Yom Kippur Sermon 5773 - “The Virtue of Silence”

I would like to begin by conducting a little survey. It is about email. When within how long do you expect a response email? How long does it take for you to start getting annoyed that you have not heard back?

1. Raise your hand if you expect an email back within an hour? (Be honest its Yom Kippur)!
2. Raise your hand if you expect a response within 4 hours?
3. Raise your hand if when you send someone an email you are ok with them waiting more than 24 hours to respond.

According to one study:

1. 19% of people expect an email to be responded to in less than an hour.
2. 68% expect an email response in less 4 hours
3. and only 4% think that someone has a more than a day to respond.

Very important point of information....In case you have emailed me lately, please remember that I am in the 4% and I always assume that everyone else in the 4%!

What about texting? Texting is even worse. Some studies show that after someone sends a text, they begin to get annoyed, if they do not hear back within 5 minutes!
Another very important piece of information....In case you have texted me lately and have not gotten a response, please be aware that I have blocked the texting feature on my phone!
(while we are at it, I dont do facebook so if you tried to friend me, please dont be offended).

We live in what I call a “rapid response society.” We are always in a cycle of emails and responses and texts and when do we ever have time just to sit and reflect, to contemplate,  to just be silent.

In our society, people are valued for their speech. We say, “that person is a great speaker, or a great conversationalist. This person is a wonderful communicator. great with social media. They have so many friends on Facebook and so many followers on twitter. Every Youtube video gets thousands of hits, every tweet (in 140 characters or less) is read by so many people. This is how we praise people.
When was the last time you heard someone say, “Wow that person is really good at silence.” Silence is no longer valued in our culture.

How different is our own Jewish tradition. Consider the Al Chets (confessions on Yom Kippur)
There are a total of 44 Al Chets.
Did you know that 11 of them stem from not being silent. So many of the al chets have to do with talking (Lashon Hara, Richilut, gossip, vulgar speech, idle chatter etc)

So many of our problems stem from that fact that we have such a hard time just being silent. The virtue of silence is almost lost from our culture.

Rabban Shimon be Gamliel says,

כל ימי גדלתי בין החכמים ולא מצאתי לגוף טוב משתיקה

“All my days I grew up amongst the scholars, and I found nothing better than silence”
Another gemara says: יסוד לחכמה שתיקה - The foundation of wisdom is silence

The great leader of the Mussar movement, Rav Yisrael Salanter defined the virtue of Shtikah as following: יחשב את התועלת שבדבריו קודם שידבר
“Consider the result of your words before you speak”

This doesnt mean, we should never speak, it just means we have to consider the impact of our words before they get out of our mouth. Equal to the number of sins we commit through speech is the amount of mitzvot that we perform with speech; Davening, Learning, think about all the acts of chesed and welcoming we can do with speech.
The virtue of silence doesnt mean that we never speak, it just means that we think before we speak.
Will my words Hurt or will they Heal.
Will they tear down or will they build up.

Let us do a little experiment. I want you to take your two lips and purse them together. Now, keeping your lips pursed, clench your top and bottom teeth together. The mussar masters (Orchot Tzadikim) call this the double door to your brain. Not everything we think should be said. G-d gave us a double door which we can close. It is up to us to know when to open it and when to close. So many problems come when dont use that door wisely. Our society has lost the virtue of silence.

The virtue of silence goes beyond refraining from harmful words.

When Rav Yehuda Amital the amazing head of Yeshivat Har Etzion and former member of the Israeli Cabinet, passed away 2 years ago, his son Yoel gave a very powerful Eulogy. He shared that when he was a child, there was one gemara that his father made him memorize. It was The gemara in shabbat 88b which praises those who are שומעים חרפתם ואינם משיבים
Who are criticised but are silent. When negative things are said about them, they dont respond.
How different is that from our culture. In our season of elections and campaigns, if one campaign goes negative and the other doesnt respond right away, everyone will think its true so they get into a perpetual cycle of criticism and negativity.
Well this strategy might work in Politics but it doesnt work in spirituality. It does not work in interpersonal relationships and it does not work in our relationship with G-d. We have to be silent so we can hear criticism. So we can listen to how we can do it better. This is the path of Teshuva. Silence is the key.

Finally, silence is important in order to do what the great master of mussar, Rav Shlomo Volbe, called “building an interior self.” We spend so much time building the exterior; our homes, our careers. But how much time do we spend building the interior. Asking ourselves, what do we believe in. What are our commitments and values? Where were we last year Yom Kippur, we are we this year, and where do we want to be next year.
Silence is the key to doing this kind of interior work, but we have lost the virtue of silence.

But Judaism takes silence one step further. Silence is not just a matter of decorum during the service, it is not just a virtue, it is a Halakhic requirement. There are times when it is forbidden to speak.
1.) אסור לאדם לספר דברים של חול בשבת (It is forbidden to have “weekday” conversation on shabbat)
2.) כיון שנפתח ספר תורה אסור לדבר. (when the Torah is open, it is forbidden to speak)
3.) אסור לדבר מברוך שאמר עדסוף ישתבח ומברכו עד סוף שמונה עשרה (It is forbidden to speak during davening [prayer] from Baruch Sheamoar to the end of the silent shmoneh esre)
Asur, Asur, Asur! The same shulchan aruch (code of Jewish Law) that says it is forbidden to eat pork says it is forbidden to speak during prayer. Nobody here would even think about eating Pork but nobody thinks twice about talking during davening (prayer)!
We have truly lost the virtue of silence.

There is one medrash that use to scare me when I was younger but now I am not even sure it exists. The Midrash says “we are given a certain number of words at birth. as soon as we use them we die!
Our words our precious. Remember, we have the double door and we can choose when to speak and when to be silent. A little more silence will go a long way in the process of Teshuva.

Let me conclude by sharing a personal anecdote.
When I was a child I went to a small shtiebel in Cleveland. I have vivid memories of Yom Kippur. The Chazan was a close family friend who unfortunately died way too young from cancer but I still remember all of his Yom Kippur tunes and sing them to myself during davening.  I also remember the rabbi on Yom Kippur very clearly.
My rabbi growing up did not speak on Yom Kippur. He had a Taanis Dibbur (speech fast). He would not speak from the beginning of Kol Nidrei until after the final shofar blast.
Because he was doing his Taanis dibbur, he did not give a kol NIdrei talk. He did not give a pre-yizkor talk. If a guest would visit on Yom Kippur and come up to the rabbi and say shalom aleichem, the rabbi would motion and someone would quickly explain that the rabbi was doing a Taanis Dibbur.
את חטאי אני מזכיר היום. I remember when I was a teenager, I was critical of him. How could the rabbi ignore his responsibility to welcome guests because he wants to do a taanis dibbur? How can the rabbi ignore his responsibility of inspiring his congregation with a Talk.
But I now realize that he was right. I do not remember even one speech from that rabbi. I am sure they were good, but they were words and I just don’t remember them. The only thing I remember from him is his Taanis Dibur. He taught me the power of silence. Watching him daven with so much Kavanah deep in prayer davening with his entire being without the distraction of speech is something that I will not forget. It has much more of an impact than any speech.

I know that some of you are thinking (especially the cynics)? If silence is so important, and the best lesson that i learned from my rabbi was silence, why am I giving a speech? Maybe I should just take on a Taanis Dibbur and get you home 15 minutes earlier!

I can only quote from Elie Weisel. Elie Weisel is associated with being the voice of the victims of the shoah. On the one hand, he was very against silence especially in response to evil. in Night, Wiesel says, I did not fast [on yom kippur]...I no longer accepted God's silence. As I swallowed my bowl of soup, I saw in the gesture an act of rebellion and protest against Him. [39]
but he also understands the profound importance of silence. His books tend to be short and his sentences clipped. It is as if the silence after the sentence is more important than the sentence itself.
Weisel once said in an interview:
If I could communicate what I have to say through not publishing, I would do it. If I could, to use a poetic image, communicate a Silence through silence I would do so. But I cannot. Perhaps I am not strong enough or wise enough.

So I would like to ask all of us to consider taking on a mini Taanis Dibur. The entire Yom Kippur might be too long, but how about for the rest of Maariv/Mussaf.
Let me guide you on how to do it. Begin with Bli Neder. Without making a vow (we just did Kol Nidrei!)....
I commit to not engage in idle chatter during the rest of Maariv. Note: we do not commit to not speak at all. There is davening. Helping out newcomers with a page. Being friendly when it is necessary; these are examples of mitzvah-chatter.  But no idle chatter. We know the difference.

Lets grow together in our silence in the next 24 hours. may we all be inscribed and sealed in the book of life. May we be blessed with  a year of health, prosperity, and peace and a year in which all of our prayers are answered.