The night there was no news! Sunday 18th April 1930 the ten o’clock news on BBC Radio did something unprecedented. Big Ben chimed. “Good evening it’s ten o’clock” started the news presenter, “This is BBC news. Tonight we have no news to report”. Promptly they broadcast a piece of piano music, then the wireless fell completely silent. No news is good news!
The Vilna Gaon [1234-1234] famously said that for every moment a person ‘muzzles his mouth’ – when he has the urge to blurt something out – he merits reward of the ‘hidden light’ that even the angels have no appreciation of. I’m sure that the Gaon was not referring to the BBC in the 1930’s ‘no-news-night-broadcast’, although in today’s age of constant babble of news it would be deserving of phenomenal reward if the BBC could possible report no news rather than make news.
Reward for keeping one’s mouth shut is seen in this week’s Parshah. The Medresh relates how Yaakov would send presents to Rochel during the seven years he was working for Lavan in order to marry Rochel. But Lavan intercepted these presents and gave them to Leah. Not only did Rochel remain silent she in fact helped Leah marry her husband Yaakov by passing over the ‘signs’ that she had agreed with Yaakov to avoid Lavan switching Rochel for Leah.
Years later (but also in this week’s Parshah), we find that when Reuvain the son of Leah brings home the duda’im, childless Rochel asks her sister Leah for the duda’im which were reputed to induce fertility – something which Rochel very much needed.
Leah answers her request as follows: “is it not enough that you take my husband (Yaakov lived mainly in the tent of Rochel) that you also want to take the duda’im of my son?”.
Astounding words! She only was married to Yaakov because of her sisters’ selfless act of kindness and yet she has the audacity to talk to Rochel like this? How did Rochel respond? She didn’t! She took a ‘shtum pill’ as we say in our house – she kept ‘shtum’ and kept silent. [And I don’t mean she gave her the ‘silent treatment’]
This character trait of keeping quiet, concludes the Medresh is what caused Rochel to merit to have the extra tribes born to Yosef – Menasheh and Efrayim. Another Medresh says that the silence which she displayed by letting her sister marry Yaakov was the merit that was conjured up in order to finally allow Rochel to bear children after years of being barren.
The Medresh continues to tell us how Rochel passed on this sterling character trait and eventually gave birth to Binyamin, who although he knew about the selling of Yosef, never mentioned anything. The stone on the breastplate of the High Priest that represented the tribe of Binyamin was a stone called ‘Yoshpeh’. This word actually reads “yesh peh” – “there is a mouth”. Binyamin had what to say, but managed to overcome the urge to blurt it out. Rochel’s other son Yosef also possessed this character trait. When Yaakov came down to Egypt we find that Yosef deliberately did not allow for a private audience with his father Yaakov so as to avoid the situation where he would have to reveal to his father what happened all those years back when his brothers sold him.
The family tradition continues with King Shaul from the tribe of Binyamin who after having been anointed king by the Prophet Shmuel modestly conceals his royal status when asked by his uncle. Then finally we have Queen Esther, who under instruction from Mordechai – a descendant of King Shaul – held back her tongue and did not reveal her ancestry to Achashvairosh.
Many point out that the Torah tells us to throw all ‘treif’ meat to the dogs. This is a reward to the dogs who didn’t bark on the night we left Egypt. However we don’t find that the frogs are rewarded for jumping into the ovens during the plague of frogs?! It must therefore be that it is harder to keep one’s mouth shut then it is to jump into a fire!
There are many idioms in the words of the Rabbi’s which extol the virtue of silence. The Talmud says, “a word is worth a sela coin; silence is worth two”. The Mishnah tells us that “a fence for wisdom is silence” on which one commentator comments “Intelligent people know what they speak, fools speak what they know”.
Someone who is capable of being silent and in control of what he says is then able – when he does speak up – to be heard as the sensible voice that matters. Indeed the Medresh relates that it is our Matriarch Rochel – the one who held back her voice for many years in deference to her sister’s honour – that Hashem must tell to stop crying for our bitter exile to end. Rochel through her silence gains the power to have words that have the power to bring about major results – the end of the exile, may it come about speedily in our days.
Let’s finish with the profound words of Irving Bunim on the importance of silence, “King Solomon advises in his Book of Proverbs, “nor is it good to be without knowledge of the soul.” Every person should be aware of those conditions which enable the soul to expand and to thrive. Silence is such a condition. When the body is quiescent when your ears get a vacation and your eyes relax and your tongue lies still, then can your soul speak up. In the distracting din of ceaseless chatter, the “thin silent voice” of Divinity is often drowned out. Unlike other organs of the body, the tongue needs little exercise!”
Good Shabbos, Yaakov
