A message in today’s congregational newsletter. It’s a Jewish thing, but also universal.
Listening.
It’s one of the most important things people can do for each other. It’s so important, in fact, that our Torah teaches us to speak of it – in the Shema – twice daily.
The Hebrew root of “shema” is shin-mem-ayin. In this week’s Torah portion, Eikev, that root surfaces in its doubled/emphatic form (Deuteronomy 11:13) as part of the Shema’s second paragraph.
The word “shema” is usually translated as “hear” or “listen,” and when it’s doubled it means “really listen.” However, there is no single English word that perfectly captures its multiple shades of meaning – which can also include “understand,” “take seriously,” and “hear in order to act.”
“When you encounter a word in any language that is untranslatable into your own,” Rabbi Jonathan Sacks says, “you are close to the beating pulse of that culture. To understand an untranslatable word, you have to move out of your comfort zone and enter a mindset that is significantly different from yours.”
He goes on to define listening as a deeply spiritual act. It can also be painful, since what we hear may sometimes challenge our own worldview. But it’s through meeting that challenge – listening to others who may not agree with us, who may think and feel differently than we’re used to thinking and feeling – that we can open ourselves to growing and developing in ways that might never have occurred to us.
“Listening is the greatest gift we can give to another human being,” Rabbi Sacks concludes. “To be listened to, to be heard, is to know that someone else takes me seriously […] it changes not only the one who is heard, but the listener as well.”
May we all be strong and brave enough to really listen to each other – and to willingly go wherever that listening takes us.