Unsaid

I am entering this post post three wonderful days of Yom Tov. It was three comfortable days of good Torah, good talk, good friends and outstanding, real hospitality. Thank G-d. I am truly blessed.

I heard so much good Torah that I want to share but I really need to close the computer and unpack and shower and and and (I love that triple "and" thing, but it hasn't yet caught on with a wide audience.)

I am, as always, grateful for those who have read and those have become my friends. I feel behind in commenting back. Please stand by. There was this prayer related post that garnered several substantial comments and deserves a response in the comments, maybe even a post of its own. Please G-d, soon.

Below is an unfinished iceberg tip that I started right after R"H. Ironically perhaps, there is much here being left unsaid.

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Unsaid
by Dana Gioia

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So much of what we live goes on inside

The diaries of grief, the tongue-tied aches

Of unacknowledged love are no less real

For having passed unsaid. What we conceal

Is always more than what we dare confide.

Think of the letters that we write our dead.

Syag LeChachmah Shtikah - Silence Is A Fence To Wisdom*

(*For a different take on this saying see this ol' post o' mine)

Rabeinu Ovadiah says that the above cited statement can't apply to Torah because we are commanded to speak in Torah day and night. He says that this also cant apply to loshon hara (true gossip) or rechilut (untrue rumors) because we already know that is a Torah obligation. So what is this mishnah adding?

Rabeinu Ovadiah says that this mishnah's exhortation is to speak as minimally as possible in the realm of that which is allowed.

Medrash Shmuel notes that this saying appears in a list of other sayings but is phrased differently. In regard to Torah we're told "oral transmission is a fence for Torah." In regard to wealth we're told "tithing is a fence to wealth." Similarly, we're told that "oaths are a fence to abstinence." It is only about wisdom that it is phrased "a fence for wisdom is silence." He explains that this switch of order is significant as its saying that other things have many fences or guards and the mishnah is telling you that X is one of the guards for Y. But when it comes to Torah it is telling you unequivocally that there is only one preservative and that is silence.

Torah doesn't mean just knowledge (to the best of my knowledge). According to Medrash Shmuel Rabbi Akivah in this mishnah teaches us that a Torah lifestyle can only be preserved by holding back from saying things which seem to be permitted. The Ramban writes that there is a general Torah command to "make ourselves holy within that which is allowed (kadesh atzmechah bemutar lach). This fits into that broader approach.

Part of the problem is that the space between allowed and forbidden is a slippery slope. Sometimes the permitted segues all too smoothly into the dark netherworld of forbidden. Sometimes what we convince ourselves is permitted is borderline at best outright destructive at worst.

I am not writing about this as merely an observer. It's part of the human condition - the desire to talk, to express, to be. I recall learning that when little children fight over smoothing like who got more apple juice in their cup their is a reason for their intensity. An infant is all about him or her self. At some point others come into the picture and that is not only confusing but scary. A young child fears emotionally that when their sibling gets the bigger piece of cake that they run the risk of disappearing/seizing to exist dying.

The noises we make are attempts at announcing, insuring, and reassuring ourselves of our own existence. We fear that if someone else makes more noise, gets more notice, claims more acclaim, that we may then up and fly away. We feel threatened. We each protest this perceived threat in different ways, make our own style of noise, or as a quote in a recent past post had it, fight our own battle.

I think this relates to speaking too. Some fear that without speaking all their thoughts they will somehow lose their place, disappear.

One of the things we do is say what doesn't need to be said. What to say? When?To whom? These are questions that need to be asked. Paul Reiser has a routine that like many a comedian's observation contains strong mussar. He says that people say insulting things to other people and then try to save face with the line, "I'm just saying." There is no such thing as just saying. This is a profound idea. My addendum is that "just saying" is akin to just shooting. Imagine that someone shoots you in the chest and when you fall down they ask you why you're over reacting - after all they were just shooting.
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Its not what you say but how you say what you say. People have been rejecting other people in love, friendship, and work since forever. Also, people have been corrected, warned, taught, raised - since forever. Often the one of us who needs to speak to the other chickens out by saying something in a rough way, because on a certain level it's easier. If we think think about the other that will hear our words, if we think about them carefully (including how we'd want to be told what we were about to tell someone else) then our words will probably be phrased in a better way.

A rabbi once died and the person assigned with the task of telling the sage's wife the news was anxious about how to break the news to her. When he bit the bullet and told her the first words that came out her mouth were: "It must have been very hard for you to tell me that." Can you imagine? At that moment she was thinking about the person who'd just spoken to her!

There are great levels to aspire to regarding how we speak, listen, be. May we be blessed to work hard and climb to the highest of the high in this realm.