SEPTEMBER 21 • 2023 | 45

To Listen & To Hear
H

ow many times do we 
catch ourselves saying 
something for the 
thousandth time to our child 
wondering if they hear us? 
“Tell me what I just said!” and 
they dutifully repeat to 
you verbatim what we 
just said. And yet, they 
didn’t hear us. 
Or, when an employ-
ee asks us for guidance 
and leaves just as per-
plexed as when they 
came, only to come 
back an hour later, say-
ing their coworker gave 
them brilliant advice. 
Yup, you got it, the 
exact same recommen-
dations that we gave 
them. 
The name of this week’s 
portion, Haazinu, means to 
listen. It is not enough to 
remain on the external realms 
of hearing; we need to go 
deeper. We need to pause, 
ground ourselves in the pres-
ent and listen. 
And that is the second 
component of listening I’
d like 
to highlight. While I am busy 
noticing all the people in my 
life that aren’t hearing me, am 
I truly listening to them? 
In a variety of communi-
cation books, the common 
theme to getting people to 
listen to your point of view 
and be open to considering 
your perspective, is to truly 
listen and be with them in 
their perspective. Empathy 
is not imposing my feelings 
on another’s life experience. 
Rather, it’s experiencing anoth-
er’s feelings regardless of how I 
perceive the event. 
And, when I really stop to 
listen, I will hear. And I will be 

heard. 
Moshe, the founding leader 
and visionary of our nation, 
started his last lecture with the 
message of listening. A leader 
listens to what is being said, 
to what is not being said 
and to what we don’t 
even realize we are com-
municating. And this 
leader had a vision of us 
all being leaders. 
I want to conclude 
with a story. 
A local Jew came 
to Rabbi Yosef Dov 
Soloveichik with a 
strange question. “Is it 
permissible to use four 
cups of milk at the seder 
instead of four cups of 
wine?”
Understanding that this was 
an issue of finances (not health 
or any other reason), the rabbi, 
without even responding, 
reached into his pocket and 
told the person “Take these 20 
rubles and purchase wine.
”
After the Jew had left, a 
student asked the rabbi, “Why 
did you have to give him 20 
rubles? Five would be more 
than enough to purchase the 
required amount of wine.
”
Rabbi Soloveichik answered, 
“If he intended to use milk at 
the seder, that means he also 
doesn’t have money for meat 
[for Jewish law forbids having 
milk and meat at the same 
meal], and he probably also 
doesn’t have money for the 
other items served at the seder. 
I wanted to give him enough 
so that he could have a com-
plete seder.
” 

Rabbi Yarden Blumstein is the teen 

director at Friendship Circle in West 

Bloomfield.

Rabbi Yarden 
 
Blumstein

Parshat 

Haazinu: 

Deuteronomy 

32:1-52; 

Hosea 14:2-

10; Joel 

2:15-27.

SPIRIT
TORAH PORTION

