Listen Up

Friday January 16, 2026/27 Tevet 5786/Shabbat Vaera

וַיְדַבֵּ֣ר מֹשֶׁ֔ה לִפְנֵ֥י יְהֹוָ֖ה לֵאמֹ֑ר הֵ֤ן בְּנֵֽי־יִשְׂרָאֵל֙ לֹֽא־שָׁמְע֣וּ אֵלַ֔י וְאֵיךְ֙ יִשְׁמָעֵ֣נִי פַרְעֹ֔ה וַאֲנִ֖י עֲרַ֥ל שְׂפָתָֽיִם׃ 

But Moses appealed to יהוה, saying, “The Israelites would not listen to me; how then should Pharaoh heed me, me—who gets tongue-tied!” 

(Parshat Vaera, Exodus 6:12)

Hevre/Friends,

My mother-in-law, Mavis, z”l, was one of the sweetest, funniest, people I knew. And also one of the most stubborn. Despite not being able to hear well - or at all - for the last few years of her life, she absolutely refused to wear one of the many pairs of hearing aids Andi bought her. She’d be watching TV in New Jersey at a volume we could hear in our home in the Laurentians. Phone calls were the stuff of Carol Burnett shows between the shouting and the misunderstandings. All while those tiny, miraculous devices which could have solved it all were tucked away in Mavis’ drawer.

Hearing loss is a serious medical condition, thought to contribute not only to physical risks such as failing to heed danger signals, imbalance and falling, but the isolation it brings also leads to mental and cognitive illnesses such as anxiety, depression, and even dementia. And apart from brain atrophy,  hearing loss can even lead to spiritual decay.

Consider Moshe’s complaint above:

הֵ֤ן בְּנֵֽי־יִשְׂרָאֵל֙ לֹֽא־שָׁמְע֣וּ אֵלַ֔י וְאֵיךְ֙ יִשְׁמָעֵ֣נִי פַרְעֹ֔ה

Note the repetition of the root “shma” /”listen”? “The Israelites would not listen to me; how will Pharaoh listen to me?”

Everyone seems to have been hard of hearing. Neither the Israelites nor Pharaoh can hear, and Moses can’t make them listen because he struggles to speak! In the speech and hearing dynamic, we tend to think that speech is what leads to hearing. Speech is the initial stimulus that occasions the hearing by others of that speech. Moshe feels completely impotent because he can’t speak in a way that would force them to listen. 

But along came the Hasidic rebbe known as the Sefat Emet who turned this all around. He suggested that the refusal to listen is what actually causes the verbal blockage, not the other way around. When you listen, when you’re open to hearing, you create the possibility for speech in another. The Sefat Emet heard Moshe saying:  Because they will not listen, I can’t speak!!  “שִׁמְעָ֤ה עַמִּ֨י  וַאֲדַבֵּ֗רָה – listen, my people, that I may speak” (Ps 50:7).  Even Divine revelation is silenced if we don’t listen.  

The Sefat Emet went on to teach that during the exile in Egypt, the function of language ceased because no one was listening to each other. The Israelites’ senses were so blunted from their slavery that they couldn’t hear one another, and they couldn’t hear Moshe summoning them to freedom. Because of that, Moses’ lips were blocked. The Zohar called this “the exile of the word/galut hadibbur”. Moshe’s words were in exile in Egypt.

We know from our own relationships about this exile of the word, galut hadibbur. It’s what happens when we lose the patience, attention, or inclination to hear one another, to listen to one another’s words, emotions, needs and fears. Communication breaks down. Meaningful exchanges become impossible. We disconnect. We become distant and estranged from one another. Our relationships become stagnant, even dangerous. As we’re only too keenly aware, it happens on the societal level, also. And on the geopolitical plane. Today it seems no one is listening to each other, and so no one is really speaking to each other. 

The late Rabbi Dr. Yochanan Muffs, z”l, taught about the risks we take when we speak: we reveal what’s deep in our hearts without knowing how we will be heard; how we will be received. When we speak to one another, he taught, it’s an act of bravery; a leap of faith, that we’ll be heard, that we’ll be understood. His lesson is especially poignant in this age of pervasive distraction and inattention to one another. 

Theologian Nellie Morton called for us to “hear each other to speech”; to demonstrate that we’re listening so as to summon words from one another. She imagined “A great ear at the heart of the universe -- at the heart of our common life -- hearing human beings to speech -- to our own speech.”

Isn’t it interesting that in the closest thing Jews have to a creed, the Shema, the demand is not that we proclaim anything, as in the Muslim tradition where the Shahada, the verbal declaration of belief in Allah and in Mohammed his prophet is key to spiritual communion.  Our creed demands not a verbal expression but an auditory one:  Shema Yisrael – Listen, Israel.  Our creed challenges us to be open to the sounds and messages of the world around us.  Because it is our openness, our listening, that will prompt the world, God, nature, and humanity, to speak to us and generate productive and peaceful dialogue with one another.

When someone asked Reb Zalman Shachter-Shalomi, z”l, to speak up more loudly while delivering a teaching, his response was, "I can't speak any louder - you'll have to listen louder."

Shema Yisrael.  Listen.

With continued prayers for the return of the last murdered hostage, Ran Gvili, for the bereaved and the injured, and with blessings for a Shabbat Shalom,

Dini

(Photo by Ronen Avisror)