Timeless TorahCreator of Silence (1:17)
As the hot summer weather takes hold and school lets out, more is shed than winter clothes and late night homework assignments. It seems as if the kick-back, take-life-easy attitude affects our very behavior. Young people are friskier, the rules of dress (even those of modesty, unfortunately) seem more relaxed, talk is looser, and parents give their children more leeway. No wonder then, that the Sages instituted the study of the ETHICS OF OUR FATHERS during these summer months.
What separates Jewish morals from those of the rest of the world? A simple answer might be gleaned from the 100 year old story concerning the President of Harvard University, Charles W. Eliot. A new hall of philosophy was being dedicated and a faculty meeting was called to suggest an appropriate inscription for the main entrance. After much deliberation, the well-known Greek maxim was agreed upon: “Man is the measure of all things.” School adjourned for the summer recess and when the students and professors returned in the fall, they were surprised to find that President Eliot had decided upon another phrase, this one borrowed from King David’s Psalms: “What is man that Thou art mindful of him?”
At first glance, the former phrase seems more apt than the latter. After all, this was a facility for the express purpose of philosophy, which is defined in the dictionary as, “A search for a general understanding of values and reality,” or, “A discipline comprising as its core; logic, aesthetics, etc.” This particular form of study traditionally excludes, “…Medicine, law and theology.” And is man not the measure of his reality and the standard bearer of what is logical or not? So why quote from Psalms, a holy book?
We may be unable to unravel the reasoning and decision process of Charles Eliot, but I for one, cast my vote along with his. My reasons are based upon a teaching of Rabbi Shimon ben Gamliel’s as related in this week’s ETHICS OF THE FATHERS, “All my life I have been raised among the wise, and I have found nothing better for the body than silence.”
A simple reading suggests that the Rabbi was referring to discussions that pertain to the body. Thus when people get together, the talk usually sinks to the lowest level; sports, gossip, weather, fashion, the lives of celebrities, and food. But based upon the Talmud, there is a far deeper meaning. The Talmud amazingly states, “What is man’s task in the world? To make himself as silent as the dumb.” True, I can remember many cases where my mouth got me into trouble, and silence would have been advisable. But is there no greater virtue? And is this indeed the ultimate purpose and value of life?
Essentially, the world is nothing more than words, specifically, G-d’s words as in, “Let there be light!” Chassidus explains that these divine utterances not only caused the creations to materialize; they were, and continue to be, the very stuff of their existence. Thus what we experience as physical light is, in truth, G-d’s articulation of His desire that there be light.
Obviously, what emanated from G-d’s ‘mouth’ was not a ‘voice’ in any physical sense. Still the Torah borrows human terms so that we can learn something of how G-d relates to our existence. When a person speaks, he creates something that extends beyond his own being. The thought that he had conceived, and which had existed only within his mind, is now translated into words that depart his person to attain an existence distinct from his. So what is the world? The world is G-d speaking.
There is however, a single exception to this model: the soul of man. Every single creation is described by the Torah as having come into being by a divine utterance, except for the soul. The Zohar explains that the soul is not a divine word but a G-dly thought, reaching deeper within the Creator and never leaving His domain. This means that the soul does not, and cannot, ‘depart’ from the all-pervading reality of G-d. It is thus the only entity that senses its total dependence upon its heavenly Source and cannot imagine an agenda that separates it from its Creator.
We live in a society of ever increasing noise that demands our attention: the ring of the cell phone, the beep of the palm pilot reminding us of our appointments, etc. Yet there remains one being that stands alone in our verbose world, the soul of man. Unlike the others, it is a thing of silence. And its mission in life is to impart this silence to the world about it. That, according to Judaism and Rabbi Shimon who, “Found nothing better…than silence,” is our primary task in life, the supreme ethic.
So don’t allow man to be the standard bearer of reality. That may pass for Greek morality, where convenience and self-serving needs is the barometer of truth. Jewish ethics, on the other hand, pay homage not to the one who makes the loudest noise, but to the Creator of Silence.
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