blogs/rabbi-joshua-hoffman

Lately I've taken up the practice of running. I'm not a runner by nature, except perhaps when being chased! Still, I've trained for a half-marathon which allowed me a lot of time to think. Along the way I had many times to sort through my day, to think of big and small ideas, and sometimes to simply let go of all my thoughts and focus on my breathing. Sometimes my thoughts wandered into words of prayer and I even had moments in which the words of prayer became my pace.

Once, I meditated on the words of the Shema. The first word, Shema, means to listen or take heed. I wondered what was happening right before these words were given to the Israelite nation. Was there a loud clamor of discussion, conversation, of argumentation? Is the word, “Shema” a loud call to quiet the crowd, to quiet one self, and acknowledge the awesome truth that One represents? Were the people silent, waiting in anticipation like they were standing at Mount Sinai for the power of revelation? What is Shema a response to, the sound or the silence?

As I was running the half-marathon recently, I had music playing through headphones to keep me inspired and interested. In between the songs there was a brief silence. The most remarkable sound took hold. Filling that space between the music were hundreds of feet around me, stamping out all other sounds. It was like a downpour of rain in spring; hundreds marching in succession to a triumphant victory. The sound was beautiful and penetrating; the cadence of feet pounding the pavement in unison embraced the encounter with oneness.

We have these moments, when the music stops and there is a sound reverberating around us that we would not have otherwise heard. They are found in moments of joy, moments of learning, moments of great realization, and even in moments of sadness. It was the great scholar and thinker James Kugel who shared a similar thought upon hearing the news that he was diagnosed with a cancer (a cancer that was later treated with success). He wrote that when the news was given to him, it was like the background music of his life had suddenly stopped. And there was silence.

That silence can be terrifying and stultifying, especially in the absence of the vibrant, radiant cacophony that fills our lives daily. In silence there is the possibility of oblivion, endless nothingness. The silence of oblivion is dulled by all sounds around us, ones we find and ones that find us. While our instinct may be to avoid the silence for fear of what may grip us, it is precisely a silence that we so desperately need and desire. The great American author and thinker, Henry David Thoreau, wrote, “In human intercourse the tragedy begins, not when there is misunderstanding about words, but when silence is not understood.” Or similarly, as the words of a Yiddish proverb go, “The one who is silent means something all the same.” We might say here that even when we are silent, we speak.

In my running experience, I am still learning to embrace these fleeting moments of silence. I was certainly glad when the next song queued up and I resumed my meditation of breathing and pacing. The moments when the sounds invite the silence and when the silence introduces a beautiful sound are the cornerstones of my religious practice and identity.