Podcast # 26 Parashat Eikev

Shalom Shlomo and Elisha discuss Parashat Ekev, the 46th Parasha in the book of Deuteronomy. They talk about the importance of listening and how it relates to human sin and freedom. They also discuss the fallacy of thinking that one thing causes another and the concept of being a good listener. Elisha shares a story about a Bar Mitzvah boy who listens with his eyes. They conclude that real listening leads to real thinking, which is crucial in the Torah. Shalom Shlomo. Shalom Elisha. And Shalom to all those who are listening. We're ready for another great parasha. It really is a very powerful parasha. Parashat Ekev, the third in the book of Deuteronomy, of Devarim. Which offers a lot of huge issues. Huge issues and interesting premises. So Shlomo, what are we going to be talking about today? So Parashat Ekev is the second discourse of Moshe. Basically much of Devarim is the message of Moshe, his final words. Rabbi Sachs tells us that in the book of Devarim, Deuteronomy, the word Shema appears 92 times. So in a sense the book of Deuteronomy is about listening and Parashat Ekev, the 46th parasha. We have 8 to go out of 54, 46. The Parashat Ekev is a lot about listening. But also Elisha, as you note accurately, it's about what you call the essential human sin. The nutshell of human sin. And you have a beautiful metaphor. In your parasha you say, we forget that we are actors and not the director. Shakespeare said it, he said we are all actors on the stage. But we are a certain kind of actors. We think that we are the ones who are directing as well. There is a director, capital D, up there. And I was thinking in college many, many years ago, I studied logic. It was the best course I ever took, a course in philosophy including logic, metaphysics. And in the course of logic we learned about a basic fallacy in thinking. In Latin it's called post hoc ergo proctor hoc. If B follows A, then A caused B. And it's not true. It's often not true. We think it is. As long as we do something, we are the great determinants, the great doers. But there is a great director up there. And we have a great deal of, especially in the modern age of technology, a great deal of excessive pride. Yeah, and this is incredibly deep, I think what you just said now. And there's so much freedom. In fact, we could argue that the Torah is the Torah of freedom, of liberty. The exodus from Egypt is the ultimate, ultimate story. And in understanding the fallacy in this logic of one thing causing the other, there is so much freedom. We are so sure, we take it for granted that one thing causes another. And I can't even begin to think of examples because they're so mundane, they're everywhere. And if we allowed ourselves to let go of this premise that at least to say we have no idea, we don't know what really caused it, all of a sudden so much collapses, so much energy can be dropped. All the accusations we have, all the theories we have about life, all the threats, all the fear and anxiety comes from, and anxiety, that's what it comes from. If this thing happens, then that will happen. And we're right now in the middle of a huge wave of anxiety over what's happening in Israel, that this will cause that, and then that will cause the next thing, and that will be the end of it all. Now, maybe, maybe, maybe not, and knowing that it's not a necessity, a necessity that X doesn't necessarily cause Y, that's a huge liberation. In psychology, Alisha, this appears quite strongly. There's something in psychology called the fundamental attribution error, and it's related to causality and motivation. If I do something, that's probably what I intended to do, and I know why I did it. I know why you did it. I was a member of the industrial engineering faculty for 40 years, and I once forgot to invite my colleagues to a meeting or to a gathering, I don't recall, and I did it out of forgetfulness, and they attributed it to me as motivation. I did it on purpose, and it's the cause of a lot of human discord that we misinterpret motivation of why people do things to when they do things. Yeah, so it's a source of a lot of discord. I want to go back to the notion of listening and this theme of listening. One second, one second. As you're talking about listening, here I am interrupting you, but I just want to give the context to people who may not be as familiar with Ekev. Parashat Ekev basically is all about if you do this, life will be wonderful. If, on the other hand, you do that, or rather you don't do this that you're supposed to do, life would be hell on earth. And even the word Ekev, Ekev means as a result of, from the word heal, like we walk. Ekev b'tzad agudal, that's how our walking actually works. Okay, so having said that, let's go back to listening. All right, so if we are talking about listening, I have a list here of how to be a good listener, and it's important to me because for 40 years, more than that, as an educator, I thought the secret was being a good talker. And it took me a long time, too long, to figure out that the secret is being a good listener because if I'm in tune with my students, if I really do my research, know who they are, what they're interested in, I can be a much better talker, and I always ask them before I start talking, what do you plan to learn? What do you hope to learn from my talk? And it's always helpful. But in terms of listening, Alicia, you are one of the best, the best listener that I know, and I want to know your secret. What does it take to be a really good listener? Well, now I'm stumped. First of all, thank you for this incredible, it's probably one of the ultimate compliments. I wish that was the case, and maybe I'll, I'm going to ask my wife to listen to this podcast, too. It's really interesting, yesterday, there was a Bar Mitzvah, it was Monday, so there was an Aliyah al-Torah, there was a Bar Mitzvah with this incredible kid, really amazing kid, and his derasha was all about listening. The word to listen appears a lot in his parasha. It's not just in the Shema Yisrael, which was in last week's parasha, that the word lishmoa, shema, vaya im shamoa tishmeun, if you listen. I'm sorry. And he just said, it was just so beautiful hearing a 13-year-old kid talking about listening, and he wrote the derasha, it wasn't written for him, and one of the amazing things about this kid was that, and I told him that at the end of the Bar Mitzvah when I gave him his certificate and everything, that he has this incredible ability, most people listen with their ears, and we don't know, all we know, if someone does indeed listen with their ears, we assume they're listening because they're not speaking, as you said earlier. But he listens with his eyes, and I can't explain how that is, but there's something about his eyes that you can see that he's really, really listening. And it's amazing, and I never thought about it before, before watching him listen. That was quite amazing, quite a treat. So I don't know, I don't know. First of all, I'd like to think that you're right, I'm not sure, I don't always listen, but the one thing that I did learn, my wife and I actually had a really interesting conversation last night in our nightly walk, we talked about something, which is not directly related to our conversation now, and we both agreed that when we're listening to someone, we're not necessarily even listening to what they are saying, but we're kind of listening to what is revealed to us, within us, as they're speaking. So she shared with me how, when she teaches, she's always amazed how, at the end of the class, when she asks people, so what did you get out of this class, they'll often say things that are either the exact opposite of what she had taught, or they're just different, or they hurt something else altogether. And she said, at first, I thought to myself, many years ago, I thought, oh, oh boy, I either didn't explain myself properly, or they didn't listen well, but they got it all wrong. Later, a few years later, she realized, no, I didn't get it wrong, but oh boy, they sure have a lot more learning to do, until they get what I'm trying to say. She had a few more stages, and eventually we reached a conclusion that, no, no, that's the way it works. We say whatever we say, but each person hears what they are able to hear, what they need to hear, what they should hear, what is revealed to them, and it's not right or wrong, it's not a mishearing. And we do too, very often when we talk, only maybe years later, we listen maybe to what we said, if it was recorded, or if you read it somewhere, it's like, oh, oh, I actually said that? Only now do I understand, can I myself listen to what I said, four years ago, let's say. Exactly, this is a crucial point, Elisha, because real listening leads to real thinking, and it's the real thinking that's crucial here, and it's a crucial part of the Torah, and I want to refer to that in a moment. Before that, I want to explain why I know that you're a great listener. There are people who know that they should be good listeners, and they go through the motions of listening, but we know from research, two-thirds of communication, two-thirds, on average, is body language, is wordless communication, including the eyes, and you can tell from the eyes of somebody, are they listening to what I'm saying, or are their eyes glazed over? They're looking at us, but they're not really seeing us. So, Elisha, you really do listen to us, to what we say, including in your teaching, when people interrupt you all the time, and some people find that annoying, I don't think so, but a main reason that you're a great listener is that you are our shepherd. We are your little lambs, and you know where your little lambs are, where they're looking for sweet grass, and what they're doing, and you are genuinely, genuinely interested in your flock, and who they are and what they're doing, and you remember, and that means that when you listen to us, you really are listening and processing. But I want to continue this point about listening, because it's an essence, a crucial part of the Torah, maybe even the essence, I think, and it's why the book of Deuteronomy, Devarim, is so important, which I had never understood before, really. This is a comment by the brilliant Rabbi Sachs, who has so much wisdom. One of the most striking facts about the Torah, he writes, is that although it contains 613 commands, it does not contain a word that means to obey. Such a word was needed in modern Hebrew, and they got it from Aramaic, the Tzayet, which is Aramaic, it's not a real Hebrew word. This is of the highest possible significance. It means that blind obedience is not a virtue in Judaism. Blind obedience is not a virtue in Judaism. So, when Moshe says, Shema Yisrael, v'ayah shom shamoah tishma'u, and 92 times the word shema appears, it means, listen, people of Israel, listen, Jews, listen, but listen, think, process, understand, and think critically. You are free people. We don't believe in determinism. You are not gods. You are actors on the stage. But there is a script, and there is a director, capital D, and we have to listen to the director. That's another point, by the way. Many religions, at least, are visual, and they have to have visual representations. It's important. And we make things hard for ourselves as Jews. We are an audio people. We have words. We listen. Kol d'ma madakah. We listen to the still, quiet voice of God, which is so hard to hear, but you have to really, really listen. Listening is so important, part of our religion. Wow, Shlomo. This is really beautiful, what you just said. Now, first of all, I'm still a little bit embarrassed by all those sweet compliments, but we'll put them aside. But the idea that Rabbi Sachs is suggesting, maybe we'll study this, is Shabbat, that there isn't a word in Hebrew to obey, that it's actually from Aramaic, because we're not expected to obey. We're expected to listen. And you're saying to think, and you're also saying to understand. And that I really connect with, this idea of listening for understanding. And understanding, indeed, is an internal process. We can even say, well, I'm trying to understand what you're saying. We can say that. It sounds good. But the process of understanding is really, we're understanding ourselves, understanding what the other person is saying. And it's a never-ending process. It's a never, ever-ending process. One year we understand on one level, the next year we'll understand on a deeper level, on a side level, on a whole other level, which is why we can read the Torah over and over and over again and be amazed by the richness. But I want to look also at the word that you quoted Rabbi Sack saying, let's say it, to obey, which you're saying is from Aramaic. I did not know that. Because it's interesting, it does come from the same root of mitzvot. Let's say it, mitzvot, it's like tzaddik, vav, slash, yud, that's how it works, and taf, or taf, slash, hey, for the linguists among us. And, for example, we have in the book of Vayikra, we have the parashat Tzav, command. So here we have, I'm just thinking out loud, we have a word here for obey, which doesn't come from Hebrew, but it does derive from the root of mitzvah, of commandment. And what you're suggesting, and what Rabbi Sack is suggesting, is that we obey through, by understanding the meaning of the mitzvah. So, what that could mean, among many other things, is we could keep Shabbat technically. We could keep Shabbat to the letter, technically. But if we're not moved internally, if we don't understand that there's God in that, that there's a depth in that, that Shabbat is meant to connect with infinity, for example, if we just kept to the letter of the law, we didn't obey. We obey when we connect to the deep understanding within the commandment. And that is amazing. Absolutely. You know, 20% of Nobel Prize winners in science are Jews. And the question is, how come? And I think it has to do with what we're discussing, with this ability to listen, and to think critically. And Elisha, it troubles me, some members of our family are very observant and keep mitzvot, and they're really, really good people. But especially the younger ones, when we engage in a discussion about the meaning of why we are doing this, it's forbidden territory. Really? Yes, because it's questioning. And some things you simply can't question, especially if you come from where we come from, which is Mosul, which is in the middle, and we question a lot of things. So I'm disturbed at this critical thinking ability, which is huge in the Talmud. I'm concerned that we may be losing it. And Elisha, when we see the protests going on in Israel now, and we have the two sides, and Elisha, nobody is listening. Nobody is listening. They are all shouting and talking. We no longer listen. And we're not getting anywhere unless we listen to the Torah, and Shema Yisrael. Listen to what the other people are saying. Listen. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's a great example for, we can see live right now, with the demonstrations, with the political tension in Israel, just how difficult that is, how really, really hard that is to hear things you don't want to hear and be able to listen to that, to be able to go deep and try and understand what the person is saying. It doesn't mean you necessarily have to agree, but it's very, very, very difficult. And you're right. You are in a bind here because no one is listening. Yeah, I agree. The word Shema is interesting, Elisha. Hear, O Israel. It's translated as hear, but Shema has so many meanings. Shema, hear, listen, process, integrate, comprehend. It has all of those meanings in it, in those three letters. Right, right. And it's also from the root of Mashmaot, of meaning. The root of meaning in Hebrew is Shin Memayim, just like listening. So again, it goes back to what you were suggesting earlier, that we're not listening to the technicality. We're not listening to the actual, not listening to the sound vibration. We're listening to the inner meaning, and that's a form of understanding. This also concerns me a bit because the young kids, the young generation, they are a totally visual generation. They're used to their screens, their smartphones, and visual images. Everything has to be a visual image. And I think words and sounds have been degraded quite a lot. I'm old enough to remember, I grew up in the age of radio. I used to sit in the living room with my father, and we used to listen to radio programs. And I used to listen to hockey games. I think that helped me a lot because when you only have sound, your brain has to provide the images. And then you listen to the hockey game, and your brain thinks about the visual part of it. But if you're given the visual part of it, there's no imagination left. I look at kids' toys today. We buy toys for our grandchildren. It used to be that the box of a toy was as fun as the toy because you could do anything. But today these toys are so realistic. They leave nothing to the imagination. It's a bit troubling. Yeah, that's beautiful what you're saying. Even though it's troubling, it's nevertheless beautiful that indeed our civilization is based, as you said earlier, as Parasha last week, pretty much ended with be careful of graven images. Be careful of anything that looks a certain way because we are anything that, if you follow looks, you will reach idolatry. It's the ultimate idolatry. And listening, listening without necessarily seeing is something maybe the brain indeed needs to practice and that practice is lost today. I want to read a short passage from your Drasha, which I think is beautiful. What if each phenomenon, this is about the whole issue of Ekev, about causality, if then, and you say, what if each phenomenon is the reason for itself? What if everything is both the source and the essence of itself? Everything is an entire universe unto itself. Every phenomenon is both the manifestation of itself and the entire world. Everything is actually a manifestation of God. I think this is beautiful because this human sin of hubris, we attribute everything to our greatness, especially in the era of technology when we do such amazing things with science and technology. But I know lots of entrepreneurs and they have amazing ideas and I truly believe they are inspired by a divine presence out of this amazing brain that we've given and the prefrontal cortex which has the ability to imagine such incredible things and it didn't just happen, I think, Alicia. As you say, it's a manifestation of God. Yeah, this is an idea that I personally learned from Rabbi Nachman. Rabbi Nachman, it's one of his core ideas and it's hard to grasp because we're not wired to think this way. We're wired to think that one thing leads to another causes. What caused this? Today we're talking about the Holocaust. From the Holocaust, the State of Israel was born, meaning the Holocaust birthed the State of Israel. And it makes sense, and historians, that's how they often think. But being able to see each phenomenon indeed as its own cause goes against the grain of our brain, of our mind. But it also allows a state of what Heschel called, you know, wonder. A state of wonder to really see in every little phenomenon to see the entire universe in that phenomenon, the entire universe in a grain of sand, as they often say, or at least it's a translation from Hebrew. And this is something we have to, because it goes against the grain, pun I guess intended, we have to remind ourselves over and over again and we have to understand it over and over again. I can understand it for a moment and then I lose it. I lose the understanding of this great truth. And then I grasp it again and then maybe on a deeper level and then I lose it again and then I encounter it again. So, the art of listening, the art of understanding. One thing that helps me avoid the sin of hubris, living with scientists and they are always every day trying to find the cause of things, is something that a great astronomer named Carl Sagan once said. He once reminded us that there are more stars in the universe than there are grains of sand on the entire earth. So, if you think about the vastness of the universe and we are this tiny little grain of sand, these little ants crawling around on this little planet. It puts things, I think, it kind of puts things in proportion. Just thinking, Elisha, before we conclude. So, the next Parsha is Re'eh. And it's interesting. Ekev, which is about Sh'ma Yisrael Vayayim Sh'ma Tishmo. It's about hearing. Okay, so we do the hearing part. But the next part is Re'eh. Look, see. So, those two things, they each have a role. But the Sh'ma is crucial. Listening and thinking and comprehending. Yeah, yes. And certainly next week we'll talk about seeing and what is it we're supposed to see. What is one supposed to see? Just like we're asking, what is one supposed to hear? Are we supposed to hear the words? Are we supposed to hear the meaning in the words? We concluded here that it's all about understanding and deeper and deeper and ever deeper understanding. So, indeed, what does it mean to see when someone says, oh, yeah, now I see what you're saying. Or a beautiful word, a word that I love is like insight. So, next week maybe we'll indeed explore seeing. And meanwhile, let's, you know, on our Jewish spiritual compass, keep the needle on listening, on deepening our listening and listening for understanding and allowing ourselves to understand deeper and deeper by listening to ourselves, listening to the other, if that makes any sense. And to work on that, even though I'm at an advanced stage, there's a lot of room for improvement in honing the skills of listening and thinking and critically thinking and finding meaning and expressing the meaning to yourself. Yeah. So, before we do conclude, I just want to say, Shlomo, you are a great listener yourself. I just want to put it here on the table. So, I hope you heard that. And I want to wish everyone Shabbat Shalom. And we're looking forward to hearing what you think, what did you understand from listening to this podcast. And have a great week. Shabbat Shalom. Shabbat Shalom, everybody. And thanks for listening to us. Yeah, thank you.