You Say Eether and I say Eyether

Rabbi Joel Fleekop

Saturday, August 27, 2005

You say eether and I say eyether,
You say neether and I say nyther;
Eether, eyether, neether, nyther,
Let's call the whole thing off!

It is a silly song but it has a lot to teach us. While the lovers in Fred Astaire’s song eventually find a way to reconcile their differences, the point is made. Language matters.

If people are going to spend their lives together in partnership, if people are going to teach and lead one another, they need to speak the same language.

By speaking the same language I don’t mean that they need to simply both understand Hebrew, English, or Spanish. Speaking the same language means much more. It means having similar understandings of images and symbols. It means attaching the same memory to words and phrases.

Allison, in preparing for your Bat Mitzvah you became aware of the importance of shared language. Opening up a holy book you were shocked by and struggled with the base and profane imagery of this week’s haftorah. But the more you studied the more you realized that the problems you had with the text were not so much ideological as linguistic. Although translated into English, Isaiah’s words remained in a foreign language, the language of those who experienced exile in Babylonia. Eventually you came to see that this is the brilliance of Isaiah. Isaiah was successful as a prophet and leader because he spoke the language, imagery and memory of the people.

In this week’s Torah portion Moses too speaks the memory of the people. He tells of their wanderings in the dessert, paying special attention to remind them of the mistakes they made. Recounting their journey Moses speaks a language shared by his fellow Israelites, allowing them to learn. But at the end of his lengthy monologue, when he offers advice as to how the people should behave in the future he ceases to speak their language.

It is not that Moses is suddenly overtaken by spirits and speaks in tongues or resorts back to the Egyptian dialect of his childhood. No, Moses continues to speak in Hebrew but the words he utters no longer match the experience and reality of those listening.

To the assembly of Israelites Moses rhetorically ask and answers,

“What does the Eternal your God demand of you? Only this: to revere the Eternal your God.”

Only this! This is the exact thing the people have struggled with for forty years. Only this! The source of their transgressions at Sinai and Kadesh Barnea. Only this! Words that surely created a dissonance between Moses and the people.

The Rabbis recognize the folly of Moses’ language and wonder why and how Israel’s greatest prophet could make such an egregious mistake?

The rabbis point out that while Abraham, the first Jew, was tested twelve times before being identified as a God fearer, Moses endured no such trial. For him reverence for the Eternal came naturally and filled his life. And so, as Rabbi Hannina teaches, God’s command to show reverence seemed like a small request, like asking a man with a cart full of merchandise for just one thing. Even if you ask him for a large object it is not such a big deal.

The rabbi’s teach that this perspective, combined with Moses’ belief that he was no better than anyone else conspired against him and kept him from recognizing the magnitude of his request.

The rabbis come up with an explanation for Moses’ choice of words but they do not excuse them. Rabbi Joseph Albo, in his work Sefer Ha-ikkarim writes “It is not fair for a man of great wealth to say to a poor man, who has nothing, I ask of you only a thousand gold pieces. A thousand gold pieces for a poor man are a great matter and hard to get. The rich man is not fair in speaking thus.” Similarly, it was not fair for Moses to speak the way he did.

Its not that Moses’ instructions to show reverence for God were wrong, what was wrong was how he phrased the instructions. What was wrong is how he failed to teach in a language that reflected the experience and reality of those he was leading.

Like Moses we are all leaders and teachers and whether or not we know it, our lives and our words have the potential to help and guide those around us. And so we must learn from Moses’ mistake. We must recognize that sometimes what we have to say gets lost in how we say it.

If I insist on calling something a potato and you only understand the word potatoe, if you say we are going to make tomato sauce and I insist the dish calls for tomatoe sauce then we should go ahead and call the whole thing off. We are not going to learn from one another. But if we can find a shared language, if I can see things from your perspective and you from mine, we can help one another show reverence for God, we can help one another live lives of holiness.

Shabbat Shalom