Subduing the "Yes-But" and Learning to Listen

There’s a tiny creature that is extremely common and very industrious.  It’s called the yes-but.

I won’t ask you to raise your hand if you ever heard of a yes-but because I’m sure you’ve heard of it you just didn’t know what it was called. 

The yes-but actually lives inside of us, each of us, I think.  It’s industrious, for sure, also somewhat impulsive, especially when we’re talking to other people.

Especially when we’re talking to other people who say things that we don’t agree with.

Here’s how it works:  We’re listening to the other person – yet as we’re listening, the yes-but is jumping up and down, tickling our throats until we open our mouths and say to the other person:

Yes – I heard you.  BUT did you consider this?  Yes, I know you’ve said this.  BUT don’t you know that?  Yes, you’re entitled to your opinion.  BUT how can you say such a thing when so-and-so, who’s an expert, feels differently?

The yes-but is alive and well inside of us.  And it makes it hard for us to really listen to each other.  Before the other person has finished talking, we’ve come up with all of the arguments to prove him wrong.  While the other person is still talking, the yes-but has all but silenced her.

I’d love to meet two people who disagree with one another about the Iran Nuclear Treaty who have managed to subdue their internal yes-but’s long enough to really consider what the other person is saying before responding.

Too often these conversations have become ritualized exchanges where we listen to point A and give the rebuttal, which sparks the counter rebuttal.  And seldom do we go away convinced of the point of the other.

One person says:  the treaty is good because it allows the United States to inspect Iranian nuclear sites.

And the response:  Yes but it’s bad b/c Iran can still hide its nuclear capabilities.

Or, in the other direction:  The treaty is bad because the US is too dependent upon other foreign countries and it should be in a stronger leadership position.

And the response; yes but it’s good because we needed and still need the other countries.  Without the other countries sanctions weren’t possible initially and would quickly collapse.

These kinds of back-and-forth can be mutually illuminating, leading both sides to refine their views and ideally to come to a place of heightened understanding.

But they seldom achieve that goal, in my observation.  I know where I stand; you know where you stand.  I’m going to listen to you just enough to figure out how to explain to you why I’m right, but not enough so that I consider in what ways I might actually be wrong. 

I’m not a political analyst.  I don’t know more than Daniel Kurtzer, former ambassador to Israel and Egypt who supports the treaty.  I don’t know more than David Harris, head of American Jewish Committee, who opposes the treaty.  I personally, as a non-diplomat, non-nuclear specialist, non-politician, have come down on the side of cautious support based on what I’ve heard and read. 

But I’ve been trying to fight my instinct to say yes-but to all the people who disagree because the stakes are high and there are too many variables and no one knows for sure how things will play out.  I’ve tried to hear the criticism and to weigh it and to consider that I might genuinely have missed something in my own analysis.  With some success.

And I encourage you to do the same.  Whether you are in favor, or against, or somewhere in between, try to really listen.  Ask clarifying questions.  Deepen your understanding.

All of us, as concerned citizens of the US, some of us as citizens of the US and Israel, all of us as lovers of America and Israel, should be listening to one another carefully in an attempt to deepen our understanding.  Regardless of whether the treaty goes forward, and it seems likely at this point that it will, we need to be as informed as possible about what’s going on the region and that requires careful listening, even to, especially to, those who have a different take than we do.

At the Kiddush today, if you haven’t already (and perhaps you have!) try to listen fully before the yes-but overtakes you.

My theme this morning is simple.  With Rosh Hashanah less than two weeks away, I’m asking us to listen more carefully to one another than we currently do.

Sometimes we jump to yes-but because we are not fully prepared to consider another perspective. 

Sometimes we jump to it because it’s too painful to listen. 

A friend tells us he’s worried about his health.  It’s so tempting to say some version of “yes, but you’ll be fine.”  We can say that with words or we can say that with body language but the effect can be that we convey that we are too pained or anxious to really listen.

Oliver Sachs, the famous neurologist, died on August 30.  He devoted his professional life to trying to understand aspects of the human brain and wrote stories about many of his patients.  One story, called “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat,” described a situation whereby someone’s brain was not able to process the information that it received in the conventional way.  So he was looking at his wife, but instead, he saw a hat. 

The stories are often disturbing, always poignant, sometimes with gentle humor, written with a profound desire to understand and to explain different dimensions of human thought and experience. 

His obituary recalled the time in 1989 when he was interviewed and asked how he would like to be remembered in 100 years.  And this is what he said:

“I would like it to be thought that I had listened carefully to what patients and others have told me, that I’ve tried to imagine what it was like for them, and that I tried to convey this.”  (NY Times, August 30, 2015)

Listening carefully is very hard to do.  The impulse to classify, to diagnose, to rebut, to “yes-but” is so strong.

But listening carefully is a gift.  It’s a gift for the one being listened to and it’s a gift for the one who is listening. 

I think back on conversations where I’ve shared something significant with friends.  Often I can’t remember the details of what they said in response.  I do remember the times that I felt they were listening carefully, whether or not they said anything in response.

I fear that those of us who are parents often don’t listen carefully enough to our children.  Perhaps our preoccupation with life’s daily challenges, perhaps lack of patience, perhaps our fear of the implications of what our child might really be trying to tell us conspire to prevent us from listening carefully.

We, and I surely include myself, are quick to convey some form of yes-but to our children.  They say their part and we say: Yes, but you’re missing this point or that point.  Yes, but you’ll discover when you’re older that this or that is true.  Yes, but you’re just going through a phase.

I’ve found that when we listen carefully, when we allow our children the space to describe their own reality, they are more likely to make the space for us to say what we want to say.

There many examples of this that I’m sure we can find with family and friends and others with whom we interact in our lives.

Every day, and with additional emphasis during the High Holidays, we ask God, שמע קולינו sh’ma koleinu.  Listen to our voices.  Allowing for the huge variety of ways in which we think about God, I imagine that most of us, in some way or another, want God to listen to us.  Not to say “yes, but” ; rather, to give us the space to share our voices and to hope to be heard.  Heard in our thinking.  Heard in our feeling.  Heard in our resolution.  Heard in our doubt.  Heard in our joy.  Heard in our pain.

What we desire from God, we should offer one another.

Someone just last week reminded a group of us of the helpful observation that we have one mouth and two ears and maybe the 1 to 2 proportion is for a reason.

When I was with my colleagues at the Hartman Institute, we would occasionally go around the circle and let people share their thoughts.

We adopted the following practice, which seemed cheesy at first, but it was effective. 

When the person finished speaking, he or she said the Hebrew word דברתי dibarti,I spoke.

And each of us, at the same time, said back, שמעתי shamati.  I listened. 

The yes-but has its place.  There are indeed times when we need to refute what we hear, times when we need to say, “yes I hear you.  But here’s what I want to say.”  Usually, though, we’re better off listening carefully first. 

The yes-but is a frenetic creature. It works so hard inside of us that it must be tired from over-exertion.  Why not give it a well-needed rest?

Originally delivered at Temple Israel of Great Neck on September 5, 2015