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re we ever really listening or are we just waiting for the other person to finish so that we can have our say? Moshe Rabbeinu knew our weakness and in his parting words he gave us one last vital lesson to ensure we have a viable enduring society: Listen to what your brother has to say.

In parshas Devarim as we know Moshe Rabbeinu begins his final summary of the Torah. And very early on in his farewell speech even before he reviews the mitzvos of the Torah with the Jewish People he exhorts them to remember one principle of utmost importance encapsulated in three words which may be even more vital today than when they were first spoken on the border between Eretz Yisrael and the land of Moav: “Shamoa bein achichem — Listen among your brethren.”

“Listen among your brethren and you shall judge justly” (Devarim 1:16). That sounds quite simple doesn’t it? Why then is it so hard?

We are a people that love to talk yet often find it hard to listen. Yes we may have enough good manners to restrain ourselves (at least sometimes) from interrupting others in the middle of what they’re saying but how attentively are we really listening to them? Usually we’re just waiting for them to finish so we can say what we want to say. And all too often we’ve judged them before they even began speaking. Let’s admit it at least to ourselves.

Moshe Rabbeinu was not content to leave it this way. He felt it was of supreme importance to exhort the people to listen. Soon you will enter theLandofIsrael he tells them and I will no longer be with you. With Hashem’s help you will establish a state and form a society upon the paradigm of Torah and avodas Hashem. I ask of you therefore to set down this principle as the groundwork for your society: “Listen among your brethren.” That is to say educate yourselves from the very start to really listen to what your fellow man has to say. Incline your ear to hear his words. If you want your society to endure this is vital.

HaKadosh Baruch Hu had shown Moshe all the generations of Am Yisrael. Moshe knew with whom he was dealing. He saw not only the tzaddikim and the Torah giants of the millennia to come but all of us including our own divided fragmented generation. He saw the polarization between left and right between religious and secular Jews between the many streams of Orthodoxy and even between the different circles of chareidi Jewry.

Let us try to get a deeper understanding of what Moshe was asking of us before he departed from this world.

“Listen.”

This is not an easy thing to ask. What does it mean to really listen? It means to listen thoughtfully considerately empathetically with an open mind and heart. To take in the other person’s message not to deflect it. To understand his position. And of course to let him finish before we launch into our own speech.

Rashi adds another insight: “Shamoa — in the present tense as in zachor v’shamor.”

In other words we are not to say to our fellow man to our spouse or child to a member of the other party to our political rival “I heard you already.” We heard in the past tense and now we can plug our ears. Rather we are enjoined to hear in the present tense as an ongoing activity that doesn’t end. Listen all the time attend to the other’s words every time anew. Perhaps after all there is something in what he says.

“Listen” Moshe Rabbeinu asks of the nation about to enter its Land as though he fears for the quality of their lives if they disregard this basic injunction if chalilah they should start fighting with one another out of stubborn insistence on “principles.” Listen and then there’s a chance that the gaps in society can be bridged. Shamoa as explained by Rabbeinu Bechaye means “compromise which is a verdict that comes from justice.” And if the nation desires life it must make compromise into an ideology into a basic mode of existence for in compromise says Rabbeinu Bechaye justice and a fair verdict are reflected.

Compromise however doesn’t mean relinquishing principles or fundamental beliefs. On the contrary compromise is the only tool we have that makes it possible to get the most out of a given situation pleasantly and with a correct reading of the reality map.

We learn this from Chazal: “A person should always be pliant like a reed and not stiff like a cedar” (Taanis 20a).

Were the Sages of the Talmud trying to promote submissiveness? Were they enjoining us to develop a character that can easily be taken advantage of? Most certainly not. Rather they were saying that only one who is pliant like a reed can successfully achieve his goals. His power lies in that very softness:

“This reed stands in a watery place and it renews its stem and its roots are many and even all the winds that come and blow upon it cannot move it from its place. Rather it sways to and fro with them. The winds cease and the reed still stands in place… This cedar even if all the winds in the world blow cannot be swayed. Yet when a southerly wind blows [a particularly strong wind] it uproots it and turns it over on its face” (Rabbeinu Bechaye on the Gemara).

This mashal of the reed and the cedar depicts the message of our parshah and the consequences of insisting adamantly on having things our own way.

But the question still remains: Why do we find it so difficult to listen to the other point of view? Why does nearly everyone fail to fulfill Moshe Rabbeinu’s last request? If we would do as he asked us we could turn our lives into Gan Eden in This World. What is it that prevents us?

Clearly we are much too judgmental. Our tendency to judge unfavorably is the very same sinas chinam that brought about the Churban. The words of the Netziv of Volozhin in his introduction to Ha’amek Davar are most apt this week:

“And the meaning of the pasuk in the song of Ha’azinu ‘The Rock perfect is His work… righteous and upright is He’ is that HaKadosh Baruch Hu is praised for uprightness to proclaim the justice of His judgment in the destruction of the Bayis Sheini for it was an obstinate perverse generation. And we interpret this as saying that they were tzaddikim chassidim and assiduous in Torah learning but they were not upright in their worldly dealings. And as a result because they harbored groundless hatred in their hearts toward one another they suspected anyone they observed not acting in accordance with their opinion in matters of yiras Hashem of being a heretic and an apikorus…. And in this way they came to bloodshed and to all the evils in the world to the point where the Templewas destroyed. And because of this the judgment was justified. For HaKadosh Baruch Hu is upright and He does not tolerate tzaddikim like that but only those who take the straight path not a crooked way even if it is l’Sheim Shamayim for this brings destruction to the universe and ruin to the civilized world.”

These incisive words apply equally then and now.

So is there a solution?

Actually Moshe Rabbeinu gave us the key long ago in one word: achichem.

“Listen among your brothers.” If we human beings knew that our fellow man is quite literally our brother or more precisely if we felt that our brother is our own self our very flesh and blood then despite the differences the disagreements and the conflicts of interest we would realize that there is a deeply rooted connection between us. If this fundamental link of brotherhood were clear to us beyond divisions that may exist on the surface then we would be able to bridge the gaps and strive toward coexistence.

Moshe Rabbeinu tried to save us from destruction. Perhaps it’s time we started listening.