Many people’s minds are stuck. Stuck on a certain problem or issue that vexes them, that occupies them pretty all much all day, every day, sometimes for years.
When a problem occupies our minds all day, it causes a great deal of frustration, and it eventually causes paralysis. We get frustrated that the problem isn’t being solved. Then we get depressed. And we get embittered because nobody is helping us and nobody understands us.
Let’s consider the example of a woman who sends a text to a friend, and the friend doesn’t write back. The woman’s brain starts getting remarkably creative.
“I know why she didn’t write back – because the other day I was on the phone with a relative of hers, and I ended the conversation too quickly, so she thinks I’m not a nice person. She probably told that to her relative – my friend – and now that friend doesn’t like me. I know she often gets together with a group of her friends – and she probably told all of them that I’m not nice. All these women now are talking about me.”
Or, let’s take the example of parents with a difficult, struggling child. What’s going through their minds?
“How’s he ever going to succeed? What’s he going to do? He’ll never do well. Look at his grades! He’s destined for failure! He’s never going to get married or get a job! Is he going to still be living with us at home in his 30s??!? And it’s so embarrassing. I can’t even imagine what the neighbors are saying, what his classmates’ parents are saying. They probably think we’re a lousy family!”
When a thought gets stuck in our brain, our brain starts embellishing. The problem then weighs us down, and becomes a source of intense frustration and angst.
The Blessing of Open Ears
The solution to this problem is so simple, yet so difficult for many of us.
Parashat Re’eh begins by teaching us the difference between ברכה – blessing – and קללה – curse:
את הברכה אשר תשמעו... ואת הקללה אם לא תשמעו.
The blessing comes if תשמעו – if we “listen” – and the curse comes אם לא תשמעו – if we don’t “listen.”
In the immediate context, this refers to obeying Hashem’s laws. But more generally, this teaches us that blessing comes to those who listen, to those who are open to hearing other ideas, other perspectives. If we remain closed in our own thoughts, our brains go into overdrive, creating all kinds of ideas that depress us and hold us back.
The Gemara in Masechet Ta’anit teaches that Torah is compared to fire, because creating a fire requires two sticks, or two stones. One stick or one stone cannot kindle a flame. We need two of them. Similarly, Torah study requires joining with other people. If a person thinks he can study alone, the Gemara comments, then he becomes “foolish.”
Without exposing ourselves to other people’s ideas, advice and perspectives, we become “foolish,” we get stuck in our own silly and damaging thoughts. We end up having CRAZY ideas. And this is, truly, a curse!
את הברכה אשר תשמעו – we experience blessing when we keep an open mind, and we look for new and different ideas. Otherwise, we get stuck in our own thoughts!!!
Even Moshe Rabbenu, the greatest prophet who ever lived, was open to receiving advice.
Soon after the Torah was given, his father-in-law, Yitro, who had just joined the nation from Midyan, observed the way Moshe was advising the people, and he felt that Moshe needed a team of scholars to help, because he could not do it all himself.
If I were in Moshe’s situation, I probably would have said something to the effect of, “You’re going to tell me how to run things?! You just got here! You’re an outsider! Your advice means nothing! Why should I listen to you?!!?”
But no, Moshe listened: וישמע משה לקול חותנו. And he accepted Yitro’s advice.
Moshe understood that specifically people from the outside have valuable new ideas and perspectives that we can gain from, that instead of getting stuck in our own ideas, we should be open to learning from other people.
The Advice That Produced Hershey’s
A while back I took my kids to Hershey’s Park, and while were there one of the staff members told us the amazing story of the founder of Hershey’s – Milton Hershey.
In 1880, with the help of some $750 he received from his mother, he managed to put together a caramel company. The venture was a dismal failure. He worked for several years, and found himself thousands of dollars in debt.
He opened another caramel company, with the same result. Now he had twice as much debt as he did before.
Milton was going to try for a third time, but his mother told him not to. After failing twice, she said, there was no point in taking another risk, burying himself deeper in debt yet again.
But then somebody came to him with an idea – to ship caramel overseas.
Milton liked the idea, and he started shipping caramel to England. To his delight, and surprise, the business took off. The caramel was selling off the shelves in England.
He wondered why the caramel wouldn’t sell in the US but sold in England. He did a little research, and discovered that the British consumers were covering the caramel with chocolate.
This planted the idea in his head to move over to the chocolate business… Needless to say, he was very successful.
Milton Hershey managed to turn abject failure into spectacular success by listening, by keeping an open mind, by not being stuck in his own thoughts and ideas.
If a person is struggling in marriage, he needs to remember: he is not the only person around with this problem!
If a person is struggling with a child, or with several children, he needs to remember: he is not the only person around with this problem!
If a person is struggling financially, he needs to remember: he is not the only person around with this problem!
Help is available. There are people who have been through it, and who are still going through it. They very likely have valuable advice and ideas to share.
The problem is that for many of us, listening is hard. We are used to our own ideas, our own thoughts, and we’re stuck.
We must remember that את הברכה אשר תשמעו – the path to blessing is paved by listening, by being open to receiving advice, being open to the possibility that we’re not seeing things the right way, or that we’re not doing things the right way. Very often, we can see this only with the help of somebody else. And so we need to listen.
Whom Should We Listen To?
There are many people in our lives whom we are well advised to listen to.
Siblings
Our siblings are in a great position to offer advice, because they grew up with us. They understand our background and upbringing more than anybody else. They know us, they know our strengths and weaknesses, and so they have a great deal to offer.
Once, after delivering a class on Tishah B’Av, I turned to my brother, who was in the audience, and asked him if we could talk. I told him I wanted an honest critique of the class I had just given. I wanted to hear from him everything I could have done better.
“Joey,” he said, “you’ve done this millions of times! You already know what to do. What do you need my critique for?”
I explained to him that this was the only way I was going to get better and improve. Specifically he, as my brothers, was in a unique position to give me constructive criticism and advice, and I wanted to hear everything he had to say.
Kids
This is probably the most counterintuitive one – but absolutely, we should listen to our kids!!!!
Sure, we have a lot more life experience than they do, but on the other hand, they often understand things about the world that we, as the older generation, don’t. We have so much to learn from them.
The Gemara famously teaches that after Pharaoh decreed that every Jewish newborn boy should be killed, Amram decided to divorce his wife, rather than remain married and produce children who would be killed. But then his daughter, Miriam, confronted him, and told him that this was a terrible mistake. Even if Pharaoh made this cruel decree, Miriam said, Amram had no right to stop producing children. Amram listened to his daughter, and remarried his wife – and this resulted in the birth of Moshe Rabbenu.
Imagine – Moshe Rabbenu came into the world only because a father listened to his daughter and accepted her criticism!!
So let’s listen to our kids, and be open to learn from what they have to tell us!!
Parents
At a certain point in our youth, likely sometime in our teenage years, most of us started thinking that we know about everything much better than our parents do. But of course, this isn’t true at all – there’s plenty that they know which we don’t.
And what’s certainly true is that there is nobody on the planet who cares about us more than they do. Parents devote their entire lives to their children. When we speak to our parents and seek their advice, we can be confident that they have nothing by our best interests in mind.
So even if we think we know better – we have so much to gain by listening to what our parents have to tell us!!
Professional help
There is no shame in seeking the advice of professionals when we are feeling distressed or anxious. Making an appointment with a therapist does not mean that one has a severe psychiatric disorder. It just means that one is trying to make his life better by being open to advice, to listening to the perspectives of people with a great deal of knowledge and experience.
Rabbis, too, are there to help. One should never hesitate to pick up the phone and make an appointment to speak with a Rabbi about his problems. Torah literature is filled with valuable insights that give us a new, refreshing perspective. Rabbis love sharing their knowledge and helping people with the timeless wisdom of the Torah. We should avail ourselves of this wisdom!
Bringing the Shechinah Into Our Homes
There is also another person to whom we should listen, and this is probably the most difficult one of all – our spouse!!
The more a husband and wife live together and get to know one another, the more they realize how different they are from one another. They have very different ways of doing things, very different ways of seeing things, and very different opinions. And that’s exactly how it should be!
The Gemara makes a famous statement: איש ואשה, זכו – שכינה ביניהם, לא זכו – אש אוכלתן. If a husband and wife get along well together, then the Shechinah – the Divine Presence – rests among them in their home. But if not, then “fire consumes them.”
This concept is based on the spelling of the words איש (“man”) and אשה (“woman”). These words share two letters – א and ש, which spell אש (“fire”) – and they each have one letter which the other doesn’t: איש has a י, and אשה has a ה. If they get along well, then the י of איש combines with the ה of אשה to form G-d’s Name (י-ה), representing Hashem’s presence. But if they don’t get along, then G-d leaves them, and they are left with just אש – fire.
The Hafetz Haim made a fascinating observation about the Gemara’s remark. The Shechinah’s presence is represented by the letters י and ה in the words איש and אשה – the letters which they do not share in common. What this means is that a married couple brings G-d’s presence into their home through their DIFFERENCES!!!
It is specifically by accepting and respecting what is DIFFERENT about them that they create a beautiful home that is worthy of Hashem’s presence!!
The letters that are common to איש and אשה spell אש – because if a couple’s relationship depends solely on what they have in common, it will not succeed. If a husband and wife can get along only by being the same, then all they have is אש. It is specifically through their differences – the י and the ה – that they grow together, that they learn from another, and thereby bring Hashem’s presence to their home.
If a husband and wife agreed about everything, and saw everything the same way, then what would they gain from the marriage? The beauty of marriage is that the husband and wife bring to each other different perspectives, different ways of looking at things, different ideas, and different viewpoints.
But this can only happen if they LISTEN to one another, instead of COMPETING with one another.
Instead of each trying to prove why he/she is right and the other is wrong, they must keep their minds open to new and different ideas.
It’s a BLESSING when a husband and wife disagree, when they see things differently. This is what makes marriage so beautiful – when they learn from one another and gain from one another.
Reaching a Decision
There is one important caveat that needs to be mentioned.
If we are open to different ideas and opinions, then we can run the risk of getting confused. If we listen attentively to what other people tell us, we end up hearing lots of different things from lots of different people, and we find ourselves back where we started – not knowing what to do.
In fact, this might be one of the reasons why people don’t want to listen to others. They’re afraid that they’ll be confused by hearing so many different ideas and thoughts. They prefer the comfort of having just one viewpoint – their own – over the confusion of hearing so many different thoughts from different people.
In the first pasuk in Parashat Re’eh, Moshe Rabbenu turns to Beneh Yisrael and says, ראה אנוכי לפניכם היום ברכה וקללה – “See that I am presenting you today with a blessing and a curse…” The first word – ראה – is written in the singular form, but then Moshe shifts to the plural form later in this pasuk (לפניכם) and in the subsequent pesukim. What this might mean is that although different people will see things differently, ultimately, ראה – we need to make a personal decision of what’s best for us. We need to be open to hearing different thoughts and viewpoints, but at the end of the day, ראה – we must look very carefully to see what the best course of action is for us.
Stepping Outside Ourselves
In the 1970s and into the 1980s, the Intel company enjoyed great success manufacturing memory chips. But during the 1980s, they started losing the memory chip market. Japanese companies were making more advanced chips, cutting into their business.
Arguments raged in Intel’s senior management offices as to the proper course of action. Some argued that memory chips are what the company was used to doing, and so it should continue doing so, despite the new challenges that have arisen. But others insisted that the time had come for a change, that the company could not survive on memory chips alone, and they needed to move onto microprocessors. This debate raged for months.
One day in 1985, the CEO and the president were together in an office discussing the situation. After looking out the window and reflecting for a few moments, the president turned to the CEO and said, “Let’s imagine the board fired us and brought in a new president and a new CEO. What would they decide? Would they continue making memory chips?”
“Not a chance,” the CEO said. “Without a question, new people would transition to microprocessors.”
“Well, then,” the president, “why don’t we just fire ourselves, walk out, and then return as the new president and new CEO?”
The CEO got the message.
They decided to move onto microprocessors…and in the 2010s Intel’s stocks were worth some 47 times their value back in 1985...
This story so powerfully captures the message of listening. This was such a simple yet ingenious strategy – to step outside themselves, to imagine they were someone from the outside looking in.
If we are able to do that, if we can open our minds to look at our vexing problems, dilemmas and doubts from somebody else’s vantage point – we will be so much closer to easing our concerns and enjoying peace of mind.
So let’s not get stuck in our thoughts. Let’s not get stuck on memory chips. Let’s be humble and openminded enough to listen to what other people have to say, to hear what they think, so we can get a whole new, refreshing perspective on ourselves, our lives, and our world.