Rosh Hashanah 5772 - Are You Listening? Do You Get It?

Isn't it irritating when you're talking to someone and you know they're not listening, or at least that they are just not getting what you're saying? It's sometimes hard to appreciate that life is a constant ongoing conversation between G-d and us. It is not just that we speak to him in our tefillos (prayer) and he speaks to us in our limud Torah (study of the Torah). He speaks to us in an ongoing conversation; sometimes in a whisper sometimes in a loud and amplified voice. No matter the volume, most of the time we are hard of hearing. We miss the messages and this can be costly in terms of missed opportunities and even discomfort and pain. Developing the art of listening means cultivating the science of learning. Learning is the science of extracting insights of wisdom from every interaction with the world and every experience of life.

The science of learning

When G-d created the world he started with nothing but His own Wisdom as raw material from which to create. With His Wisdom He created energy, and with energy He created matter.[1] Divine Wisdom, the very core of the universe, holds the atoms and molecules of the world together in one coherent unit. G-d's wisdom orchestrates both tiny subatomic and majestic, galactic movement into a majestic symphony of heavenly praise- hashamayim mesaprim kevod Eil. We know that every particle in the world contains atoms made of protons, neutrons and electrons, and each atom is a reservoir of the energy from which it was formed. In the same way, every electron volt[2] of energy contains within it elements of Divine wisdom. Our Avodah (service of G-d) is to conjure out of the Creation the wisdom that G-d embedded in it. This conjuring wisdom out of everything and everyone we encounter in life is the art of learning. Learning gives vitality to those who master it: Hachochmah techayeh ve'alleha.[3]  Masters of wisdom are those of us who access it every day in every grain of reality. Wisdom is the life-force of the universe, and extracting it from the universe is to human existence what breathing fresh air is to life.

Wisdom

Wisdom does not mean information, nor does it mean knowledge. Wisdom is something else:
 
"Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?" [4]

Wisdom is the ongoing communication we receive and the lessons we learn, directly through the Torah or through countless messengers both human and inanimate that we meet every day. These messages are not containers of abstract information. They are designed to uplift our lives, save us from harm, direct our choices, and inspire us to improve, to change and to grow. The messages are constant, almost relentless. Learners hear them, absorb them and respond to them.

Sometimes we understand the communications we receive by analyzing their meaning, but often they are communications directed straight at our hearts much like music and art communicate directly to our hearts. It is in our hearts that we feel these messages and receive them. When we see a child crying, a mother struggling, a poor person begging, a beaver building a nest in a tree, a female dog suckling her pups, we feel it in our hearts without going through convoluted mental analyses. In every interaction of our lives we can ask ourselves: "In what way has this experience, person, event, or information whether positive or negative, given me something that can improve the quality of my life in a spiritual, emotional, social, intellectual or material way?" When we can answer this question we have transformed information into insight, and an event into wisdom.

The Shofar

One messenger of wisdom is the Shofar, and like so many other messengers of wisdom, the Shofar talks directly to the heart.

"Is it possible that a shofar be blown in the city and the nation does not quiver?"[5]

Trembling at the sound of the Shofar is a direct response to its sound, its musical notes. Trembling does not come from a distant, cold and clinical analysis of the mitzvah. There is a time for such analysis, that time is when we study the laws of Shofar in the Beit Medrash, but not when our souls are moved by its inner voice as we stand in prayer and reflection on the Days of Awe in our Battei Keneisiyot. Then it is for our hearts to hear, and our very beings to quiver in awe. That involuntary quivering in the moment of the tekiotmeans we get it.

Just before his first tekiah, the Ba'al Tokeah recites:

"Ashrei ha'am yod'ei teruah - Ecstatic is the nation that "gets" the blast (of the Shofar)."[6]

If we really get the Teruah, then we have mastered the art of finding wisdom and hearing divine communication, and can apply this art beyond the shofar to everything we experience. Then, if we are afflicted by hardship, even minor hardship or mere discomfort, we getthe message and we make adjustments to the way we live. Discomfort and hardship like any other event is a Divine message. If people around us are negative, we get the message: we are projecting negativity ourselves unintentionally. We get the message; we get the sound of the Shofar of life. If people around us are obstructive or just irritating, we get the message; it is we who might be projecting an energy that attracts these behaviors in others. The people around us, and the events we attract reflect to us the energy we transmit, and enable us to get a reading on what we might need to change.

The simannim (symbols)

It is not only the negative messages that learners get. They get positive messages too. When learners see a fish (or lamb's) head served as a delicacy at the table, they do not think of their stomachs but rather they hear a call to leadership. They get the message. When they dip their apple into honey they hear a message too; a message that teaches how when industry (honey) blends with nature (fruit), the result is exquisitely transformational.

Learners are masters of wisdom. In every experience of life learners access the messages intended to uplift us, save us from harm, direct our choices, and inspire us to improve, to change and to grow. Rosh(head) is the seat of learning. Shanah comes from the wordleshanein, to learn. Shofar means improvement. Become a learner now and make this a year in which you, each of us, the Jewish nation and the people of the world, get the message.  Quiver not only at the soulful sound of the Shofar but at His other vehicles of communication too. Truly get the messages of life act on them, and transform.