My paternal grandfather lived until his early 90’s. Toward the end of his life we went to visit him in the hospital. He was suffering.
One of us, I don’t remember who, asked how he was feeling. He said, “I’m dying.”
One of the family gathered there said something like, “Oh, you’re trying. Of course you’re trying. It must be hard but you’ll be OK. We love you."
He didn’t say I’m trying. We knew that. He surely knew that.
We don’t always listen very well. Sometimes when things are actually said we pretend we didn’t quite hear them, especially if what was said was too painful or even inconvenient.
My grandfather might have gained some comfort from us telling him that we actually heard what he said instead of pretending we didn’t hear and that everything would be ok. We won’t ever know.
The foundation of the Passover story is listening.
וגם אני שמעתי את נאקת בני ישראל V’gam ani shamati et na’akat b’nei yisrael. God says – I heard the groans of the children of Israel. And then the process of redemption begins.
Without listening there is no movement toward freedom. No redemption. No fullness of life.
I recently saw a video featuring a number of children who have learning challenges of one kind or another. The children offer their teachers suggestions for how to teach them more effectively.
(Paraphrasing:)
Dear teacher:
When you tell l me to try harder I get sad. Because I’m already trying as hard as I can.
Dear teacher:
I have to move or I really can’t pay attention.
Dear teacher:
Even if I’m not looking at you I can still hear what you’re saying.
I saw this video and thought about all the times I’ve said, as a teacher, Try harder. Or sit up straight. Or look at me when I’m talking to you.
Listening is not just about hearing what’s actually said, which is often hard enough, it’s about actively eliciting perspectives that are generally left unsaid.
Most children don’t actually say directly to teachers the things that the video demonstrates them saying. The video is kind of a “what if.” “What if” children would be empowered to tell adults exactly what they need, given their own unique combination of challenges AND gifts, and the adults would truly be prepared to listen? Imagine if the adults would even invite such comments.
It happens, of course, in many educational settings but it should happen even more.
With God’s capacity to listen as the opening for the Exodus from Egypt, with God’s empathic listening as an example, we can take this holiday to expand the “what ifs.”
What if, instead of listening to the elders at our seders reading through the words of the Haggadah and wondering when they’re going to be done so we can eat, we took time – over the holiday, or afterward - to ask them to share the melodies and the traditions in a way that might even allow us to learn them?
How many younger people know the Yiddish version of the four questions? Or the awesome melodies of some of the great cantors from the last century? Maybe we want to listen carefully to the people who still know them.
How many younger people know the beautiful Seder chants that come from Morocco and Syria and Iran?
How many younger people at the Persian weddings I attend know and can sing the beautiful pizmonim that the older generation sings to the bride and groom as the ketubah is being signed?
Maybe we'd like to help these traditions live on through us.
Let’s take the time to ask, perhaps to record, and to listen. Saying to our parents and grandparents, Can we take a few minutes for me to try to learn that melody or tradition? Imagine the outcome for all involved.
Listening brings continuity, freedom and life in so many ways, large and small, for old and young alike.
I feel compelled to add, on this holiday of freedom, that we don’t generally listen so well for the cries of human suffering.
The Israeli Arab Journliast Lucy Aharish bitterly criticized her fellow Arab Muslims for being unresponsive to the cries of their Syrian brothers and sisters, men, women and children, as they are being attacked. The blood of over half a million people killed and wounded in Syria is screaming in Arabic, she accused.
Wen qu ya Arab. Wen qu ya Is’lam. Wen qu ya chaway.
Where are you, Arabs? Where are you, Islam? Where are you, traitors?
Aharish’s critique of Arab leadership is pointed and well taken. But we know that blood doesn’t speak any one particular language. The blood cries out to all humanity. It’s been crying out for years.
How extraordinary that the nation that seems to have been listening most closely over the long haul has been Germany.
Can we approve of a military response on behalf of the helpless who remain without approving giving safe refuge to the helpless who wish to leave?
Listening – to questions asked and unasked. Listening – to young and old. Listening – to traditions before they are consigned to the dustbin of cultural history. Listening – to human cries while the humans can still cry.
Listening is the cornerstone of continuity and freedom and life. Had we listened carefully to my grandfather, we might have been able to give him stronger emotional support at the end of his life.
Had we listened more carefully to generations of children struggling to learn, we might have been able to help them learn more effectively.
Had we listened to generations of elders bringing the spiritual, cultural gems of their own childhoods, we might have been able to preserve more of those gems.
Had we listened more responsively to the cries of the oppressed, long ago and in our own day, we might have saved more lives.
For those who presently need to be heard, however, it’s not too late to listen.
The Iranian-born Israeli singer, Maureen Nehedar, sings a beautiful Piyut, a liturgical prayer, in Farsi and Hebrew.
"With the merit of the Torah of Moshe" - which traces an arc from לא שמעו “they couldn’t listen” to נעשה ונשמע “we will do and listen.”
"With the merit of the gathering of the community" - which has the power to listen and to respond.
We pray, God, that you will send us news of the redemption.
As hard as it is, we have the obligation to listen carefully. To children and adults, all of whom deserve to learn. To all the generations around our Shabbat and holiday tables. To the people struggling halfway across the world and in our own backyard.
The prayer/song concludes by asking God to help us bring the waters of life from the well of redemption.
May the Torah of Moshe, internalized and understood on this Passover holiday, encourage us to listen to one another all year long. May such listening deepen our freedom, enhance our lives and help to ensure our redemption.
Originally shared at Temple Israel of Great Neck on Passover 5777
One of us, I don’t remember who, asked how he was feeling. He said, “I’m dying.”
One of the family gathered there said something like, “Oh, you’re trying. Of course you’re trying. It must be hard but you’ll be OK. We love you."
He didn’t say I’m trying. We knew that. He surely knew that.
We don’t always listen very well. Sometimes when things are actually said we pretend we didn’t quite hear them, especially if what was said was too painful or even inconvenient.
My grandfather might have gained some comfort from us telling him that we actually heard what he said instead of pretending we didn’t hear and that everything would be ok. We won’t ever know.
The foundation of the Passover story is listening.
וגם אני שמעתי את נאקת בני ישראל V’gam ani shamati et na’akat b’nei yisrael. God says – I heard the groans of the children of Israel. And then the process of redemption begins.
Without listening there is no movement toward freedom. No redemption. No fullness of life.
I recently saw a video featuring a number of children who have learning challenges of one kind or another. The children offer their teachers suggestions for how to teach them more effectively.
(Paraphrasing:)
Dear teacher:
When you tell l me to try harder I get sad. Because I’m already trying as hard as I can.
Dear teacher:
I have to move or I really can’t pay attention.
Dear teacher:
Even if I’m not looking at you I can still hear what you’re saying.
I saw this video and thought about all the times I’ve said, as a teacher, Try harder. Or sit up straight. Or look at me when I’m talking to you.
Listening is not just about hearing what’s actually said, which is often hard enough, it’s about actively eliciting perspectives that are generally left unsaid.
Most children don’t actually say directly to teachers the things that the video demonstrates them saying. The video is kind of a “what if.” “What if” children would be empowered to tell adults exactly what they need, given their own unique combination of challenges AND gifts, and the adults would truly be prepared to listen? Imagine if the adults would even invite such comments.
It happens, of course, in many educational settings but it should happen even more.
With God’s capacity to listen as the opening for the Exodus from Egypt, with God’s empathic listening as an example, we can take this holiday to expand the “what ifs.”
What if, instead of listening to the elders at our seders reading through the words of the Haggadah and wondering when they’re going to be done so we can eat, we took time – over the holiday, or afterward - to ask them to share the melodies and the traditions in a way that might even allow us to learn them?
How many younger people know the Yiddish version of the four questions? Or the awesome melodies of some of the great cantors from the last century? Maybe we want to listen carefully to the people who still know them.
How many younger people know the beautiful Seder chants that come from Morocco and Syria and Iran?
How many younger people at the Persian weddings I attend know and can sing the beautiful pizmonim that the older generation sings to the bride and groom as the ketubah is being signed?
Maybe we'd like to help these traditions live on through us.
Let’s take the time to ask, perhaps to record, and to listen. Saying to our parents and grandparents, Can we take a few minutes for me to try to learn that melody or tradition? Imagine the outcome for all involved.
Listening brings continuity, freedom and life in so many ways, large and small, for old and young alike.
I feel compelled to add, on this holiday of freedom, that we don’t generally listen so well for the cries of human suffering.
The Israeli Arab Journliast Lucy Aharish bitterly criticized her fellow Arab Muslims for being unresponsive to the cries of their Syrian brothers and sisters, men, women and children, as they are being attacked. The blood of over half a million people killed and wounded in Syria is screaming in Arabic, she accused.
Wen qu ya Arab. Wen qu ya Is’lam. Wen qu ya chaway.
Where are you, Arabs? Where are you, Islam? Where are you, traitors?
Aharish’s critique of Arab leadership is pointed and well taken. But we know that blood doesn’t speak any one particular language. The blood cries out to all humanity. It’s been crying out for years.
How extraordinary that the nation that seems to have been listening most closely over the long haul has been Germany.
Can we approve of a military response on behalf of the helpless who remain without approving giving safe refuge to the helpless who wish to leave?
Listening – to questions asked and unasked. Listening – to young and old. Listening – to traditions before they are consigned to the dustbin of cultural history. Listening – to human cries while the humans can still cry.
Listening is the cornerstone of continuity and freedom and life. Had we listened carefully to my grandfather, we might have been able to give him stronger emotional support at the end of his life.
Had we listened more carefully to generations of children struggling to learn, we might have been able to help them learn more effectively.
Had we listened to generations of elders bringing the spiritual, cultural gems of their own childhoods, we might have been able to preserve more of those gems.
Had we listened more responsively to the cries of the oppressed, long ago and in our own day, we might have saved more lives.
For those who presently need to be heard, however, it’s not too late to listen.
The Iranian-born Israeli singer, Maureen Nehedar, sings a beautiful Piyut, a liturgical prayer, in Farsi and Hebrew.
"With the merit of the Torah of Moshe" - which traces an arc from לא שמעו “they couldn’t listen” to נעשה ונשמע “we will do and listen.”
"With the merit of the gathering of the community" - which has the power to listen and to respond.
We pray, God, that you will send us news of the redemption.
As hard as it is, we have the obligation to listen carefully. To children and adults, all of whom deserve to learn. To all the generations around our Shabbat and holiday tables. To the people struggling halfway across the world and in our own backyard.
The prayer/song concludes by asking God to help us bring the waters of life from the well of redemption.
May the Torah of Moshe, internalized and understood on this Passover holiday, encourage us to listen to one another all year long. May such listening deepen our freedom, enhance our lives and help to ensure our redemption.
Originally shared at Temple Israel of Great Neck on Passover 5777
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