Thursday, October 13, 2016

On Hearing, Listening, and Seeing: Rosh Hashanah Day 2

The following was posted on Facebook by Natasha Howell, a young woman of color, on July 8, 2016, in Andover, Massachusetts.

"So this morning I went into a convenient store to get a protein bar. As I walked through the door, I noticed that there were two white police officers (one about my age, the other several years older) talking to the clerk (an older white woman) behind the counter about the shootings that have gone on in the past few days.

They all looked at me and fell silent.

I went about my business to get what I was looking for, as I turned back up the aisle to go pay, the oldest officer was standing at the top of the isle watching me. As I got closer he asked me, "How I was doing? I replied, "Okay, and you? He looked at me with a strange look and asked me, "How are you really doing?" I looked at him and said "I'm tired!" His reply was, "me too." Then he said, "I guess it's not easy being either of us right now is it." I said, "No, it's not." Then he hugged me and I cried. I had never seen that man before in my life. I have no idea why he was moved to talk to me.

What I do know is that he and I shared a moment this morning, that was absolutely beautiful. No judgments, No justifications, just two people sharing a moment."

The post was followed with the hashtag LoveWhatMatters

I don’t know Natasha Powell but her post went viral.

Natasha and the police officer moved past skin color and a police uniform.  They stopped thinking about their own agenda and engaged in active listening with the Other. In an era where so many people talk at each other and over each other, these two shared a sacred moment.

And I think this is why the post went viral. In a time when people don’t listen anymore, Natasha and the police officer did just the opposite. People grabbed onto a story of two people acknowledging and listening to one another.

The post reflects what I think is a universal theme of these Yamim Noraim we are are reminded both subtly and explicitly that part of being in the human family is to listen to one another. The dual acts of listening and hearing are woven through our High Holy Days machzor, in the  liturgy, Torah readings and the haftorah, but they are most profoundly introduced through the shofar.   

When we blow the shofar, the bracha, the blessing that is recited is

Barukh atah Adonai eloheinu melekh ha’olam,
asher kidshanu b’mitzvotav, v’tzivanu
lishmo’a kol shofar.

Blessed are You, Lord our God,
who makes us holy with mitzvot
and gives us the mitzvah of
hearing the sound of the shofar.

The piercing sound of the shofar forces us to stop and listen to it.  It is hard to ignore a shofar blast.

We don’t need to be able to see it in order to hear it. In fact, a shofar is nothing special to look at.  
We are not encouraged to adorn it and make it beautiful, like we are with so many other mitzvot, such as our Sukkahs or our Shabbat tables.

With a shofar, the only one of the five senses we need to use is our hearing.  The shofar reaches our ears like an alarm clock following a long slumber. It is an alarm clock where we can’t press Snooze and just turn off and go back to sleep.
We have to listen.

Even without the benefit of the sound of a shofar, Natasha and the police officer did what the shofar instructs us to. It led the police officer in our story to look past the color of Natasha’s skin and to discover the spark of God in her, and listen to her, shutting out everything else around them. The clerk, his partner, the protein bar; everything became superfluous.

They did not need a shofar, but we do. We need the shofar to get past some of the images that inundate us.

That seldom happens in this age of images. We spend so much of our day in front of televisions, computers, phones and video games.
Al chet for checking email and Facebook as soon as I wake up. Al Chet for keeping the laptop on the table during precious family dinner.  Al Chet for watching our children’s lives unfold through our cameras instead of being present, and listening to their first sounds, sentences and questions. For so many of us, our lives take place through little screens in front of our eyes.
The shofar tells us to put them away and really be present in this moment.
During these Day of Awe we are reminded to rebalance our senses and focus on what really matters. We are tasked with actively increasing what we hear and decreasing what we see.
And the shofar is not the only sound that serves that purpose.
Through the haunting Unetaneh Tokef prayer we are reminded of the need to listen to those around us and to ourselves.
We all pause to hear the shofar. The message is clear.  It is unsettling because we afford ourselves so few opportunities to do that.

When it rains, we look and watch outside instead of listening to the drizzle. When we are by a body of water, we look, but rarely hear the sound of the waves crashing. Both of these sounds are both so gorgeous, but they often go unheard in our daily rush. The shofar tells us there is another way.  But it takes work. Tekiyah!  Do we make time in our lives to hear the beauty and power of nature?

There is a dimension beyond hearing, and that is LISTENING, when we use our ears to have a dialogue with people that truly improve our lives. The message is clear.

We must listen to what is unheard.

Our world , this country, and Israel desperately need more listening. Our communities and families need to slow down and find new ways to connect. We need moments. We need times to slow down. We need clear spaces to listen to each other and listen to ourselves. We need to make room to hear another voice speak.
During these ten days, the biggest gift we can give to ourselves and to each others it to really take time to listen to ourselves, and to each other.  

Find a place away from the static and ask yourself, what must I do in order to actually hear the people in my life? Try it as an exercise. It will deepen your relationships with others.

We seem to have lost the ability to hear and, worse, the ability to listen, in the buzz of 21st century life.  The High Holidays in general - and the shofar in particular -are an invitation to hit “system reset” on our lives and our patterns of interacting in the world. 

I imagine this was the idea behind the poem,
“Listen!” by Rabbis Jack Riemer and Harold Kushner.  The poem reads,

Judaism begins with the commandment: Hear, O Israel! But what does it really mean to “hear?”
The person who attends a concert
With a mind on business,
Hears — but does not really hear.
The person who walks amid the songs of birds
And thinks only of what will be served for dinner,
Hears — but does not really hear.
The one who listens to the words of a friend
Or a spouse or child,
And does not catch the note of urgency:
‘Notice me, help me, care about me,”
Hears — but does not really hear.
The person who listens to the news
And thinks only of how it will affect business,
Hears — but does not really hear,
The person who stifles the sound of conscience
And thinks “I have done enough already”
Hears — but does not really hear.
The person who hears the Hazzan pray
And does not feel the call to join in prayer,
Hears — but does not really hear.
The person who listens to the rabbi’s sermon
And thinks that someone else is being addressed,
Hears — but does not really hear.

On this Rosh Hashana, O Lord, Sharpen our ability to hear.
May we hear the music of the world,
And the infant’s cry,
and the lover’s sigh.
May we hear the call for help of the lonely soul,
And the sound of the breaking heart.
May we hear the words of our friends,
And also their unspoken pleas and dreams.
May we hear within ourselves the yearnings
That are struggling for expression.
May we hear You, O G-d.
For only if we hear You
Do we have the right to hope
That you will hear us.

Hear the prayers we offer to you this day, O G-d. And may we hear them too.

Shana Tova



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