A Time to Be Silent, And A Time to Speak
Rav Michel Twerski, Shlit”a
Founder and Nasi of the Kollel
Starting with the very first paragraph of our answer to the four questions, Ma Nishtana, and on through the Haggadah.-we are urged to speak. to narrate, and to tell our freedom stories- “and the more that one recounts, the better it is.” Indeed, the great 16th century Kabbalist, the Ari HaKodosh, leaves no room for doubt. Pesach, he says, has a meaning beyond its conventional understanding of Passover.
According to the Ari, Pesach can be seen as a combination of two shorter Hebrew words: "Peh" and “Sach" which translate as “the mouth began to Speak.” Pesach thus celebrates not only the release of Jewish bodies from bondage, but the release of tongues from silence. Hence. he concludes, the unique significance of narration and "Haggadah" on this holiday.
Since we find no Biblical or Rabbinic reference to an unnatural suppression of speech during our sojourn in Egypt, we are obliged to seek some other explanationof this remarkable “liberation of words”' alluded to by the Kabbalists. Where shall we look?
My vote goes to a common express we often use to describe the verbal ramblings so prevalent in our times. Someone asks., “What did he say?” We respond, “Oh, nothing!” Long. drawn out and pretentious speeches, complicated lectures and commentary are frequently dismissed as so much rubbish with nothing more than this brief, but crushingly accurate evaluation - “Oh, nothing!” “What did all that mean?” “Oh, nothing!"' “Do slaves speake?” Of course they do! “What do they talk about?" "Oh, nothing!”
Well, what do slaves talk about? I suspect that they speak about what happened during their day: what they did, with whom, when, what the boss said, what the prospects of getting promoted are, etc. They probably muse about the possibility of rest-time, and what they would do if they had it. Unquestionably, slaves come home to discuss their hunger, their thirst, their unsatisfied appetites and needs, and how they might better be confronted. More than likely, they speculate about the "Pharaoh"' and the latest intrigues of the palace elite. That's slave talk! What does all this amount to? “Oh,nothing!”
Wait a minute! Isn't that what we free, emancipated Americans spend most of our time discussing? And, does that perhaps mean that we are slaves?
My reading of Pesach and its theme suggest that this holiday underscores precisely that message. The Passover liberation was meaningful then, and is so now, only to the extent that a new expectation in Jewish speech was established. Words had to be found which transcended the pedestrian concerns of life, to transport the soul beyond the moribund and the finite to the living and the infinite. A new verbal currency had to be struck to ignite the heart and the imagination of mankind to more sublime horizons than those which accompany all living things to their humble graves. On Pesach, Jews were granted look at the exciting grandeur of their soul. All at once, a new topic for discussion came into being. A nation imbued with a sense of its eternal essence burst into song. A people convinced of its spiritual promise launched into a dialogue on its newly discovered aspirations. The new concerns revolved around identifying bondage.learning about self discipline, and finding ever more effective ways to grow and become the being described by the Psalmist as just a little lower than the angels. What are these new words and speech patterns called? Sinai called them - Torah! Pesach replaces “Oh, nothing!" sentences with verses that uplift and exhort man to explore the far reaches of soul. The slave is unshackled from his earthly, moribund preoccupations to soar after the enduring rewards of spiritual adventure.
Passover is a time of inventory. What do we spend most of our time talking about? We really should listen to ourselves carefully. It is conceivable we will discover we are not nearly as free as we thought ourselves to be. Passover will then represent an opportunity to release our tongue from its slavish habits, so that we can begin our own Haggadah, the story of our personal freedom. Depending on the topic. there is indeed a time to be silent and a time to speak. Only those who are truly free know the difference.
(Reprinted from "Turning Pages," A digest of the writings of Rabbi and Rebbetzin Twerski.
This article was originally written in 1985)
