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Prof. Shlomo Maital and R. Elisha Wolfin, on Pesach
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Prof. Shlomo Maital and R. Elisha Wolfin, on Pesach
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The podcast is about discussing Pesach and the significance of the white elephant, which represents something burdensome but valuable. The conversation focuses on the importance of listening and the lack of listening in Israeli culture. The hosts discuss the need to become better listeners and connect it to freedom. They also mention a project on secure dialogue and share the Ten Commandments for creating a united discourse. Shalom L'Kulam. Hi everyone. It's our podcast number nine. And this time it's dedicated to Pesach. My name is Elisha Wolfin. I'm sitting here with Professor Shlomo Yital discussing Pesach, discussing life and wisdom. Shalom Shlomo. Shalom Elisha. Great to be with you and to talk about your fascinating Roshah, which is the white elephant at the seder. We have a white elephant at the seder. I never realized it. Should I give people a hint what the white elephant is? Let me first say what a white elephant is in the literature. So a white elephant in history was a real white elephant in the courts of the monarchs in Burma, Thailand, Cambodia, and Laos. And the kings kept white elephants as ornaments because they're beautiful. But they're expensive. They're expensive to feed and had no possible use in the courtyard. So a white elephant in the West came to mean something that was expensive, burdensome, with no real utility. And the point you make of course is that the egg may seem like that on the seder plate, but it's not. Yeah. Okay. So we'll kind of elaborate a little bit. It's a little shot from last year. By the way, most of the Roshot that we're discussing here are from previous years. But really, to be quite honest, the most important part is Shlomo kind of doing amazing research and adding the depth and the breadth and the heights to this conversation. So even if you read the Roshot last year, the podcast is nothing like the Roshot itself. So the Roshot spoke about the egg. There's a white egg or a white elephant on the Pesach table, which we don't really do anything with. We don't bless it. It's not really mentioned. It's just on the table. So that's the topic of our conversation. That's at least the trigger for our conversation. And your mother Tamar raised the question. So you kind of got the idea from your wonderful mother, who by the way is an excellent Torah reader. Yes. Yeah. She learned here at Kirat Vahavda how to read Torah. And she asked me last year, she said, you know, she said, I'm the one responsible for the eggs in the seder. She was responsible for many other things too. But are we sure do we need the egg in the seder? We never use it. We don't do anything with it. So do we need it? That's where the whole conversation sprung from. So the function of the egg, Elisha, the function of the egg is to sit there on the seder plate and to listen. The egg listens. And this is what I mainly wanted to talk about with you during the podcast, because as everyone knows, we're in the, what, the 12th, 13th week of a constitutional crisis in Israel with demonstrations. And it seems to me there's a dialogue of the deaf. We are simply not listening to each other. And the question is, how come, why, and how can we listen? And what do we learn from this egg on the seder plate that stays there quietly in the background and is listening, listening to what we say? Yeah. Yeah. I love that connection that you're making. So what were your thoughts? So let's talk about listening. Some background, Elisha. As I mentioned before, Shalona, my wife, is an experienced psychologist and deeply troubled by what is happening. And she's trying to use her professional knowledge to contribute something. And what she's done is, together with others, organized a lovely project on a secure dialogue. How do we talk to one another? Elisha, I've had people, guests from abroad, who come to Israel, and they see how we drive on our highways and cut each other off, and how we break into cues, and how we yell at each other and scream at each other. I've had visitors ask me, do you Israelis, do you hate each other? And of course, it's the opposite, because when we're under stress and under attack, we come together like nobody's business. So what is it about our Israeli culture that makes us such bad listeners? We don't listen. When we talk to each other, we break into each other's senses. And the question is, why? And how can we become better listeners? And what has this got to do with freedom? Now, I'm going to link this to freedom. You mentioned freedom nine times in your drashah. The computer helps me count it. And of course, Pesach is about freedom. But freedom is related to listening. And there's another angle, but let me pause here and get your reaction. Well, first of all, I love these connections that you're making here, really beautiful. On so many levels, I have a lot of thoughts that are coming up. And, you know, one term, one way that Pesach has been understood is broken down to two words, like Pesach, the ability of our mouth to tell a story. And it's one thing for a mouth to tell a story. But if there's no one listening to the story being told, then there's no point in this whole story. So listening here really is crucial. Elisha, I'm an educator, as you know, and I've spent 50 years talking and teaching and trying to educate. And Elisha, for 50 years, I felt that the skill was in talking, in being a good talker. And in fact, what I've learned relatedly is that the real skill as an educator is in listening, in listening to the people that you have in front of you that you're trying to educate. Why? Because you need to understand what are they grasping? What are they interested in? Where do they come from? What are their points of view? And you do that beautifully in your classes. And Elisha, I know some people who are irritated because so many of us break into your words and we talk rather than listen to you. But you manage to get the message across and you listen to us. You listen to us. So listening, I've found, is more important than talking. First of all, thank you for the compliment. Yesterday, I visited someone who's recovering from surgery and she asked me a question and I made a mistake by misinterpreting the question. I don't think she noticed. Maybe she did. I don't know. But instead of coming around, listening to what she wanted to say, I heard a question. So I responded with a lengthy answer. And only afterwards, when I walked to the car, I thought to myself, so she asked a question. Did she really want to hear my answer or did she want me to listen to what she thinks about it? So it's a tough one. So Elisha, after reading your Dreschach, I did some research about the whole issue of listening, thinking of the egg sitting there and listening to us and wondering to myself, why are we such poor listeners? Not only Israelis, but people in general. And I found the answer, believe it or not, in the Harvard Business Review of all places and in a 1957 article. That's what, that's 66 years ago. And this article, why in a business journal? Because when you try to sell something, you're talking, but really what you should be doing is listening to the client. Listening to the client is the key to creating value in business, but also the key in life. And why are we such poor listeners, Elisha? Here's the explanation based on research. People speak about 125 words a minute. I think Israelis speak a little quicker. 125 words a minute is the rate of speech. We speak, we frame words, we say words, but we comprehend words four times faster. In other words, the brain understands what people are saying much faster than our vocal cords formulate words. That means that we have excess time as we're, as I'm listening to you. And the question is, what do we do with that time? And the answer is, usually we think about ourselves, our own views, our own attitudes, rather than focusing on the person in front of us. Understanding what they're saying, summarizing, finding the key points, thinking whether this is really correct or not. We focus on ourselves and our thoughts rather than on the counterpart, the person we're speaking with. And you know, in school, Elisha, we study reading, philosophy, we learn all kinds of stuff. We never teach people about listening. It's a crucial skill and it's totally ignored. So this asymmetry of how fast we speak and how fast we comprehend is something that creates a problem. We need to deal with it. Have you had any experience with this? First of all, it's fascinating. I didn't realize this fact only last night, kind of in a conversation we had at home. My son, who is 15 years old, he doesn't have a lot of patience at all for us elderly parents who, as we say in Hebrew, chofrim, talk and talk and talk. And I just now, I kind of understand, I get another piece of wisdom from what you're saying, that part of his, you know, not having a lot of patience for our speech, besides being an adolescent and everything goes along with that, he's very bright. He's really, really bright, really smart. And from the very first word, he understands. Okay, he already knows what we're going to say. Not just because we repeat ourselves, but also because he's very smart. So he knows what we're going to say. And so he says, okay, okay, I got it, got it. Okay, I understand, I understand. But we feel that we haven't yet said what we wanted to say. So now I have a much better appreciation for his impatience without too many words. So, you know, we really do need to work hard with people to cultivate this skill of listening, especially Israelis who are pretty poor at it, including highly educated ones, especially educated ones. And Aisha, I wanted to share something with our listeners. So Sharona, my wife, is, as I mentioned, running this project, helping to run a project where psychologists help others engage in secure dialogue, which is what we really need now, like in the presidential house, where negotiations are going on, and they're crucial. And Sharona, with others, with her group, has put together the Ten Commandments to create a united and protected discourse. Oh, beautiful. So here are the asserts that you brought, the Ten Commandments. I'll read them very quickly, and they're based on... Not too quickly, not too quickly. I want to really get it. All right, so not too quickly. And it's just a murdered background. It's based on work done by an amazing man whom I've interviewed for my Jerusalem Report column. His name is Yishai Shalif, and he is a Haredi, the first Israeli-born Haredi psychologist, head of the psychology services in Modiin Elite, and he is an expert on narrative therapy, but also on siach mogan, sod siach, on how to engage in fruitful dialogue. I interviewed him yesterday, and he's a fascinating man. Here is the Ten Commandments of a united and protected discourse. One, we allow all voices to be heard with equal time for each. Two, we will talk about ourselves, our experience, and our beliefs, and avoid talking about others. Three, we avoid generalizations or comments about things in general. We will be specific. Four, this is important, we will listen openly through a true desire to understand the beliefs and concerns of the other. Five, we'll try our best to clarify the intent of the other's words and avoid making assumptions about their intentions. Six, whoa, this is the biggie, we will listen without interrupting the other's words. At least in Israel, it drives me up the wall when people break into other's conversations. It's disrespectful and unproductive. Seven, we will maintain eye contact and be attentive to body language. Two-thirds of our communication is not verbal, it's in the language of our body. Eight, there's no obligation to speak, you can simply listen to others. Yesterday we had a discussion in my research institute, what stand do we take on the current conflict, the judicial conflict, and everyone was asked to speak, and I asked to listen, to listen to my colleagues first before I said anything dumb. Nine, we will avoid disdain and judgment of any form. And ten, we will be restrained and listen, even when what is said is really hard for us to hear. Hmm, I love that, that's beautiful, that's beautiful, and I can tell you spoke of body language, so even with listening, you can see when my own breathing seems to settle or get deeper, I know that I've, it's marked me, I always know, I've just heard wisdom. Yes, yes, absolutely. Elisha, maybe we can also discuss the main theme of your White Elephant Adrashah, which is, of course, freedom, and the celebration of our freedom during Pesach, and I discovered something that surprised me, it's amazing how you find new things every year, it's the same Haggadah. Sorona once pointed out to me a sermon by Jonathan, Rabbi Jonathan Sachs, and he asked, why do we say the same thing every year, we recite the four sons, because every year the evil son kind of changes and metamorphoses, and sometimes he becomes the good son, and vice versa, that we're in a fluid situation. I learned something about freedom, reading your Adrashah, and doing a bit of research. There's a famous psychoanalyst named Erich Fromm, born in Frankfurt, came to the U.S., by the way, so many educated Jewish people come out of the wonderful German culture, some of our rabbis, and psychologists, and Freud, and others. Fromm wrote a book in 1941, how many years ago is that, that's 82 years ago, and I'm afraid we haven't really absorbed the lesson, it's called The Escape from Freedom. In German the title is more pointed, fear of freedom, we're afraid of freedom. Why in the world would we be afraid of freedom? He explains it so beautifully, so clearly, he says there are two kinds of freedom. The first kind of freedom is freedom from. We're freed from slavery. Of course, that's the first step, without that, there's no freedom at all. So, freedom from. But the most important freedom is freedom to. That is, freedom to create, freedom to help others, freedom to create value in the world. And he points out that sometimes we are fearful of that freedom to. And right now, we look around the world, we see people in a time of uncertainty, who are so-called free, but they're fearful of the freedom to, and the responsibility, it's a big obligation to make decisions. So, they look for an autocrat who can tell them what to do. And in doing so, they are giving up their freedom from. They're actually embracing the slavery and the autocracy. So, freedom from, and freedom to. And I will think about Pesach differently this year, about the obligation of accepting the freedom to change the world, or at least to try. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Beautiful. Yeah, I love it from his book, The Art of Loving. It's a very powerful book for me. Yeah, well, I mean, there's so many things I wanted to connect with that you mentioned. I think one of the things I want to kind of connect to what you were saying is the fear of freedom, the freedom to, and the fear of the unknown. We love the known. We love what we already know. It's safe. Been there, done that. So, it may be boring, but we know. We know how to react. We know how it feels. We know what to do. And it feels so much safer. But it's so boring, a life of just constant repetition, a life of just knowing, regurgitating what we already know, so much boredom in it. And why don't we – why don't we become more creative and create new things? That's because of the fear, the fear to, the fear of freedom to, to create something new. And in so many ways, I feel that there's a part of me that yearns, is longing for novelty, for something outside of the box, something which will resonate, but something which is really – that I haven't heard before, that I haven't – I love that. I'm almost addicted to that. Nevertheless, if I hear such a thing, I notice how I'm not always – I don't always rush to share it with others, because what will they think? What will they say? What will they – what will it mean about me that I'm kind of, in a way, leaving the fold, so to speak, by bringing in, like, new ideas and fresh ideas? So, the fear of freedom, it's a huge one. It's a huge one. Yes, it is. And it troubles me a bit in the following sense. A large fraction of our Jewish people are orthodox, and the principle of orthodoxy is a set of chagav. So, choose yourself an authority who is a learned rabbi whom you respect, and if you have an issue or a question, you go to the rabbi, and you present the question, and he gives you the answer. Often, questions not necessarily religious in nature, but related to practical things, getting married, finding a job, profession, and so on. Elisha, in doing so, we are surrendering our freedom to some extent, although we all do that, because we all look for authority, for knowledge among others. We seek answers elsewhere, and sometimes we make ourselves the autocrat rather than perhaps a learned rabbi. What is your stand on the role of the rabbi? You are a rabbi, of course. What is the role of the rabbi in guiding us? Yeah, that's a great question. So, first of all, I love the notion of asel ha'rav. There's something very pluralistic about it, because it kind of says each person should indeed find their own rabbi, the rabbi that resonates with them. And so, you know, we can talk about the dark side of it, and also the beautiful sides of it. I think the beautiful side of it is there's a lot of humility in that, for each one of us to recognize that, you know, as Socrates said, we know that we don't know. And I know when I turn to someone for advice, and he or she gives me the advice that I thought, I always check with my body, on a visceral level, if it resonates, if it rings a bell, if it kind of makes sense. And if it doesn't, I will often not follow this advice. However, I also know that there are times that something doesn't resonate right now. But then years later, years later, I'm suddenly reminded, something happens, and I'm suddenly reminded of that piece of advice that I received from that expert, that rab, that whatever. And finally I said, oh, I get it now. Now I get it. So there's something, um, um, of humility in, um, in being willing to reach out to someone you respect dearly. And you know, at least deeply, deeply listen, like really listening deeply and giving that person the credit. That person is wise in their field, in their field, or maybe in many fields, I don't know. And by giving them this credit, it forces us to be a more active listener, to follow your 10 commandments of listening. If we don't give the person the credit of wisdom, then these 10 commandments just collapse as we listen to the advice. So it's kind of, it's interesting how this thread in the conversation connects to the earlier thread, that maybe the answer is the art of listening. So go to the rabbi or whoever, the white person, the expert you were seeking, and first and foremost, listen. They know a thing or two, they've studied more, maybe they have life with them, maybe they're elder, maybe, um, some good listening skills can, can help balance. Yes, but here's the problem, Alicia. So in that Harvard Business Review article that I mentioned before, there's some some really, really troubling numbers. How much of what we listen to, how much of it do you retain? We tend to forget from one half to one third of what we hear within eight hours. So in an important conversation, at least half of it disappears within eight hours. And, and after several months, very little of it, very little of it remains. This is based on research. So, again, this is an important skill. Even when you hear words of great wisdom, unfortunately, we are we are not truly mining and exploiting them because of our inability to really retain and understand and process what we're hearing. And the reason is, as I think what I mentioned before, that we're not really listening, we are thinking about other things. We need to, we need to practice, we need practice in really, really listening to what the person we're talking to is saying. So I want to be an Israeli here for a moment. And, you know, we Israelis are good at disagreeing. So I want to, I want to kind of ask a little bit provocative question, but it's a counter question. Maybe there's a lot of wisdom in not retaining, in forgetting. And, you know, there's in Mishnah in Pirkei Avot, there's the whole thing of bol'sud she'inoma betifa, like, sounds like a pit that's like, well, kind of cemented or whatever the words are in English, and that doesn't lose a drop of water. And sounds like, oh, I'd love to be such a person to remember everything I learned to retain everything I hear. And I could compete with Google. But, um, but we, this beauty in forgetting, because we forget that which remains is that which somehow needed to retain, and we had to let all the rest go. It's not pertinent. It's not relevant for us at this moment in time. Maybe it will be in 20 years. But right now, there's nothing we can do with it. It's going to be an overload. And so perhaps we need to hear what we hear. We need to improve our listening skills, for sure. But what we hear is what we really resonate with. And that's what we can have. And I often see with myself and others that in a conversation, I can see when I can just, I can't right now have that answer. I'm not there. I'm just not there yet. I'm not involved enough. I'm not, for whatever reason, I'm just not there yet. And so the right thing is for this to go and be forgotten. So I guess we're almost at the end of our 30 minutes. I, as always, love this conversation. Let my own last words be from, also from Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, which I'm very fond of. And my favorite saying is Shimon Ben-Shaddah, who said that he has lived all his life amongst the wise. I have too, in academics at the Technion. And he says, I found nothing better than silence. Maybe, Elisha, we have too many words, too much shouting and speaking, too many words, and maybe too little listening. Maybe, Elisha, we need to listen more, so that we can process, as you say, but we can't process unless we really listen to what we're being told. And then if we respond right away and talk, we are losing, I think, some of the information because our brain is working on our own answer and response, rather than on processing the words of wisdom that we're hearing. So let's have two cheers for silence, which means listening, silence, listening. Yeah, yeah. And I want to add also one last little thing. You know, because Pesach, tomorrow night is Pesach, or by the time you receive this, I don't know, where are you going to be vis-a-vis the Seder? And those on Saturdays will have two Sederim, or some do. One of the key ideas in Seder is to ask questions, to ask good questions. And maybe part of the skill of listening is also a skill of knowing how to ask good questions, questions that evoke deep answers. And that's something that I think I'm still working on. Like, how do you, how do you, what is a good question? How do you ask a good question? So tomorrow night is a Pesach of Manishtana, the question of the year. And maybe, like, so what's new? Perhaps if we ask the right questions and listen well enough, we'll hear something new, finally. A very short story. You can win a Nobel Prize by asking good questions. Isidore Rabi, a famous Jewish physicist, won the Nobel Prize, and they asked him, why? And he said, my mother, like your mother Tamar, he would come home from school, Elisha, and you say, what do we ask our kids? What did you learn today in school? His mother never asked him that. His mother asked him, Izzy, what good questions did you ask in school today? And that became part of his DNA. He asked really good, hard questions. That's beautiful. That's beautiful. So, thank you all for listening. And, you know, your feedback is always welcome. And you're welcome to also send these podcasts to others. And we hope you have a great Tisach, Chag Sameach, K'shir, and freedom and listening to us all. Chag Sameach, everyone.
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