Thoughts on Parashat Eikev 5785
Our Torah portions for the last week and for this week contain one of the most important, cornerstone passages we found in our religious tradition. They both contain two of the three paragraphs of our central, biblical everyday prayer and the declaration of our faith, Shema v’Ahavta: “Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one” (Deut. 6:4) is the opening of the first paragraph and “If, then, you obey the commandments that I enjoin upon you this day, loving your God יהוה and serving [God] with all your heart and soul […] (Deut. 11:13) is the opening of the second paragraph.
Both paragraphs of the prayer contain variations of the Hebrew verb lishmoa – to listen, to hear. It is also sometimes translated as to pay attention, to understand, to internalise, to respond or to obey, and it appears in the Book of Deuteronomy at least 92 times – more than in any other book of the Torah. So, it looks like that it’s a very important word that represents an equally important concept.
The point here is that while it has been translated in many different ways, this Hebrew verb has no exact and completely accurate equivalent in other languages, like English or Polish. Therefore, the whole concept this verb represents becomes a little blurred. What is the concept behind it? That listening, not seeing, is the primary source of human understanding and cognition.
It’s a unique concept of Judaism. Judaism is a religion of listening and this is one of our most original contributions to human civilization. The other pillar of the Western civilization – the culture of Ancient Greeks – was a profoundly visual culture. Its greatest achievements had to do with the eye, with seeing. It produced some of the greatest art, sculpture, and architecture the world has ever seen. Its most characteristic group events – theatrical performances and the Olympic games – were spectacles: performances that were watched. Plato thought of knowledge as a kind of deep vision – ability to see the true forms of things beneath the surface that represents them. The very idea that vision is the primary source of cognition remains the dominant metaphor in the West even today. We speak of insight, foresight. We offer an observation. We adopt a perspective. We illustrate. We illuminate. We shed light on an issue and so on.
Our tradition offered the world a radical alternative: we believe in a God we cannot see, and even an attempt to represent God visually is prohibited – it is a form of idolatry. God communicates in sounds, not sights. He speaks, commands and calls. That is why the supreme religious act is the embodiment of shema – listening. When God speaks, we listen. When He commands, we try to obey. And here is another point: even if we translate shema or lishmoa as to obey, it always means to obey with understanding. A mere obedience, particularly blind obedience, is not a virtue in Judaism. God wants us to understand the laws He has commanded us. He wants us to reflect on why this law, not that one. He wants us to listen, to reflect, to seek to understand, to internalise, and to respond. He wants us to become a listening people.
What are the practical consequences of perceiving the act of listening as a primary source of human understanding? They are pretty profound. Speaking and listening are not forms of detachment. They are forms of engagement and they create a relationship. Listening as such creates a positive, emotional attitude and often implies involvement, closeness or intimacy. Through this we enter into a relationship with God and with other human beings. In revelation, God speaks to us. In prayer, we speak to God. In the human world, it is the ability to listen and to speak that form and retain connection between people. It is the ability to listen to others that allows us to understand our relationships and repair our relationship. If you want to understand any relationship – between husband and wife, parent and child, or employer and employee – you need to pay close attention to how they speak and listen to one another. The ability to listen has a profound role in almost every relationship between human beings and at the same time something that has been, in practical life, generally neglected over the last several decades – since the rebirth of the so-called visual culture, which began with the invention and dissemination of television. I believe it’s crucial in our times to strengthen the culture of listening and restore it to its proper place – if we succeed in doing it, it can only make our lives better, and so with the world we live in.
Shabbat shalom,
Rabbi Mirski
Leave a Reply