha
Parshas
Vayikra
The
Art of Listening
By:
Daniel Listhaus
וַיִּקְרָא
אֶל משֶׁה וַיְדַבֵּר ה'
אֵלָיו
מֵאֹהֶל מוֹעֵד לֵאמֹר:
דַּבֵּר
אֶל בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל וְאָמַרְתָּ
אֲלֵהֶם אָדָם כִּי יַקְרִיב מִכֶּם
קָרְבָּן לַה'
מִן
הַבְּהֵמָה מִן הַבָּקָר וּמִן הַצֹּאן
תַּקְרִיבוּ אֶת קָרְבַּנְכֶם
“He
[Hashem] called to Moshe and Hashem spoke to him from the Tent of
Meeting, saying: Speak to the B'nei
Yisroel and
say to them: When a person from among you will bring an offering to
Hashem: from the animals – from the cattle and from the flocks you
shall bring your offering.”
-Vayikra
1:1-2
Rashi1
on this passuk
(verse)
describes that throughout the Torah there are many breaks.2
The purpose of these breaks was to give Moshe time to digest and
understand what he had been taught by Hashem. Rashi
then ends by saying a kal
v'chomer:
If
Moshe, who learned from Hashem, needed breaks for contemplation, then
certainly ordinary people such as ourselves who learn from ordinary
people must stop to take breaks in order to properly understand what
the other is teaching.
The
Sifsei
Chachomim3
explains that the kal
v'chomer that
Rashi
is
saying is quite clear: If Moshe, an incredible student, was learning
from Hashem, Who is certainly the best teacher available, still
required breaks in order to try to understand what was being taught.
How much more so must we take many breaks to digest what is being
taught to us from ordinary people.
Let
us zoom out a little in order to appreciate what is being said here.
There are two main reasons why a person would need to take breaks
during a learning session. One is because it is hard for some people
to sit for long periods of time. It is therefore wise and healthy to
take breaks and recesses to clear one's mind to be able to be more
productive. The other reason a person may need a break is because one
might simply not understand the material being taught, and therefore
require extra time in order for him to think about what is being
said. It sounds from Rashi
and
the Sifsei
Chachomim that
this latter type of break is what is being referred to. For some
reason, Moshe actually needed breaks in order to understand what
Hashem was teaching him.
The
Nachalas
Yaakov4
is very bothered by this Rashi
and
asks the following two questions. First of all, surely there is no
better teacher than Hashem. The Creator, with infinite wisdom and Who
knows His creations the best, certainly has the ability to convey any
message or teaching to man in the clearest of ways. If so, how could
it be that Moshe needed breaks in order to understand what was being
taught to him? Why did Moshe experience confusion if he had the best
teacher possible?
Second
of all, what is the kal
v'chomer that
Rashi
is
trying to present? It would make sense if Moshe really was able to
understand it himself but Hashem gave him the breaks to teach him not
to rely on his sharpness, so then there would be a kal
v'chomer to
us that certainly we should not rely on our own sharpness. However,
it seems from Rashi
that
Moshe really did need the breaks; but if so, why is a kal
v'chomer necessary?
Even without a kal
v'chomer
it should be obvious that we need breaks to understand things when
learning from ordinary people, simply because we would not understand
it otherwise!
The
Nachalas
Yaakov ends
without an answer to his problems with this Rashi.
However, perhaps the explanation is as follows. If one stops to think
about the process that everyone goes through when communicating, one
will realize how complicated simple-communication really is. When two
people are having a conversation, what is being said is really going
through a five step process. The idea trying to be conveyed begins
its journey in one person's head. The person decides what he wants,
or more precisely, what he means
to say. Then, he must choose the words he will use to express his
idea. This is followed by the time and space the words travel between
the ones having the conversation. Then, the listener hears what is
being said to him, followed by the last step in the process which is
digesting the information and interpreting what he heard.
This
last step in the process is the hardest of them all. It is easy to
hear what someone else has said and it is also generally easy to
interpret what one has heard, but that is not enough. In order to
fully understand and appreciate a message trying to be conveyed, one
must remove the built-in filter which shapes the way one hears things
and instead focus on what the communicator was trying to relate.
The
Mishna
in Pirkei
Avos5
says
that Antignos from Socho used to teach, “Do not be like servants
who serve their master on the condition of receiving a reward;
instead be like servants who serve their master not on the condition
of receiving a reward; and let the fear of Heaven be upon you.”
Antignos was teaching that although the reward in Olam
Habbah
(the World to Come) which awaits those who follow the ways of Hashem
are endless and greater than anything imaginable, when we serve
Hashem it should be out of complete love and fear of Him, and not
just because we will receive reward for doing the right thing.
The
Rashbam
in Bava
Basra6
brings from the Avos
D'rebbe Nosson7
that Tzadok and Beisus were talmidim
(students)
of Antignos. One time they were teaching this mantra of their rebbe,
Antignos, but their students confused what they said and took the
message of to not be like workers who work in order to get paid, to
mean that people who do mitzvos
and
work for Hashem do not get rewarded.
The
students of Tzadok and Beisus did not take the time to listen to the
message that their rabbeim
were
trying to convey. They simply allowed their default hearing skills to
kick in. Tzadok and Beisus knew what they themselves wanted to say,
they said it, it reached the ears of their talmidim,
but the talmidim
just
did not stop to think what their rabbeim
meant,
rather they merely depended on what they thought they heard – or
perhaps what they wanted to hear.
With
this in mind, perhaps we could now answer the questions of the
Nachalas
Yaakov
and better understand the Rashi in this week's parsha.
Of course Hashem is the best teacher of the world and could convey
any message as clear as crystal. However, even as great of a talmid
as
Moshe rabbeinu
needs time to understand the underlying reasoning and message of what
is trying to be conveyed.
We
say in Shema,
“Im
shamoa tishm'u”
- you shall surely listen. The Gemara
in
Berachos8
makes
a drasha
from
here: If you listen, then you will listen. But if you will not
listen, then you will not understand. Only if one listens to what the
Torah and the chochamim
(sages)
are
trying to tell us,
will
one gain a true understanding of what was said.
Many
misunderstandings and arguments stem not from disagreement, but
rather from mis-communication. It is not easy to pause our own
thoughts and opinions in order to realize the idea that someone else
is trying to convey. Unless we consciously decide to listen the right
way, we will not even notice that what we are hearing is going
through our own heads without taking account what was meant to be
said.
This
is exactly what Rashi
is
teaching us. Even Moshe Rabbeinu
needed to take breaks to put himself in Hashem's head – so to speak
– in order to comprehend what was being taught to him. So certainly
we, who are normal people learning from ordinary people, must take
breaks in order to be able to put ourselves in others' minds. Only
then will the communication process be complete and allow for the
possibility of im
shamoa tishm'u.
This is the real art of listening.
1Vayikra
1:1
2These
breaks in the Torah could take one of two forms – either pesucha
(literally: open) or s'tumah
(literally closed). Pesucha
is when the spaces go to the
end of the line,
whereas
s'tumah is when the
space is a break in a line but the text
continues further on in the same line.
3Vayikra
1:1
4Ibid.
5Avos
1:3
6Bava
Basra 115b
7Avos
D'rebbe Nosson 5:2
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