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Hearing That Demands a Response

2 minute read
Straightforward

We’ve all had the experience of telling someone something urgent and watching it go nowhere. They nodded. They seemed moved. And then nothing changed. We say: they didn’t hear me. But that’s not quite right — they heard perfectly. They just didn’t listen.

The parsha opens with three words that contain an entire philosophy of the spiritual life: Vayishma Yisro — and Yisro heard.

But everyone heard. Every surrounding nation heard about what happened. The news traveled. The world trembled, at least for a moment.

So what made Yisro different?

We need to slow down here, because “heard” doesn’t quite capture it.

We know the word shema. We say it at the peak moments of our lives and at the valley moments too — whispered at a bedside as a soul prepares to leave this world, declared in moments of collective faith. Shema Yisrael. We translate it as “hear,” but that translation is too thin. Shema is more than just hearing. Shema is listening that requires a response.

Think about it this way. If I’m walking along the tracks and a train is barreling toward me, and you scream — Get out of the way, run! — and I keep walking, what would you say? You’d say I didn’t hear you. But that’s not technically true. The sound waves reached my ears. The neurons fired. The information registered. What you mean when you say I didn’t hear you is that I didn’t respond — and when something is so urgent, so significant, that it demands a response, the failure to respond is indistinguishable from not having heard at all.

That is shema. Not passive reception. Active transformation.

R’ Yehuda Leib Chasman teaches that Yisro didn’t hear anything different from anyone else. The difference is that Yisro actually listened.

The nations around him were moved and inspired, even. For a few moments, they felt the ground shift beneath their assumptions. But then the moment passed, and they went back to their lives. Back to their idols, their routines, their comfortable distance from the truth. The inspiration was real. The response was absent. And so — by the definition of shema — they never truly heard.

Yisro heard, and he moved.

This is the difference between a great person and an ordinary one. It is not that great people have more profound moments of inspiration. It is that they do something with them. Every person has moments of genuine clarity: a breakthrough, a conversation, a teaching that suddenly opens up and speaks directly into your life.

The question is never whether the inspiration was real. The question is whether you let it reach you all the way down, into the place where behavior lives.

Every nation heard. One man moved. The Torah records his name forever. The others — we don’t remember their names because there is nothing to remember. Inspiration without response leaves no mark on the world, and no mark on the person.

Thelast flash of inspiration you had — the one that was going to change everything — what happened to it?

Start Small

3 minute read
Straightforward

The episode of The Golden Calf stands out as a particularly low moment in Jewish history.

Following such miraculous events as the Ten Plagues, the Exodus, and the parting of the Red Sea, among other supernatural phenomena, the Jewish People panicked because their leader was running late. They somehow concluded that an idol was the solution to their troubles.

In the aftermath, the Jewish People grappled with the consequences of their misjudgment and sought to make amends. One form that took was the half-shekel tax, a mandatory contribution from every individual that went towards building the Mishkan. This act of collective responsibility and atonement symbolized the beginning of their journey back towards redemption.

R’ Meilech Biderman highlights how, among other things, the half shekel itself is a symbol that teaches a crucial lesson about human nature and the path of improvement that leads to lasting change.

A half isn’t a whole, only a part. But it’s a start, and that’s what matters.

The half-shekel, being just a fraction of a whole, symbolizes that even partial efforts can be valuable starting points. It is a modest contribution that highlights the power of small beginnings; gradual, consistent progress is usually better than grand but fleeting efforts. Inertia is powerful; just the act of getting started gets you off zero, off the couch, and in the game with some momentum.

The conventional wisdom is to set large goals and then take big leaps to accomplish the goal in as little time as possible, but enormous strides can often lead to burnout and disappointment. Baby steps are all it takes to overcome the daunting prospect of starting over and the fear of failure. Embracing gradual change and appreciating the compound effect of small commitments to minor improvement can be more sustainable and effective.

Small things count; they add up, stack, and compound quickly. You just have to get started.

Commitments and resolutions don’t need to be hard to do; they just need to be something you keep. In that regard, it’s actually better to start small. R’ Yisrael Salanter recommends a strategic approach; rather than a complete overhaul in a given undertaking, surgically target the smallest element consistently. For example, instead of hoping to pray better in general, set a goal of praying one particular blessing more thoughtfully. Rather than resolve to never gossip again, set a goal of one specific hour a day that is gossip-free.

It is easy to dismiss the value of making slightly better choices and decisions on a daily basis; small things are, by definition, not impressive. They are boring and don’t make headlines. But the thing about small commitments is that they work.

Keeping small commitments is what forms new behaviors, habits, patterns, and routines. Small commitments work because they are easy to stick to; it’s something worth being intentional about when change is on your mind.

R’ Leib Chasman’s students would ask him to recommend New Year’s resolutions, and the sage would reply that they could decide for themselves but to make sure to pick something they could keep to. After thinking, they would share their choices with their teacher, and he would interrogate them. “Are you sure you can keep your resolution?” “I’m certain.” “Great! I want you to cut it in half.”

R’ Chatzkel Levenstein intuitively suggests that a human can only be obligated to achieve what is possible within a calendar year, comparing personal growth to a loan paid off in installments. You don’t pay the whole mortgage off in one month; that’s not how mortgages work.

Maintaining basic, consistent efforts is often more fruitful than seeking dramatic transformations. Improving by just one percent is barely noticeable. In the beginning, there is hardly any difference between making a choice that is one percent better or one percent worse; it won’t impact you much today. But as time goes on, these small differences compound, and you soon find a huge gap between people who make slightly better choices daily and those who don’t. One percent better each day for a year is thirty-seven times better by the end.

The journey back from the brink of one of the Torah’s most significant crises began with a simple half-shekel.

It wasn’t much, but it reminds us of the impact of small actions and choices that didn’t seem to make much of a difference at the time; the small things we stick with are what ultimately shape our long-term trajectory and path forward.

The heaviest weight in the gym is the front door.

People will sit up late at night and wonder what they’re doing with their lives, if they’ll ever achieve their goals, if they’ll ever get to the places they want to go. Choose one thing you can do tomorrow that will get you closer, one thing to take action on. Then do it.

Reduce the scope but stick to the schedule; incremental progress drives exponential gains.

The Lonely Darkness

5 minute read
Straightforward

One of the recurring motifs in the stories of our heroes is how often they stand alone, against all odds, and it starts from the very beginning of our Tradition.

During Yakov and his family’s escape from Lavan, they had to navigate their way across a river. Some of the family’s articles had remained on the wrong side during the crossing, so he sent his family ahead to make the most of the dwindling light while he stayed back to retrieve what he had left behind.

Alone as darkness fell, in one of the defining moments in Yakov’s life, he was accosted by and fought with a mysterious figure, whom we identify as Esau’s guardian angel:

וַיִּוָּתֵר יַעֲקֹב, לְבַדּוֹ; וַיֵּאָבֵק אִישׁ עִמּוֹ, עַד עֲלוֹת הַשָּׁחַר. וַיַּרְא, כִּי לֹא יָכֹל לוֹ, וַיִּגַּע, בְּכַף-יְרֵכוֹ; וַתֵּקַע כַּף-יֶרֶךְ יַעֲקֹב, בְּהֵאָבְקוֹ עִמּוֹ. וַיֹּאמֶר שַׁלְּחֵנִי, כִּי עָלָה הַשָּׁחַר; וַיֹּאמֶר לֹא אֲשַׁלֵּחֲךָ, כִּי אִם-בֵּרַכְתָּנִי. וַיֹּאמֶר אֵלָיו, מַה-שְּׁמֶךָ; וַיֹּאמֶר, יַעֲקֹב. וַיֹּאמֶר, יַעֲקֹב לא יֵאָמֵר עוֹד שִׁמְךָ–כִּי, אִם-יִשְׂרָאֵל: כִּי-שָׂרִיתָ עִם-אֱלֹהִים וְעִם-אֲנָשִׁים, וַתּוּכָל. וַיִּשְׁאַל יַעֲקֹב, וַיֹּאמֶר הַגִּידָה-נָּא שְׁמֶךָ, וַיֹּאמֶר, לָמָּה זֶּה תִּשְׁאַל לִשְׁמִי; וַיְבָרֶךְ אֹתוֹ, שָׁם –  Yakov was alone, and a man grappled with him until daybreak. When the stranger saw that he could not overcome him, he struck Yakov’s hip and dislocated it as he grappled with him. He said, “Let me go, dawn is breaking!” – but Yakov said, “I will not let you go until you bless me.” He said to him, “What is your name?” and he replied, “Yakov.” He said, “No longer shall your name be Yakov, for your name is Yisrael, because you have mastery with God and men, and you have prevailed.” Yakov asked, and said, “Now tell me your name” and he replied, “Why is it you ask my name?”‘ and blessed him there. (32:25-30)

The imagery of this iconic battle is that it takes place in the darkness and lasts until dawn’s early light. Darkness is a mythological archetype for concealment, chaos, danger, deception, disorder, fear, uncertainty, and the unknown.

As such, most humans are afraid of the dark to some degree; our sight is the sense we depend on the most, and we cannot see well in darkness, so a lack of light makes us feel vulnerable to danger.

In the darkness, we are surrounded by the unknown, with all sorts of potential threats hidden by the shadows just out of sight. But when dawn’s light comes, the dangerous unknown is dispelled, the shadows disappear, and the darkness dissipates, to be replaced with the clarity and concrete safety of known order.

The Mesilas Yesharim says the trouble with darkness is not just that you won’t see something dangerous, but that you can mistake something dangerous for something safe. You might not see the snake in the woods, and what if that big rock is actually a bear?

The Steipler teaches that the battleground of our struggles is in our minds. Whether fear or fantasy, our minds can paint vivid pictures that do not correspond to reality. Fear amplifies the negative, and fantasy amplifies the positive; but neither includes the consequences, opportunity costs, pathways, or tradeoffs that always accompany reality. When someone returns to their family after a long time away, they often think they’ll all get along peacefully and happily now; or the newlywed couple might think they’ll be in love forever – but we know how naive that is. Reality is much more challenging than the illusion of fantasy, but the difference is that it is real.

Driving at night, you can’t see much further than your headlights – but you can make the whole trip that way; concealment and uncertainty are scary, but you will always have what it takes to make it through that particular darkness.

When Yakov asks the figure for his name, Yakov gets an evasive non-answer, “Why is it you ask for my name?”

R’ Leib Chasman intuitively suggests that this is the nature of the formless enemy we fight. The Gemara teaches how at the end of days, Hashem will slaughter the Satan, and the righteous will cry because it was this enormous mountain they somehow overcame, and the wicked will cry because it was a tiny hair they couldn’t even blow away. The very idea of the Satan is a shorthand for what we fight – a flicker of our reflection, a shadow, constantly in flux.

Although Yakov was permanently injured in his encounter, he still emerged as Yisrael, the master; we can expect to trip, stumble, and make mistakes along the way, and we might even get hurt. But it is the human condition to fight and struggle, but we can persist and win.

It’s important to note that Yakov doesn’t actually achieve total physical victory – he holds out for a stalemate while seriously injured. The victory – וַתּוּכָל – is in staying in the fight and not giving up – וַיַּרְא, כִּי לֹא יָכֹל לוֹ.

Our biggest tests, if not all of them, come when we are alone, but it is our characteristic ability to rise to the challenge that Bilam highlights in his reluctant blessing to the Jewish People – הֶן־עָם לְבָדָד יִשְׁכֹּן. 

It’s a point of pride, rooted in our identity from the very beginning, starting with Avraham, the first Hebrew, so-called because he is an outsider who stands alone against the dominant culture – עברי / מעבר הנהר.

This theme repeats itself with Yosef, home alone with Potiphar’s wife. About to give in to an almost irresistible temptation, he sees his father’s face, reminding him that his family heritage is that he has what it takes to stand alone and not give up. 

The Hebrew word for grappling is cognate to the word for dust because the fighter’s feet stir up dust when fighting for leverage and grip – וַיֵּאָבֵק / אבק. The Midrash suggests that the dust kicked up from this epic struggle rose all the way to the Heavenly Throne.

R’ Tzvi Meir Silberberg highlights that the Midrash doesn’t say that the victory went up to Heaven, but that the dust, the energy expended on the struggle, went up to Heaven. Our victories are personal, and although we don’t always get to choose whether we win, we always control whether we go down without a fight; and putting up a fight is specifically what the Midrash honors. It’s your choice to stand that will ultimately endure and carry the day, which perhaps Bilam also refers to – מִי מָנָה עֲפַר יַעֲקֹב.

The opening blessing of the morning blessings is for giving the rooster the understanding to distinguish between day and night – הַּנוֹתֵן לַשֶּׂכְוִי בִינָה לְהַבְחִין בֵּין יוֹם וּבֵין לָיְלָה. But doesn’t every animal with eyes know the difference? R’ Meilech Biderman teaches that the rooster is highlighted because it crows just before dawn while it’s still dark. In Perek Shira, a song that attributes different verses to different creatures and cosmic entities, the rooster sings how it hopes and yearns for God’s salvation – לישועתך קיויתי ה – the rooster understands already before dawn that the darkness is coming to an end and that the sun will rise once more. 

In all the stories of our heroes, no one came to save them; how you face the realization that to some extent, you stand alone is arguably a defining moment of adulthood and maturity – אֶשָּׂא עֵינַי אֶל הֶהָרִים מֵאַיִן יָבֹא עֶזְרִי. That’s not simply to say that no one is coming to save you; it’s more profound than that. It’s that the only person who will ultimately save you is yourself; that the helping hand you’re looking for is at the end of your own two arms, and that your fate is your own responsibility.

It might take everything to stand alone, but you are enough. You already have what it takes – it’s in your blood.