Shimon, his son, used to say: all my days I grew up among the sages, and I have found nothing better for a person than silence. Study is not the most important thing, but actions; whoever indulges in too many words brings about sin. (Pirke Avot 1:17)
Every human culture uses words to convey accepted truths. Like the winged sandals of Hermes, words give flight to the human experience.
And when conjured as proverbs, words carry meaning, expressing observations in such a way as to draw those who hear these words into a community of shared meaning and purpose, hence the Latin term, pro verbum, or proverb in English, meaning “on behalf of (pro), for the sake of, the word (verbum).” When we say something in the name of the word, or even for the sake of the word, we invest the word with truthful purpose.
One of the great joys of reading early rabbinic literature (second century BCE to second century CE) is being cognizant of how those first generations of founding fathers bore the responsibility of moving Jewish civilization from an oral to a written tradition. Historians of this period have taught us that this generation sorted, sifted, edited and began codifying the vast collection of oral teachings that had been carried by Jews for nearly 1500 years before they were finally written down.
But no sooner had these words been etched into permanence than they were immediately subjected to the auditory scrutiny of subsequent generations who continued the venerable tradition of hearing different sounds and different meanings coming from the same word. It’s as if the quiet and contemplative writing down and encoding of sacred text created a noisy, inky, lacquer of meaning.
This is why Jews pray in a quorum of at least ten, choose the noisiness of the house of study to the monastery, and argue on a page of Biblical commentary or Jewish law — God, we think, prefers a loud, multi-vocal conversation to the quietude of individual spiritual solemnity and communion.
We’re a noisy people, often rushing to prove our point to anyone who will listen, by citing this text or that in order to demonstrate a particular proof intended in the conveyance of the word. וְלֹא הַבַּיְשָׁן לָמֵד — a timid student can’t learn. (Pirke Avot 2:5).
“Two Jews Three Opinions.” You know the drill.
But Shimon ben Gamliel, the author of our opening text — “All my life I have grown up among the Sages and I have found nothing better for a person than silence” — is known to historians to have been a political moderate during dangerously tumultuous and rebellious times. He advocated making peace with the Roman empire which had conquered Jerusalem and destroyed the Jewish Temple, arguing that a revolutionary Jewish leadership would most certainly be destroyed by a far greater imperial power. The practical and therefore more proper Jewish political position, he might have argued, should be to seek accommodation with the ruling authority by carving out autonomous Jewish communities of learning, prayer and the performance of good deeds. Some scholars posit that he may even have been assassinated by Jewish Zealots who were against any compromise with the Romans — the same Zealots, nebukh, who committed mass suicide at Masada when they were forced to admit that they couldn’t defeat the Romans.
Before Shimon ben Gamliel was creating proverbs of his own, he surely studied and likely knew by heart Proverbs, carrying with him these words into his own contemplation of knowing when to talk and when to shut up.
“Even a fool, when silent, is considered wise” (Proverbs 17:28) and “He who guards his mouth and his tongue, guards his soul from sorrows” (Proverbs 21:23) are two texts he surely would have known.
Committed to memory by the persistent assiduousness of regular learning, words beget words beget words and give way to a blessed tranquility that leads to saying less and doing more.
שַׁמַּאי אוֹמֵר, עֲשֵׂה תוֹרָתְךָ קֶבַע. אֱמֹר מְעַט וַעֲשֵׂה הַרְבֵּה, וֶהֱוֵי מְקַבֵּל אֶת כָּל הָאָדָם בְּסֵבֶר פָּנִים יָפוֹת:
Shammai says, "Make your Torah learning consistent, say little and do much, and receive every person with a pleasant countenance." (Pirke Avot 1:15)
If only.
More wisdom and more to think about, quietly. Thank you.