Silence

Today's class is dedicated, and I just found out that it's dedicated for Refuah Shelema (complete healing). I'm happy about it because I love these people and admire them so much. It's dedicated for Refuah Shelema of Rina Chaya bat Leah (daughter of). That's Rini Dayan. And the truth is, her parents, Lauren and Raymond, are like the best people. Yaakov Avinu had two wives. And from when she was born, they had challenges with her physically for years. And it got better, and then three years ago, it took a wicked turn. And it's been very challenging ever since. And then a few months ago, it took an even tougher turn. And now the community is praying their hearts out and their eyes out for Hashem to give this girl life. She's a wonderful girl from wonderful, wonderful parents.

In this whole process, watching how they've tried to handle and deal with it with emunah and faith and strength has been a real inspiration. I'm really close with her brothers and pretty close with her parents. One day I had to give a class about heroes, and these kinds of people are my heroes. So, it's dedicated and honest, and we've heard of Refuah Shelema. We hope that Hashem sends her strength and help, and happiness, and gives her parents the strength, B'ezrat Hashem (with God's help), to take each stage and help bring her to a complete Refuah Shelema. Amen.

Like I said, we'll be a little briefer, but hopefully we'll have time for an important message. You know, we live in a world that has basically told us in a thousand different ways that one of the most important skills you could have is to be a good communicator. It's apparent everywhere you go: being outgoing, energetic, and articulate is one of the best skills someone can have. It helps you in business, it helps you in marriage, it helps you with your children, and it helps you socially with your friends. I don't know if there's an area of life that knowing how to communicate doesn't enhance. To many people, the ability to communicate is maybe the number one skill somebody can have.

Tonight, today, I want to show you the opposite. I want to show you how, as much as communication is so powerful, sometimes those people who don't talk so much, those people who are a little shyer, those people who don't jump at the first moment, have a power that most of us don't recognize.

In this week's Parashah, I want to look at the Megillah. We're a few hours away from Purim, and we're introduced to a man. The Megillah gives us a very strange detail about his heritage. There was a Yehudi in Shushan HaBira. His name was Mordechai ben (son of) Ya'ir ben Shimi ben Kish, Ish Yemini. So the Pasuk (verse) starts off with Ish Yehudi and ends with Ish Yemini. So what does it mean? Is it Ish Yehudi or Ish Yemini? What does Yehudi mean? What does Yemini mean?

The Gemara says, “Whoa, that doesn't make sense. How could he come from the tribe of Yehudah and the tribe of Binyamin?” The Gemara answers that his mother was from the tribe of Yehudah, and his father was from the tribe of Binyamin. Now, as far as I know, we usually focus on the father. Why over here is the Megillah emphasizing and starting off his name with Ish Yehudi, a man from Yehudah, which is really his mother's side, not his father's side? Why are we identifying him as a part of both?

So I saw a wonderful thought. It goes like this: Rachel and Leah each had a different strength. Leah's strength was the ability to speak. Leah speaks up. Leah says, “I want those flowers, I want it.” Leah is the one who, when her son Yehudah was born, is considered the first person to properly thank Hashem. Her son Yehudah also had that ability to speak. When Yehudah made a mistake, he had the strength and the guts to step up, speak, and admit to his mistake. Got it? Because he speaks. She has that power of speech.

David was the same. David was the one who created all the thanks that we have to Hashem; it's from Tehillim, which is from David HaMelech. Leah, her son Yehudah, and her descendant David all have the power of speech.

Rachel has the opposite. Rachel has the power of silence. Because when Rachel is supposed to be taken as the wife first and knows that her sister is taken ahead of her, she's silent. Her son Binyamin is known for his silence. Tell me one word Binyamin said. Tell me one word Binyamin said in the entire time. Tell me one word from Binyamin. In fact, Binyamin, they say, knew about the sale of Yosef and didn't say a word for over 20 years. Binyamin had the power of silence. Shaul knew he was appointed as king, as a descendant of Binyamin, of Rachel, of Binyamin. He knew he was king and didn't say a word.

There's a power in speech, and there's a power in silence. The power of speech—we all know that. You could communicate with someone. You could attach yourself to someone. You could explain things to someone. You could uplift someone. You could energize someone. You could thank someone. Speech has power. I don't need to give you a class on how powerful and beautiful speech is. But I don't know if we recognize how powerful and beautiful silence is. I'm going to give you a whole list, and I'm going to give you all of them over the course of this class.

Number one: people who are silent have a chance to think first. How about thinking? My father always used to say, “Joey, you know, you think that quiet people have quiet minds.” He says, “Not true. They're quiet, but they're very opinionated. They don't talk, so you think they're not thinking. In reality, they're thinking more.” The other guy was talking, talking, talking. He's so busy talking, he never stopped to think. The person who's silent very often isn't talking; they're just sitting there, thinking about things. They're developing a mindset and an opinion. Silence is powerful.

I never—I don't think I ever watched this—but there's a TED Talk. TED Talks are talks about sophisticated things. If you look up the top 10 TED Talks, there's one from a woman—I don't think I saw it—who wrote a book titled “Quiet.” She says, “I grew up as an introvert, as the kind of person who doesn't speak. And I thought it was the worst thing. And then I realized how powerful it is.” Sometimes when you're a quiet person, you think more.

I'll give you another reason why being quiet is powerful. When you're quiet, when you're silent, you look much more composed. Think of an image of a powerful person. You do think of them as someone who's dignified. You don't think of them as someone who's blabbering and blabbering and blabbering. You think of them as someone who's calm, who's composed, who doesn't need to react in a flinch, who has the strength to be silent before they speak. You know how powerful that is? When you're in a circumstance and everyone's ready to talk, and you're calm and silent.

Number three is that it makes you more patient. When you're silent, you kind of wait for things to come to you a little bit. Those of us that are talkers—and I am definitely not a silent person—we talk right before we even, instead of saying, “One second,” step back and wait to see what happens. The more I train myself to be silent, the more things happen on their own, and I watch it happen. Instead of reacting, I'm waiting.

Just today, I went to observe. I gave someone instructions, a teacher instructions to do. I went into their room, and I saw the books open. That was not what I had said. My initial reaction was, “Whoa.” Then I walked into the classroom for two minutes, and I realized she was doing exactly what we had said. Exactly. They just had their books open from the beginning, but it was exactly what we had said. You're quiet. You have the power of patience. It's so cool to be patient. It's so amazing to watch something go wrong and be the one person in the room who's not screaming, the one person in the room who's waiting for the explanation before they comment. How often do we come home, see something, and say something before we even know what we saw?

Silence is such a powerful thing, which leads me to the fourth strength you have when you're silent: you don't look like a fool. Those of us that talk a lot so often put our foot in our mouth. Because we didn't think, because we weren't composed, and because we weren't patient, we look ridiculous.

I love telling this story. I've said it a lot of times; I love telling this story. I was hired for a job years ago—I don't know how many, 13, 14 years ago—that I really wasn't qualified for when I got started. So I sat down at the first meeting, and there were all these experienced people and me. I was hired, and it was like, “You're an employee, and we need you, and you're the greatest, and you're the greatest.” So I'm at this meeting, my first meeting, thinking, “If I'm the greatest, and I'm so important, then they want to hear from me, right? Of course they want to hear from me. That's why I'm here, because they really, really want to hear from me.”

So I sit in the meeting, and I wait a few minutes, and I speak up. Then I wait a few more minutes, and I say, “I don't agree. Oh, I think this is going to work.” My first meeting in my life, with all these people who've been in the field for 15, 20 years, and I've been in the field for 15, 20 minutes, and I'm sitting there speaking up. The man who hired me pulls me to the corner. He says, “Rabbi, here's what I need you to do: keep your mouth closed.” I said, “Whoa, that's nice.” He says, “Every time you speak, you sound dumb, because you don't know what you're talking about yet.” Isn't that horrible? You know how wise it was? He said it a little edgy, I agree; maybe I didn't need that. But it was so wise and so memorable, because those of us who talk first make ourselves look foolish so often. Silence is this powerful thing. Silence all of a sudden says, “Okay, he knows he doesn't know yet.”

You know how often you have kids who get a job? You have a guy who's 20 years old, he's got a job, and he thinks he's taking over the company by 20 and a half. You tell the guy, “Rookie, relax in the corner and learn.” The smartest way to grow is to keep your mouth closed.

Which is why Mordechai advised Esther: when you go into the palace of the king, when you're taken in as his queen, don't say a word. We don't know why Hashem put you here. You don't know what you're doing. You're not a queen by nature; you were not born as a queen. You're not trained for this. We don't know why Hashem is putting a Jew in this palace of a man who doesn't like the Jews. Just stay silent. Because when you're silent, again, you have the possibility of being smart. You open your mouth, you wipe out that chance.

There's a statement from a rabbi named Rava in the Gemara. The statement sounds a little peculiar initially, but I think with a little bit of mysticism, but much more understanding, we're going to see a nice depth in this statement. Rava said that wine and Besamim, good-smelling spices, Pakchin, make a person smart. Wine and good Besamim, good oils, perfumes, whatever, make somebody smart. What does that mean? So again, I'm going to give you an explanation. You have to give me a little space for some mysticism, but hopefully, B'ezrat Hashem, we'll have a very relevant message.

There's a part, a piece that we say in the prayer every single morning. Men say it; women don't say it. Men say it every single morning. It's part of the Ketoret. We say that they would take the spices in the Beit HaMikdash and say, Hadek, heitev, heitev, Hadek (Grind it good, grind it good). You know this passage? You know it? Hadek, heitev, heitev, Hadek. Grind it good, grind it good. Like backwards, and it says—how do you say it? Grind it good, grind it good.

The Pasuk says, in the statement from the Rav, that voice is somehow good for the spices. That's the mysticism part. I don't know why, but somehow voice and sound are good for spices. And the truth is, maybe I do know why. I'm just thinking this now, but someone once sent me this little video. Have you ever seen this thing where they put a little plant in the window and talk to the plant? Have you ever heard this? They talk to two plants. To one plant they say, “You're horrible, you're the worst, you look terrible.” And to another plant, they give it the same amount of water, leave it at the same window, and say, “You're gorgeous, you're fantastic, you're great.” True story, you can look it up somewhere on the internet. The first one, which was shambled, withered away, and the other one grew beautifully. If you don't believe it, I don't believe it either. But look it up; I'm just telling you, this is a story that's out there.

Maybe it's based on this statement from the Chachamim (Sages), because voice somehow enhances the spice. Look it up. Someone pull out your phone. There's someone here who's writing notes on their phone. Pull out your phone. I know no one's on their phone texting people; you're just writing notes. But pull out your phone and Google whether talking to a plant makes it grow better. I just made up that Google search; maybe that's not it. You have to figure out the words. But the Gemara then says that voice is bad for wine. For wine, voice has the opposite effect. It's not good for wine.

Is it there? Is it true? Verified? It says it's true. Now, we don't know; it's just on the internet, so who knows? But it says it's true. You see, talk to your plant and it makes it better. See, how cool is that? Isn't that crazy? The rabbi said that 2000 years ago. It says that the voice is good for the plants of spices. How cool is that? Come on, I love that. No? I haven't verified it. Remember, from Rabbi Google. It's unbelievable.

So the voice is good for the spices, and it's terrible for the wine. This is what Rava's statement was: wine and the spices make you intelligent. That means an intelligent person knows how to smoothly maneuver from speech to silence, and silence to speech: from Besamim, where the voice is good, to wine, where voice is no good. Everyone thinks the number one power you need to have is the power to talk. I'm telling you, at the same time, you also need the power of quiet, the power of silence, the ability to know when not to talk. Because you can strategize that way. You can achieve things that way.

I just gave you four reasons, and I'm going to give you more. But the four reasons I gave you are: you think better, you're more composed, you're more patient, and you don't look foolish. I'm telling you, there's a power in silence.

Mordechai had both strengths. Mordechai knew how to call and gather the Jewish people, and he also knew how to be silent. Because when Mordechai heard the decree, it says he went to the king's palace. He knew everything that was happening, but he didn't say anything. He didn't say anything. Because he said, “You know what? Now I'm going to hold it in, and then when it's time to call the people, I'm going to let it out. I have the power, the strength of both.”

I'll give you a nice little thought. There was a rabbi who used to tell his students, when they were young, 18, 19 years old, “I want you to train yourself to be very calm. Work on—I think it was Eliyahu Lopian—work on being very calm from sundown on Friday night to sundown on Saturday night.” His students later asked him, “Why do you want us to be very calm specifically at that time?” He said, “Just one day, you're going to get married, and you're going to have kids. At the Friday night table, they're going to be running around, fighting with each other, yelling at each other, kicking each other under the table, smashing the food on the floor. And I want you to be trained from now to be quiet, to be silent.”

There's a statement, you know, by Havdalah: when we pour the wine of Havdalah, what do you do? There you go, very good. Look at that. You pour extra; it's supposed to overflow. It's based on the Gemara that says that any house that doesn't have wine overflowing in it isn't blessed. You want to have blessing in your house; the wine has to overflow. “It's all Havdalah.” Hold on, it's Havdalah.

So the Rema says that's why at Havdalah you overflow, because of that statement of the Gemara, that you're supposed to make it overflow. Another commentary, the Taz, comments on this: “One second, you tell me I'm supposed to deliberately overflow?” He says, “No, you didn't get what the Gemara meant. You didn't get what the Gemara meant. And here's what it means: any house where the wine overflows and you're silent, that's what brings the Beracha (blessing).”

What does that mean? That means something spilled. It says it overflows like water; that's the statement. And you treat it like it's water. That's the blessing. The blessing is not that you have a little wine spilling. The blessing is that wine just spilled in your home and you didn't say a word. Because there's another power to silence. This one is famous; we've given classes about this many times. The power of silence is the power to give in. To be insulted or hurt and not say anything is so strong.

I have dozens of stories. I'll give you the last one I read. Just the last one, okay? Two girls at a girls' school are putting on a production. You know how they do this thing? They have the dance, the song dance, the choir, and this and that. They do a whole production. So two girls were in charge of a song dance. I think that's a dance and a song at the same time. Is that right? Song dance? I think that's what it means. Another two girls were in charge of a different song dance. The first two girls' song dance was way better, way cooler and sharper than the one the second group of girls had been given.

So the second girls came over to the first girls and said, “You're in charge of the better dance. We want to be in charge of your dance.” And what would you tell that person? N-O. It's my dance. They didn't give us a dance. I didn't fight you. I'm not hurting anybody. It's my dance.

But these girls had read a story two years before, when they were in camp, about two girls. There were 22 counselors in the camp, but the camp had chosen, accepted 22 of them. You got it? They only had 20 slots. Two girls stepped forward and said, “You know what? In the merit that our sisters get married, we're going to give up our place.” By the last day of camp, both of their sisters were engaged.

So these girls said, “Hey, you know what? One of us had a sibling who was 25, another one had a sibling who was 22. You know what? We're giving you our song dance. We're not going to say a word. You take our song dance, we'll take yours, in the merit that our siblings each get engaged.” The night of the song dance, one sibling got engaged. A week later, the other one got engaged.

Silence is really powerful. And that's just my last story, but I could give you one before that and before that and before that and before that. Everyone thinks that the most powerful thing you could do as a merit is to say Tehillim or give charity. I'm telling you, if you read enough Gemara, you'll see the most powerful thing you could do is stay quiet when it doesn't make sense. It is so powerful.

I can't tell you how many times in my own life I've had something hurtful or embarrassing happen, and I stopped and said to myself, “Hashem, I know you're ready to give me Beracha. I'm just going to be quiet and wait for the Beracha to come.” And then I watched it get delivered. I'm not joking. You think I'm making this up. It's too personal to tell the stories. There's such a thing as a story that's too personal for me to tell, by the way. Silence is so powerful.

I'll give you another power of silence. When a person is silent, they look way less hazit. That's Nebach (poor thing), for those who don't know what hazit is. You know, I want to give you two things that people do that are so weak, yet so many of us do them. Number one: have you ever noticed how people compliment themselves? Have you ever noticed how people will drop a compliment as if you didn't notice? “Oh, last night, when I served 50 girls in my house”—50 people came over. Or, “Yeah, my daughter, she looked unbelievable.” Have you ever heard people compliment themselves? Bragging. But they do it like hair care, like they think you didn't notice that they just bragged. As if you didn't catch it when they said, “Yeah, when I was going to that wedding that was on this plane, to that plane, to the other plane.” Have you ever noticed how they do that? Yeah? Yeah?

I had a meeting with a guy the other day. He tells me, “Oh, Rabbi, you know what? For this meeting, I put my phone away. And you know, for this meeting, I didn't take a call from some lady named Kim. She has like 130 million Instagram followers.” Got it? You heard of that name? So he got a phone call from her, and he didn't take the phone call during that meeting. So he was semi-bragging, like, “Oh, you know, I just got a phone call from her, and I didn't take it for the meeting.” And me telling you this story right now is also semi-bragging, because I'm telling you that I met a guy who got a phone call from Kim. That's what we do. People do this all the time. They slowly navigate themselves, and you think I didn't catch that? You think I didn't get the fact that you were trying to hint at that? You think it was hard for me to...

And another thing people do when they talk—it's so hasid, it's so weak. When a story comes out, like a rumor or something like that, the first thing they say is, “I knew from Tuesday. I knew, I really...” “Oh, it's funny, because I heard about it on Monday.” “Oh, really? On Shabbat? Before that, my brother told me. Actually, it's weird. The family called me a month ago.” And it's like, okay, so can I touch you? What makes you so cool now? Because you knew something? And we all do it. We all do it. Watch it happen. Some news will come out, and everyone will silently drop how they were the first one to hear. All that tells me about you is that you're a gossiper. It doesn't tell me anything else about you. It doesn't tell me anything good. They think it makes them more relevant, more important. When you talk, so often, we sound hasid and weak. You like that?

I'll give you another strength that happens when you're silent. You could show that you care about others. You ever see people who talk and talk and talk? They seem so full of themselves that they don't think, “I'm here. I want to say something.” Or, “Don't you realize that I lost interest 20 minutes ago? And I'm still...” So when you're silent, you sometimes show interest in others.

And you know what else happens when you're silent? You sometimes hear something from somebody who actually has something to say that's smarter than you. There's such a concept. There is an idea out there that the other person who's talking knows better. It happens maybe once every decade. But it happens that somebody you're talking to knows better than you. And when you're silent, you're able to hear that opinion that's better than yours.

And you know what else happens when you're silent? You don't give away all your cards. Those of us that talk a lot, it's like we gave all the hints, we showed all of our weaknesses, all of our strengths. There's nothing left in the pocket. When you're silent, I still have a move that I'm not telling you about. Because you know what else silence creates? And this is my last point before we finish this: silence creates a mystique. If you watch someone who's silent, you're like, “What's he thinking? What's his opinion? He might not be happy right now. I'm nervous about what he's going to say to me. I'm nervous.” There's a mystique in the silence.

A while ago, I was called into an office where a student had said something wrong. They said, “Rabbi, we need you to come into the office. We're going to talk to this student.” So they came into the office, and people started talking to the student. The student was clearly most embarrassed, because a rabbi was there. And I decided, “You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to say nothing. I'm going to let other people reprimand, and I'm not going to say a word almost the whole time.” It's not natural for me. I kept just waiting and waiting and waiting. You don't understand: “What's he thinking? What's the rabbi going to say? Where's he going to go with this?” It created so much more of a presence than if I had spoken.

Esther being in the palace of the king, having the guts not to say a word—you know what that does to Achashverosh's brain? The whole story of Purim is based on a woman having the power to be silent, on a woman who was strong enough not to say anything and keep Achashverosh guessing. What does she want? What's she going to say? What does she mean? Where's she from? What's her background? “I'll give you anything if you tell me what you're going to say.” When you don't say a word.

Oh, I'll give you another cute little story. I was in Israel once. I lived in Israel. There was one time when I washed my hands on one side of a building, and I was going to eat—I don't know if it was halachically (according to Jewish law) okay—on the other side of the building. So I walked outside, and I didn't want to talk. A peddler came with carpets on his back and wanted to sell me a carpet. He says, “600 shekel for a carpet.” So I'm like, “Mmm.” He says, “500 shekel.” I'm like, “Mmm.” “400.” “300.” “Two.” He went down to 150. Imagine if I had spoken. I didn't say a word. What's he thinking? What's he going to say? You don't give him anything to work on. I'm telling you, speech is powerful, but silence may be more powerful.

This is why on Friday night we only make Kiddush on wine. Because what's golden when it comes to wine? Not speaking. On Saturday night, when we're starting the weekday, now we're going to work. We're going to talk about work. On Saturday night we make Havdalah on wine and Besamim. Because the power of wine is the power of silence. The power of Besamim is the power to speak. And on a normal weekday, if you want to know how to function, you need to know both. On Shabbat, you don't talk about mundane things. You don't talk about weekday things. You don't talk about those things. You're silent on Shabbat from all the nonsense. On the weekday, you have to talk about it. But you have to maneuver. So Friday night is only wine; Saturday night is both, because Saturday night captures both.

Mordechai had both powers. I don't know if you like Gematria (numerical value), but I'm going to give you one. Mordechai equals exactly 274, which is the same number as Rachel and Leah. The power of silence from Rachel, the power of speech from Leah, is what created the essence of being Mordechai, of knowing that sometimes you're stronger when you're quiet.

I gave you a whole bunch of reasons, and I'll conclude with a little story. You think more. You're composed. You demand so much more respect when you're composed. You're calm. You're patient. You don't make a fool out of yourself by saying dumb things. You don't look weak by trying to compliment yourself or show off in a way that makes you look so needy. Number six is that you care, that you give in sometimes, and that's the most powerful strength and the most powerful merit. Number seven is sometimes you show you care about others because you listen instead of talk. Number eight is that you realize that sometimes someone has something better to say, so you hear something smarter than your stuck-in-the-mud, stubborn words. Number nine, you don't give away all your cards, and you still have something to play with. You can still strategize, but you don't talk so much. And number ten, you create a mystique. A mystique that saved our nation.

I'm not saying don't be a good communicator. I'm saying know how to navigate through both. I'll conclude with one story. I think this is a nice story. I'm not sure everyone would agree, but I think this is a beautiful story. Just an example of stopping and listening.

There was a young man who went to yeshiva in Vilna. This was in the 1920s. One day they found out that the Chafetz Chaim was going to come visit the town. Back in the day, in the 1910s and 20s, the Chafetz Chaim was the undisputed God and the greatest living man. The Chafetz Chaim was the Gadol Hador, the greatest living man, no question. You didn't have media, social media, or any of that to really see him. He was coming to town. This was your one opportunity—I don't know if they had cars there—to actually see him face to face.

All the boys couldn't breathe from excitement. This one student, his name was Dov, got a memo from his father. He says, “All the boys are going to go to the Chafetz Chaim. It's going to be wild. It's going to be chaotic. I think it's going to be dangerous. You can't go. Don't go.” That's a memo from his father. Don't go? The whole school is psyched. It's the Chafetz Chaim. It's not like I can see some other guy. This is the Chafetz Chaim. But his father said, “Don't go.” He didn't go.

All the boys went, psyched to see the Chafetz Chaim. They came back dancing. “The Chafetz Chaim gave us berachot (blessings). He gave us blessings for health and happiness and long life.” And this boy Dov is sitting there in his room, like, “I didn't go. I should have just said something, done something. I didn't do anything.”

A few years ago, Dov, as a grandfather, called in his grandson. He pulled out a paper from his pocket. He said, “Grandson, I want to show you something.” He said, “You see this?” The grandson sees a list of 80 people. He says, “Yeah?” He says, “These are all the boys that I went to yeshiva with. All of them. 80 of them. And they all passed away. Today the 80th one passed away. I'm the only one still alive. I'm 95 years old. I didn't get the blessing of the Chafetz Chaim. But I got the blessing of God, because God says you respect your parents. You get long life.”

So you think sometimes the best way to get something is to speak up! Tell your parents no! Maybe the best thing to do is hear from somebody smarter than you. This man lived till 98 years old. He never needed a cane or glasses. Nothing. Without the Chafetz Chaim's blessing.

So we all think that the power of speech—the world tells us, “Market yourself, talk about yourself, get out there, put yourself out there, put pictures out there, communicate through media, through your words, through your actions, communicate to people, bond with people, connect to people, network with people.” And it's all true! The power of speech is awesome! But the power of silence is equally as important.

Rachel and Leah. Esther won the battle by not saying a word. Mordechai's strength was his ability to navigate between speech and silence. On Friday night we just make Kiddush because for wine all we want is silence. On Saturday night we make wine and Besamim because during the week we want to be able to navigate through both.

So when you go out there in the world and your first thought is, “What am I going to say?” the next thought might be, “When should I remain silent?” Because I may be way more powerful that way.