Parashat Eikev 5784

Parashat Eikev brings to mind a personal remembrance – it was the first parashah which I called by its name! Allow me to explain – my family was always a synagogue-involved family, attending services every Friday night. We became Shabbat observant when I was 16 and that was when I started going to shul on Shabbat morning as well.

We were visiting my paternal grandfather one Sunday. My grandpa was a regular minyanaire, weekdays and Shabbat. He was a kohen and when he retired, he found a nice niche – especially being one of a very small number of kohanim – at his synagogue. He felt comfortable and needed, and it was a fulfilling transition from retirement to the next phase of his life. Somehow the conversation in his apartment that afternoon turned to shul and to Torah reading on Shabbat. I offered, “next week is Eikev” – my grandfather turned to look at me – with much pride and some surprise – he was very pleased that I knew the name of the following week’s parashah. So Eikev and I go back a long time!

Parashat Eikev teaches us a lot about listening. “If only you would listen to these laws”

עקב תשמעון (Deut. 7:12).

These words with which our parashah begins contain a verb that is repeated often in the book of Devarim.

The verb is ‘lishmoa’, to listen. A form of the verb occurred in last week’s parashah in the most famous line in all of our liturgy, namely, the prayer, Shema Yisrael. It also occurs later in this week’s parashah, as we read what forms the second paragraph of the Shema, “It shall be if you surely listen”, vehaya im shamoa tishme’u … (Deut. 11:13). Some form of lishmoa actually appears 92 times in the book of Devarim, Deuteronomy.

Translating a Hebrew word into English is not an exact task. This is particularly true with the Hebrew verb lishmoa. Different editions of the Humash translate the opening words of this week’s parashah in different ways, among them are:

If you hearken to these precepts …

If you completely obey these laws …

If you pay attention to these laws …

If you heed these ordinances …

Because you hear these judgments …

There is no one English word that means to hear, to listen, to heed, to pay attention to, and to obey.

In comparing different civilizations, it’s apparent that ancient Greece was a visual culture – of art, architecture, theatre and all kinds of performances. For the Greeks generally, and for Plato specifically, knowing was a form of seeing. Not so in Judaism.

Judaism is a religion of listening, not seeing. That is not to say there are no visual elements in Judaism. There are, but they are not primary. Listening is the sacred task. Hence the most famous command in Judaism is Shema Yisrael, “Listen, Israel”. What made Abraham, Moses, and the prophets different from their contemporaries was that they heard the voice, the voice that to others was inaudible.

Continuing in that theme, we worship God who cannot be seen because making sacred images, idols or icons, is totally against our teachings. In Judaism, then, we do not see God; we hear God.

Listening actually lies at the heart of every relationship. The act of listening means that we are open to the other person, that we respect her and that his perceptions and feelings matter to us. We give the other person permission to be honest, even if this means making ourselves vulnerable in the process. A good parent listens to her child. A good employer listens to his workers. A good company listens to its customers and clients. A good leader listens to those he/she leads. Listening does not necessarily mean agreeing, but it does mean caring. Listening is the climate in which love and respect can truly grow.

In Judaism we believe that our relationship with God is an ongoing model for our relationships with people. How can we expect God to listen to us if we fail to listen to our partner, to our children, to our parents, to our friends, to our colleagues and, if we fail to listen to Him? And how can we expect to encounter God if we have not learned to listen?

It was on Mount Horeb that God taught Elijah that He was not in the whirlwind, that He was not in the earthquake and that He was not in the fire – rather, he was in the kol demamah dakah, the “still, small voice” – a voice you can only hear if you are truly listening.

It follows then, that in Judaism listening is a very spiritual act. To listen to God is to be open to God. That is what Moses is saying throughout Devarim: “If only you would listen.” Seeing shows us the beauty of the created world, but listening connects us to the soul of another, and sometimes to the soul of the Other, to God, as He speaks to us and calls to us, summoning us to be the best version of ourselves that we can be…

So it is with all forms of interpersonal relationships. Often the greatest gift we can give someone is to listen to them.

Viktor Frankl, who survived Auschwitz and went on to create a new form of psychotherapy based on “man’s search for meaning,” once told the story of a patient of his who phoned him in the middle of the night to tell him, calmly and matter-of-factly, that she was about to commit suicide. He kept her on the phone for two hours, giving her every conceivable reason to live. Eventually she said that she had changed her mind and would not end her life. When he next saw the woman he asked her which of his many reasons had persuaded her to change her mind. “None,” she replied. “Why then did you decide not to commit suicide?” She replied that the fact that someone was willing to listen to her for two hours in the middle of the night convinced her that life was worth living after all (Redsand, Viktor Frankl: A Life Worth Living, 113-14).

Continuing in this theme, when God appeared to King Solomon in a dream and asked him what he would like to be given, Solomon replied: lev shome’a, literally “a listening heart” with which to judge the people (1 Kings 3:9). The choice of words is significant here. Solomon’s wisdom lay, at least in part, in his ability to listen, to hear the emotion behind the words, to sense what was being left unsaid as well as what was said. In all walks of life, it’s very common to find those who speak, but it’s very rare to find those who truly listen. In the final analysis, however, listening can make all the difference.

The very act of listening is a huge form of respect. To illustrate, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, z”l, former Chief Rabbi of Great Britain, tells a fascinating account. He had often observed the formal activities of the monarchy, how the Queen would always arrive at a certain time with the King and their entourage, and how they would always depart at a certain time.

On one occasion, however, the Queen stayed for two hours longer than her scheduled departure time. It was January 27, 2005, and the occasion was the sixtieth anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. The Queen had invited survivors to a reception at St James’ Palace.

That day, each survivor came with a story to tell, and the Queen took the time to listen to each and every person’s account. After each survivor spoke, one after another came up to Rabbi Sacks to say, “Sixty years ago I didn’t know whether tomorrow I would be alive, and here I am talking to the Queen of England.” That act of listening was one of the most incredible acts of graciousness which Rabbi Sacks had ever witnessed. It illustrates how listening is a profound affirmation of the humanity of the person who is speaking.

I believe that the frequent appearance of some form of the verb, lishmoa, in the book of Devarim and throughout the entire Tanakh, reflects our partnership with God in the ways that we hear Him and in the ways that we hope that we will be heard by Him as well. Hearing and listening always enhance each other.

In the words of Rabbi Sacks (Covenant and Conversation, 5774, 5781):

“Learn to listen. Listen to the song of the universe in the call of birds, the rustle of trees, the crash and heave of the waves. Listen to the poetry of prayer, the music of the Psalms. Listen deeply to those you love and who love you. Listen to the words of God in the Torah and hear them speak to you.

Listening is not easy. But listening alone bridges the abyss between soul and soul, self and other, I and the Divine”.

Let us pray that our hearing and that our listening will consistently become more acute and more attuned so that we are truly able to listen to each other, and that we will hear that “still small voice” in one another and in the Other. Amen.

Shabbat Shalom,
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Rabbi Marge Wise (AJR ’21) is also known as the Journey Rabbi. Her passion is outreach, including teaching prospective Jews by choice and accompanying them on their journey to formal conversion. She teaches in person and on Zoom – currently her students span 5 continents and as many time zones!