הַאֲזִ֥ינוּ הַשָּׁמַ֖יִם וַאֲדַבֵּ֑רָה
וְתִשְׁמַ֥ע הָאָ֖רֶץ אִמְרֵי־פִֽי׃
Listen Deeply O heavens, let me speak
Let the earth hear the words I utter!
Deuteronomy 32:1
With his final words, Moses sings out for deep listening. He knows that the more fully he is heard, the more his words will come out as song that nourishes the Earth and all life forms on Earth. When someone listens to us deeply it creates an energetic resonance. Our bodies respond to this and our words come closer to expressing our inner experience. Full and present-bodied listening to each other helps us transform and heal individual and collective trauma.
Rabbi Miles Krassen, interprets this passage of Torah as:
Balance the higher portions of the soul when I AM speaks, so that your body can also hear what is coming through.
— Rabbi Miles Krassen, “Shirat Ha’azinu (The Song of Deep Listening)
Earth is our body. Moses understood that healing our own souls, the ancestral and historic trauma frozen in us, requires the body to receive the healing. Moses sings, "Please, listen deeply to me so that my words are received as nourishment for the earth, like rain and dew":
יַעֲרֹ֤ף כַּמָּטָר֙ לִקְחִ֔י
תִּזַּ֥ל כַּטַּ֖ל אִמְרָתִ֑י כִּשְׂעִירִ֣ם עֲלֵי־דֶ֔שֶׁא
וְכִרְבִיבִ֖ים עֲלֵי־עֵֽשֶׂב׃
May my discourse come down as the rain,
My speech distill as the dew,
Like showers on young growth,
Like droplets on the grass.
Deuteronomy 32:2
The Hasidic movement in Judaism was born to reclaim the importance of embodying spiritual insights and practices in service of healing our broken world. An early Hasidic Rabbi, Elimelech of Lizhensk (1717-1787), interprets the opening passage of Ha'azinu to mean:
Make sure you are aware that Heaven is listening whenever you speak, and then your words will have the power to enter other people’s hearts.
Another early Hasidic teacher, Rebbe Nachman of Breslov, taught:
"...how important it is to make sure that our bodies have a share in the lessons that our souls are learning. As our Torah says of Herself, I am not just way up in Heaven… (Devarim 30:12). The greatness of Torah is not its lofty abstractions, but its power to make us more whole and integrated, right here in the manifest world. When our minds are calm and integrated with our bodies, we can unite Heaven and Earth and receive the lessons we need to positively affect what needs to be fixed in our worlds. To be effective, we need to develop the capacity to speak from the Heart.
— Rabbi Miles Krassen, http://planetaryjudaism.org/category/texts/
Torah, like all the traditions, sees the interconnectedness of deep and compassionate listening to singing the heart's song. My listening affects your words. Your words affect my listening. This exchange of energy changes the world. As Rabbi Nachman suggests, the physical experience of opening the heart and speaking the pain to another heals the trauma frozen in the body.
Ha'azinu means, lend your collective ear. Make your ear available to me. Moses begins his final moments of words by calling together all the ears. He calls in the power, connection, and understanding generated when we all open our ears to hear the same messaging.
We are longing for this in the world today, a way of seeing and hearing the same things that bring us together. Instead, as Moses goes on to predict, we create radically different narratives that disparage and dismiss each other.
We are not together in our listening. So we are at war with each other.
Moses the prophet is speaking the pain that comes with his deep knowing of the shadow side that will travel into the land without him. He is warning the people, pay attention to how you are holding trauma in you. How the unhealed trauma of your ancestors lives in you and will lead you to embrace false gods of partial truths. Worshiping falsity will be your downfall. Inhabiting the Promised Land is only possible when you find a new truth to unite around, a truth that will rain down blessings on earth and all her inhabitants. Much of this final song is Moses' trying to awaken the people to the power of unhealed trauma to pull us away from the insight of inter-being and the truth that we all come from one source:
כִּי־ג֛וֹי אֹבַ֥ד עֵצ֖וֹת הֵ֑מָּה וְאֵ֥ין בָּהֶ֖ם תְּבוּנָֽה
For they are a folk void of sense,
Lacking in all discernment.
ל֥וּ חָכְמ֖וּ יַשְׂכִּ֣ילוּ זֹ֑את יָבִ֖ינוּ לְאַחֲרִיתָֽם׃
Were they wise, they would think upon this,
Gain insight into their future:
Deuteronomy 32: 28-29
As Israeli writer and peace activist David Grossman wrote, the temptation to fall, to give up, is always there. The shadow. The distraction from the present moment. The distraction from going down to the border when you hear that Mexican women and children are put in cages. The distraction from going to the border when you hear that people in Gaza are starving and that water is being diverted from thirsty Bedouins into Jewish-only swimming pools.
Spiritual and psychological teachings encourage us to face our shadows head on. When we shine the light of mindfulness and awareness on the parts of ourselves that have been hidden away, we begin to heal the roots of violence toward ourselves and others. When we hide our suffering, when we don't receive other's suffering, we remain strangers to each other. We become enemies.
Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, founder of the neo-Hasidic Jewish Renewal movement reminded us over and over that everything has a shadow side. Reb. Charna Rosenholtz sent a piece from Reb Zalman in which he wrote, "The soul's main task is to work on and with the flaw.” We are here to work on our shadow, not run from it. In the facing, we grow and contribute to healing the world.
Maybe your shadow is a tendency to judge, or go swiftly to anger. For others, to withdraw or submit. Just imagine how much light and healing you contribute to the world by working on these tendencies and healing them in yourself. Imagine the impact when an entire people, community, nation, is called to do this work. By "work" I mean learning to compassionately embrace whatever arises in you. Trust in the energy of compassion to heal so that your words and actions will nourish earth.
Is your people's shadow to take too much? Too little? To hold onto a narrative of being victims? Triumphant? Despised? Chosen? We see all this in the world. We see the shame, hatred, separation and violence all this causes.
We are here to work on it.
As we lift these fallen pieces of ourselves and the brokenness of the world, we fulfill our purpose for being here, the moment for which we took birth.
At many Nonviolent Communication trainings in the West Bank, I sat and listened to the cries for healing of Israelis and Palestinians. I listened to Palestinians speak about seeing their parents, siblings and friends shot down in front of their own houses. I listened to Israeli Jews cry out for Palestinians to hear how suicide attacks and violence at the hands of Palestinians had left them traumatized and reopened older wounds and trauma.
When we listen deeply, our hearts open and we hear what we were previously unable to hear. We understand. Our words are released. We can find a shared path to a Promised Land.
The practice of Deep Listening is described as Mindfulness Trainings by Thich Nhat Hanh:
The Eighth Mindfulness Training: True Community and Communication
Aware that lack of communication always brings separation and suffering, we are committed to training ourselves in the practice of compassionate listening and loving speech. Knowing that true community is rooted in inclusiveness and in the concrete practice of the harmony of views, thinking and speech, we will practice to share our understanding and experiences with members in our community in order to arrive at collective insight.
We are determined to learn to listen deeply without judging or reacting, and refrain from uttering words that can create discord or cause the community to break. Whenever difficulties arise, we will remain in our Sangha and practice looking deeply into ourselves and others to recognise all the causes and conditions, including our own habit energies, that have brought about the difficulties. We will take responsibility for all the ways we may have contributed to the conflict and keep communication open. We will not behave as a victim but be active in finding ways to reconcile and resolve all conflicts however small.
The Ninth Mindfulness Training: Truthful and Loving Speech
Aware that words can create happiness or suffering, we are committed to learning to speak truthfully, lovingly and constructively. We will use only words that inspire joy, confidence and hope as well as promote reconciliation and peace in ourselves and among other people. We will speak and listen in a way that can help ourselves and others to transform suffering and see the way out of difficult situations. We are determined not to say untruthful things for the sake of personal interest or to impress people, nor to utter words that might cause division or hatred. We will protect the happiness and harmony of our Sangha (community) by refraining from speaking about the faults of other persons in their absence and always ask ourselves whether our perceptions are correct. We will speak only with the intention to understand and help transform the situation. We will not spread rumours nor criticise or condemn things of which we are not sure. We will do our best to speak out about situations of injustice, even when doing so may make difficulties for us or threaten our safety.
— Mindfulness Trainings of the Order of Interbeing
A Deep Listening Practice from Nonviolent Communication
Ask someone if they are willing and ready to sit with you and pour out their heart to you. If they say, yes, you choose fully to just listen. You choose, for this time, to follow and accompany the energy of their heart.
- Listen in closely so that you hear the singing of the heart, the gift of an inner life revealed to you.
- Don't reflect or respond until you are confident that the other person has finished. Then, before you say anything, ASK them, is there more?
If they say, no, I am finished,
- ASK them, would you like to hear anything from me now or just sit together and enjoy some tea?
- If they say they'd like to hear from you, tell them something you heard them say that touched you.
The practice:
Reflect back what you heard in the heart of the other person without any of the following common forms of communication. These types of responses generally disturb the field of empathic energy and deep listening:
-
- Giving Advice / Fixing: Telling the other person what you think they should do. “I think you should leave your job and find somewhere else to work where you’ll be appreciated.”
- Analyzing / Diagnosing: Interpreting or evaluating a person’s behavior. “I think you are taking this out on your wife when -- in reality -- you are angry with your mother about things that happened in your childhood.”
- Storytelling: Grabbing the focus away from another person and placing it back to your own experience. “I know just how you feel! This reminds me of a time that I…”
- Sympathy / Pity: Feeling sorry for someone, or sharing your own feelings about what they said. “Oh, you poor thing… I feel so sad for you.”
- Reassuring / Consoling: Trying to make someone feel better. “You might be upset now, but I’m sure you’ll feel better soon.”
- Shutting Down: Discounting a person’s feelings and trying to shift them in another direction. “Quit feeling sorry for yourself!” or, “There is no reason to feel that way!”
- Correcting: Telling someone your reality about something. “Wait a minute – I never said that!” or, “That’s not the way it happened!”
- Interrogating: Using directed questions to expose a person’s behavior or to provoke guilt. “When did this begin?” or, “Why did you do that?” or, “What got into you?”
- Commiserating: Agreeing with the speaker’s judgments of others. “I know what you mean – your boss is one of the biggest jerks I have ever met!”
- One-upping: Convincing the speaker that whatever they went through, you had it worse. “You think that’s bad? Let me tell you what happened to me when I was in that situation!
A Buddhist Deep Listening Practice: Beginning Anew
The following is a description of the four-part process of Beginning Anew as used in Plum village and other communities practicing in the tradition of Zen teacher Thich Nhat Hanh. One person speaks at a time and is not interrupted during his or her turn. The other practitioners practice deep listening and following their breath.
Flower Watering
We begin by sharing our appreciation for the other person. NVC helps us here, by encouraging us to share specific instances that the other person said or did something that contributed to our joy and well-being.
Sharing regrets
Second, we begin by sharing our own regrets — our actions, speech or thoughts that we took. NVC suggests that we share how what we did, the impact of what we did, is not how we want to show up in the world.
Expressing a hurt
We share what happened between us that impacted us in a painful or uncomfortable way. It's very useful to follow the basic NVC model of expressing: specifically what happened, and how that impacted our own feelings and needs. No blame, judgment or criticism. Sharing the impact.
Sharing a long-term difficulty & asking for support
At times we each have difficulties and pain arise from our past that surface in the present. When we share an issue that we are dealing with we can let the people around us understand us better and offer the support that we really need.
When we practice “flower watering” we support the development of good qualities in each other and at the same time we help to weaken the difficulties in the other person. As in a garden, when we “water the flowers” of loving kindness and compassion in each other, we also take energy away from the weeds of anger, jealousy and misperception.
— Plum Village, https://plumvillage.org/extended-mindfulness-practises/
Speak, You Too
by Paul Celan
Speak, you too,
speak as the last one,
have your say.
Speak —
But do not separate the no from the yes.
Give your saying also meaning:
give it its shadow. Give it enough shadow,
give it as much
as you know to be parceled out between
midnight and midday and midnight.
Look around:
see how alive it gets all around --
At death! Alive!
Speaks true, who speaks shadows.
But now the place shrinks, on which you stand
Whereto now, shadow-stripped one, whereto?
Climb. Feel yourself upwards.
Thinner you become, unrecognizable, finer!
Finer: a fathom
along which it wants to descend, the star:
to swim down below, below
where he sees himself swimming: in the swell
of wandering words.
Speak, you too,
speak as the last one,
have your say.
Speak --
But do not separate the no from the yes.
Give your saying also meaning:
give it its shadow.
Give it enough shadow,
give it as much
as you know to be parceled out between
midnight and midday and midnight.
Look around:
see how alive it gets all around --
At death! Alive!
Speaks true, who speaks shadows.
But now the place shrinks, on which you stand
Whereto now, shadow-stripped one, whereto?
Climb. Feel yourself upwards.
Thinner you become, unrecognizable, finer!
Finer: a fathom
along which it wants to descend, the star:
to swim down below, below
where he sees himself swimming: in the swell
of wandering words.
To Stand in the Shadow
by Paul Celan
To stand in the Shadow
of the Wound’s-Mark in the Air.
For no-one and nothing to Stand.
Unknown,
for you
Alone.
With all, that within finds Room,
even without
Speech.
Poet Paul Celan (1920-1970) experienced tremendous guilt because he survived a Nazi labor camp while his German-Jewish parents were murdered. Only after their deaths did a strong Jewish element work its way into the Rumanian-born poet's luminous verses. Chalfen--a Jewish native of Rumanian Bukovina, as was Celan--has pieced together a valuable portrait of the poet's early years, drawing on interviews and correspondence with friends and relatives. This quietly moving biography traces Celan's break from his Orthodox Jewish upbringing, his sojourn in Paris, young love for actress Ruth Lackner and flight from communist Rumania to Vienna in 1947. The book includes numerous poems, some translated into English for the first time, which Chalfen anchors to specific incidents in Celan's life and to a variety of influences from Rilke to Yiddish folk song. (Jan.)
Celan committed suicide by drowning in the Seine river in Paris, around April 20, 1970. The death of his parents and the experience of the Shoah (The Holocaust) are defining forces in Celan's poetry and his use of language. In his Bremen Prize speech, Celan said of language after Auschwitz that:
Only one thing remained reachable, close and secure amid all losses: language. Yes, language. In spite of everything, it remained secure against loss. But it had to go through its own lack of answers, through terrifying silence, through the thousand darknesses of murderous speech. It went through. It gave me no words for what was happening, but went through it. Went through and could resurface, 'enriched' by it all.
Breaths
Listen more often to things than to beings
Listen more often to things than to beings
Tis’ the ancestors’ breath
When the fire’s voice is heard
Tis’ the ancestor’s breath
In the voice of the waters
Ah -- wsh Ah -- wsh
Those who have died have never, never left
The dead are not under the earth
They are in the rustling trees
They are in the groaning woods
They are in the crying grass
They are in the moaning rocks
The dead are not under the earth
Listen more often to things than to beings
Listen more often to things than to beings
Tis’ the ancestors’ breath
When the fire’s voice is heard
Tis’ the ancestor’s breath
In the voice of the waters
Ah -- wsh Ah -- wsh
Those who have did have never, never left
The dead have a pact with the living
They are in the woman’s breast
They are in the wailing child
They are with us in our homes
They are with us in this crowd
The dead have a pact with the living
Listen more often to things than to beings
Listen more often to things than to beings
Tis’ the ancestors’ breath
When the fire’s voice is heard
Tis’ the ancestor’s breath
In the voice of the waters
Ah -- wsh Ah -- wsh
— Poem by Birago Diop; Music by Ysaye Maria Barnwell © 1980, Sung by Sweet Honey in the Rock
Beautiful thought provoking piece