By Rabbi Gail Fisher
Shana Tova!
I volunteer in a retirement community. A few years ago, I was helping out in the chapel during a church service – picking up dropped books, making sure everybody was okay. A woman named Ann was sitting there in her wheelchair, just days after losing Bob, her husband of 62 years. They had the kind of marriage where he would drape a sweater over her shoulders, she would take his hand, side by side in their wheelchairs. That morning, she began to sob. She shook her head and whispered to me that she couldn’t stay there any longer. I wheeled her back to her floor, where the CNAs were bustling around, setting up the communal table for lunch. One of them breezed by and said over her shoulder, “You don’t need to cry, Miss Ann. Look, we’re about to have our delicious lunch!”
I knelt down in front of her wheelchair so we were eye-to-eye. I told her it was okay to cry, that losing Bob left a huge hole in her life. She talked a little about their adventures, then admitted feeling embarrassment over having cried in public. I listened. Before long, she drew a deep breath and asked me to wheel her to the table for her lunch.
What Ann needed most in that moment wasn’t a suggestion that she pull herself together, but just somebody to be there with her, really there. As Rabbi Jonathan Sacks wrote, “Listening is the greatest gift we can give to a troubled soul.” Indeed, listening to others can create empathy. We are more alike than we are different. Prejudice fades when the “other” becomes somebody we’ve truly heard.
We all want to be seen, to be heard. Not to be invisible. Parker Palmer wrote, “The more you know about another person’s story, the less possible it is to see that person as your enemy. . . . When we share the sources of our pain with each other instead of hurling our convictions like rocks at ‘enemies,’ we have a chance to open our hearts and connect across some of our greatest divides.”
I’m standing comfortably in my own in-group. I look: across the street is the ‘other’. Somebody with a color, appearance, or set of beliefs different from my own. If we can take the time to see and hear each other as individuals, a stranger becomes a neighbor, who in turn becomes a friend. And hey, this person has hopes or dreams that aren’t all that different from my own!
I had the great privilege of meeting a group of young activists through the organization New Story Leadership, which brings together five Jewish and five Palestinian Israelis. Each one is selected for this group because they carry a vision for a concrete improvement to their communities and a commitment to acting on it when they return from the United States. But this vision is not what they speak about on Capitol Hill or as they visit area synaoggues. What they do there is tell their individual stories. Here is how I grew up, here is what happened to my family, here is what I’ve lived through.
Sharing a story is the surest way to reach somebody else, if the stories are told with honesty and vulnerability. In turn, the listeners need to open their minds and hearts to allow the words and feelings to penetrate deeply into their souls without any judgment. We all respond much more fully to somebody’s shared experience than to a recitation of plans and facts.
I remember a friend who once spotted a person begging outside a restaurant. He bought him a hamburger and cup of coffee. But when he handed it to him, the man rejected it – “This isn’t what I would eat!” Maybe not very gracious, but it teaches us a lesson: If I want to help you, I can’t assume what it is that you need. I shouldn’t give you what I think I would want myself in your situation. What I SHOULD do is find out from YOU what it is you really want.
That’s why community organizers now have “listening sessions” before trying to help people. Instead of going out into neighborhoods with ready-made solutions, they invite people to share their stories. And all they do is listen. No advice, no quick fixes. They create a safe space where voices are heard, needs are named, and dignity is upheld.
This can be good for you, too. As Jonathan Sacks also suggests, if we talk only to people who share our opinions, if we stay in our own bubbles, we aren’t likely to learn anything new.
In I Kings 19, Elijah is alone in a cave, hiding from those who want to kill him for daring to speak truth to power. He pleads to see God. We read in verses 11 and 12: “Come out,” He called, “and stand on the mountain before the LORD.” And lo, the LORD passed by. There was a great and mighty wind, splitting mountains and shattering rocks by the power of the LORD; but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind—an earthquake; but the LORD was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake—fire; but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire—a still small voice.
Elijah had to pay attention, hold himself still. Only then could he hear God in a voice almost too small to notice.
Let’s think again of Ann, grieving her husband. What she needed most was not distraction or advice, but somebody to witness her intense grief, to listen deeply enough to help her take a deep breath and move past the moment.
Listening is holy work. It has the power to transform relationships and entire communities. What if we each became known as people who listen? Imagine how much pain could be diminished, how many walls could be lowered, how much fear could give way to trust, as we open ourselves to each person as one made in the image of God just as we were. Listening, really listening, is an act of courage – of faith – of love. May we rise to this challenge in the new year.