Translated from Hebrew by S. NAthan

l'ilui nishmat Esther bat mordechai

     “Rabi Aha said: ‘The conversation of our forefathers’ slaves is more beautiful than the Torah of the descendants. After all, the chapter about Eliezer is repeated twice in the Torah, and many fundamentals of the Torah are only alluded to in hints.’” (Bereisheet Raba 60:8)
      “Life and death are in the hands of the tongue.”
      “And you shall speak of them.”
      “One who guards his mouth and tongue, guards his life from troubles.”
      “A word is worth a coin, but silence is worth two.”
      “Silence is fitting for the wise.”
      Speech is not satisfied with the space allocated to it. Instead it overflows on all sides, flooding venerable spaces, spaces that have acquired their own justification, their own right to exist, by virtue of prior actions, by virtue of being memorials to worthy achievements, by virtue of real actual facts. Along comes speech, and with a clean sweep of its verbiage, wipes and cancels them out, as though they never existed. What value do the world’s achievements have opposite the word, which stabs them to the heart, and poisons their very existence, and makes a mockery of them. “One mocking gibe undoes one hundred rebukes.”

      This explains the warnings that echo and re-echo through the words of Hazal, regarding the hazards and damages caused by the tongue, and regarding the aptness of silence for the wise.

      While it may be easy to talk against speech, it is difficult to forget that the weight of speech against speech is as the weight of the speech itself: It comes in a flash, quickly lays its eggs, like death flies swiftly laying their eggs in the fragrant oil, and causing it to putrefy. It disappears in a flash,too, and then purses its lips innocently, saying: What have I done? I did no more than say…’ as though it were being accused of action rather than of speech.

      Along comes the Torah and gives speech its real and tangible weight. It attributes a real value to speech, that weighs at least equal to action. “More beautiful is the conversation of our forefathers’ slaves than the Torah of the descendants.” Meaning the speech of the conversation has greater wieght than the Torah of the descendants. You may wish to say that the Torah of the descendants belongs to the kingdom of speech as well. Nevertheless, there are different values to speech: ‘Conversation’ and ‘speech’ do not share an equal value. Here we learn that we do not relate to speech as to an entity of speech, but rather as to an action in every sense.

      This is true despite the fact that we are habituated to distinguish between speech and action. Or alternatively, to attach speech to an action, such as putting a promise in writing, and considering this to be stronger than mere speech, or attributing to the signature of the speaker making the promise – the weight of a near action.

      This is not the appropriate context for taking inventory of all the forms of speech that are intended to express a personal relationship – those “things that come forth from the heart, [and] enter the heart.” Speech that expresses identification with the hearer, that penetrates the heart of the hearer, speech that testifies to love, to participation and empathy – such speech contains life-healing properties that counterweigh all actions, and “greater is the one who comforts [the poor man] with words, than is the giving of coins,” in the mitsvah of tsedaka.

      Truth to tell, an investigation of the relationship of speech to action very quickly discloses the fact that action is not as subject to human control as would appear to the eye. After all, “God’s is the earth, and all that fills it,” and “no man lifts a finger down below, unless it has been announced that he shall do so, on high.” This explains the verse “Moshe raised the Mishkan, the Tabernacle,” which is followed immediately by “the Mishkan was raised.” To teach you, Hazal explain, that the Mishkan was raised by the Holy One, because due to the heaviness of the boards of the Mishkan, no mortal could have raised it, therefore Moshe only – “appeared to be raising it.”

      So too with every action that a man does, “by his own hands” so to speak, or with his own ten fingers, as people are wont to say. The action is not really his: It belongs to “the One Who spoke, and the world came into being.”

      But a moment ago, we attributed the power of speech to the Creator of the universe. After all, “by ten sayings, the universe was created, as it says, ‘and God said: ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light,’ etc.” Here we see that speech is the main characteristic feature of man formed in the Image. It is a banner that flies high above all the other creatures of the planet, on the scale of “inanimate, vegetable, animal, and speaking.” This teaches you that “great is the power of a human being,” yet “he has no power other than by his mouth, yet “this does not come to detract, but rather to enhance,” and also “to add severity”, meaning that both the praises of speech, and the damages of speech are deposited at the door of the speaker.

      Greater is the power of the speech than the power of action. After all, by the power of speech, man relates directly to his Creator, for after all, “Great is man, for he was created in the Image,” which refers to the power of speech. You might say, the power of speech is not great unless it transfers to an action, as it says: “Blessed is He Who says, and does.” “Blessed is He Who speaks, and fulfills.” Speech severed from action is not lasting, and is no more than “words, be’alma.” Along comes our parasha, and points to the fulfillment of the development of the greatest of the great, Avraham, the one and only, who grew to become “a mighty river” for eternity, by the power of speech. This is clearly the case when he acquires an eternal right to the Land of Israel, and also when he prepares the ground for the reality of Yitzchak’s marriage. In this parasha, speech as the creator of facts is the theme running throughout the narrative – speech as critical to the unfolding of all events, both in the immediate present, and for future generations. “And Avraham came to eulogize Sarah and to lament her.” More exactly, Avraham came to search for a grave to bury Sarah. Before whom would Avraham have eulogized Sarah? Before the masses, who could not have been further from appreciating her greatness? What need is there for eulogy? Are not the deeds of the righteous their own memorial? This teaches us the importance of speech. As the popular saying goes: ‘If you’ve done something, and you’ve advertised it, you’ve done something. If you’ve done something, and you haven’t advertised it, you’ve done nothing.’ Speech is what grants the meaning of value to facts. Not the huge sums that Avraham paid the greedy Efron, but rather the conversation between them. The money only paved the path to the recognition – by the masses, chief of whom was Efron – of Avraham’s right of purchase and ownership of the field and cave.

      Speech is not the same as action. Rather it creates a fact that lasts forever, despite speech’s supposed insubstantiality. Here we find another building block in the wall of reality. Mere speech is “mere words”. The importance of speech lies in what it reflects, and in what it strives for. Speech is meant to connect two sides, and to make of their intentions, a solid fact.

      Eliezer’s condition is not included in the category of soothsaying, of using signs and omens, which the Torah forbids, despite the fact that it would have been an archetype of the forbidden soothsaying had it constituted a value in its own right. It was permitted because it was meant to express Eliezer’s honest intention – of investigating the girl’s qualities in terms of the mida of hesed, as he had been commanded to do by his master, the monarch of hesed.

      “ ‘And I came today to the wellspring.’ From here we learn that the road jumped for him.” Had he not conversed about this, the mere fact that the road had jumped for him would not have become a miracle worked for him. It was the speaking about it that granted human recognition and awareness to the fact, and thus the miracle was worked, and not by a mere fact, prior to its meriting recognition. This is what Hazal mean by their statement: “The possessor of a miracle does not recognize his own miracle.” Meaning, without human recognition and awareness, the miracle is not granted its proper value.

      “‘Let us call the girl, and let us ask her [opinion from her own] mouth…Will you go with this man?’ And she said, Elech, ‘I will go.’ One word outweighs mountains of words and actions. With Rivka, we find a distilled essence that lays the foundations of the universe. Here is the crossroads: The best of all good encounters the best of all evil. What is the value that stands behind speech?

      “Doing” and “Being” “Love that is dependent on something,” and “love that is not dependent on anything.” The value of speech reflects like two rivers flowing from one source. Into one river, everything drains that is good and true, and into the other, everything that is waste. One is a sewer and one is pristine water.

      The emotion of love is the deepest of all emotions that express the human essence of the individual. The one who loves, identifies with the loved one to the point of self-sacrifice, to the point of self-nullification. The expression of love bursts from the depths of the self. It is all entirely an expression of “Being”, that turns into experience. It is “Being” that explores and searches to find expression on the plane of “Doing”. It is a personal emotion that cries out for tangible actualization.

      With “love that is not dependent on anything,” emotion cuts through reality, through every barrier no matter how stubborn, without hesitation, never deterred by difficulties and stumbling blocks that stand in its way. “Words that go forth from the heart, enter the heart,” directly.

      With “love that is dependent on something,” the expression of love rides the wave of short-term benefit, from the “Doing” of one side, to the “Doing” response of the opposite side – like two objects mechanically connected to one another. A condition of “Doing” without “Being” is not a human condition. When the utilitarian element is canceled, the need for relating to the other is canceled, as though it had never existed at all. Each side turns away, never troubling to glance back. This is a condition where the self is missing.

      Can there be a condition of “Being” that is severed from “Doing”? Indeed yes. This is the case of disappointed love, which entails heartbreak, and ends in sorrow.

      The Tripled Thread

      There is a principle – which becomes a fundamental rule – that there can be no condition of permanence, capable of continuity, unless there is “a third scripture that resolves the two,” a catalyst that reconciles instances of conflict between two sides, or misunderstandings, or any other disturbance. “The tripled thread that will not quickly come undone” is created by the dimension of height, which bestows an umbrella of values, a supreme goal, which transforms the bond between the two sides of a couple into a supreme value, and this helps the bond overcome every difficulty, by giving it the perspective of height, which dwarfs the difficulty, placing it in correct ephemeral proportion in contrast to eternity.

      Here we find that two opposite conditions are reflected in speech. In one case, it is the expression of the essence of the human experience of love, and in the other case, the essence of falsehood. It becomes clear from what has been said that even the kesher shel kayama between a couple requires a supreme value in order for it to be lasting.

      Speech can be seen either as a mere transmitter of messages, or perhaps, as the bestower of real solidity upon these messages. The work of the yester is to drive a wedge between the dimension of “Being” and the dimension of “Being”, and to distort the horizontal axis that connects them.

      The very fact of casting doubt on the sincerity of speech, the very fact of doubting intentions that reflect the self, through a distrust of speech, or through a distrust of the speaker, is supported by “a plague not written in the Torah”: It is supported by psychology – so fragrant with scientific reliability, as it were – which has turned the phenomenon of speech upside down.

      Thus a split is born, between intention and speech. Thus defense mechanisms are created which slip out on every side, toward the department of acceptable and proper speech, “politically correct” speech that transforms words into empty forms, from purposeful, content-filled meanings, to become a seesaw rocking in the wind of fashion. Speech serves hypocrisy, speech conceals intention, and thus man loses an instrument of expression that could have wielded a natural and perfect power, capable of unifying people, of bringing hearts nearer to one another.

      Thus is love cast to the trash can of human experiences, while the human himself is left an empty vessel, devoid of human content. Thus the exclusive importance that the Torah grants speech from all its views and perspectives, as pointed out in our opening words. To teach you that speech requires a framework that wields the power of values, without which speech becomes a distortion of one’s own personal truth.

      The Golden Rule: “After the actions are the hearts drawn.” This obviously applies to the act of speech, in that speech travels an axis of heart – heaven: Speech that goes forth from the heart influences heaven, and brings down a bounty of blessing therefrom, in the merit of one who recites a blessing from his heart. Then from heaven, the one who blesses receives also an additional supplement of blessing, penetrating from heaven directly into his heart, by virtue of the abovementioned rule. Here we learn that the one who blesses is blessed.

      Here we learn also that speech of sanctity creates the presence of sanctity. Prayer – the service of the heart, possesses a value in its own right, as a Godly Presence connecting man with his Creator, while reflecting both of them, in that it creates two directions that meet and encounter one another, on the “ladder firmly positioned on earth” (in the human heart) “whose head reaches heaven.”

      Prayer along the axis of man-heaven creates a bi-lateral influence: These are the angels rising from the human heart toward heaven, and the angels descending from the heavenly source to the human being, in answer to his prayer. No one disputes the fact that a mere mouthing of the words of prayer, an empty talking that never creates the abovementioned axis, arouses the suspicion that one is attributing pagan power to the word.