36 | JUNE 6 • 2024 
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amidbar is usually read 
on the Shabbat before 
Shavuot. So the Sages 
connected the two. Shavuot is 
the time of the giving of the 
Torah. Bamibar means, “in the 
desert.
” What then is the con-
nection between the desert and 
the Torah, the 
wilderness and 
God’s word?
The Sages gave 
several interpreta-
tions. According 
to the Mechilta, 
the Torah was 
given publicly, 
openly and in a place no one 
owns because had it been given 
in the Land of Israel, Jews would 
have said to the nations of the 
world, “You have no share in it.
” 
Instead, whoever wants to come 
and accept it, let them come and 
accept it. 
Another explanation: Had the 
Torah been given in Israel, the 
nations of the world would have 
had an excuse for not accepting 
it. This follows the rabbinic 
tradition that, before God gave 
the Torah to the Israelites, He 
offered it to all the other nations, 
and each found a reason to 
decline. “Yet another: Just as 
the wilderness is free — it costs 
nothing to enter — so the Torah 
is free. It is God’s gift to us.
” 
But there is another, more 
spiritual reason. The desert is a 
place of silence. There is noth-
ing visually to distract you, and 
there is no ambient noise to 

muffle sound. To be sure, when 
the Israelites received the Torah, 
there was thunder and lightning 
and the sound of a shofar. The 
earth felt as if it were shaking 
at its foundations. But in a later 
age, when the Prophet Elijah 
stood at the same mountain 
after his confrontation with the 
prophets of Baal, he encoun-
tered God not in the whirlwind 
or the fire or the earthquake but 
in the kol demamah dakah, the 
still, small voice, literally “the 
sound of a slender silence” (1 
Kings 19:9-12).
 I define this as the sound you 
can only hear if you are listen-
ing. In the silence of the mid-
bar, the desert, you can hear 
the Medaber, the Speaker, and 
the medubar, that which is spo-
ken. To hear the voice of God 
you need a listening silence in 
the soul.
Many years ago, British tele-
vision produced a documentary 
series, The Long Search, on the 
world’s great religions. When 
it came to Judaism, the pre-
senter Ronald Eyre seemed 
surprised by its blooming, 
buzzing confusion, especially 
the loud, argumentative voices 
in the beit midrash, the house of 
study. Remarking on this to Elie 
Wiesel, he asked, “Is there such 
a thing as a silence in Judaism? 
Wiesel replied: “Judaism is full 
of silences … but we don’t talk 
about them.
”
Judaism is a very verbal cul-
ture, a religion of holy words. 

Through words, God created 
the universe: “
And God said, 
Let there be … and there was.
” 
According to the Targum, it is 
our ability to speak that makes 
us human. It translates the 
phrase, “and man became a liv-
ing soul” (Gen. 2:7) as “and man 
became a speaking soul.” Words 
create. Words communicate. 
Our relationships are shaped, 
for good or bad, by language. 
Much of Judaism is about the 
power of words to make or 
break worlds.
So silence in Tanach often has 
a negative connotation. “
Aaron 
was silent,
” says the Torah, 
after the death of his two sons 
Nadav and Avihu (Lev. 10:3). 
“The dead do not praise you,
” 
says Psalm 115, “nor do those 
who go down to the silence [of 
the grave].
” When Job’s friends 
came to comfort him after the 
loss of his children and other 
afflictions, “they sat down with 
him on the ground for seven 
days and seven nights, yet no 
one spoke a word to him, for 
they saw that his pain was very 
great.
” (Job 2:13).

SILENCE IS PRAISE
But not all silence is sad. Psalms 
tells us that “to You, silence is 
praise” (Ps. 65:2). If we are truly 
in awe at the greatness of God, 
the vastness of the universe and 
the almost infinite extent of 
time, our deepest emotions will 
indeed lie too deep for words. 
We will experience silent com-

munion.
The Sages valued silence. 
They called it “a fence to wis-
dom” (Mishna Avot 3:13). If 
words are worth a coin, silence 
is worth two (Megilla 18a). R. 
Shimon ben Gamliel said: “
All 
my days I have grown up among 
the wise, and I have found 
nothing better than silence.
” 
Mishna Avot 1:17
The service of the Priests in 
the Temple was accompanied 
by silence. The Levites sang in 
the courtyard, but the Priests 
— unlike their counterparts in 
other ancient religions — nei-
ther sang nor spoke while offer-
ing the sacrifices. One scholar, 
Israel Knohl, has accordingly 
spoken of “the silence of the 
sanctuary.
” The Zohar (2a) 
speaks of silence as the medium 
in which both the Sanctuary 
above and the Sanctuary below 
are made.
There were also Jews who 
cultivated silence as a spiritual 
discipline. Bratslav Hassidim 
meditate in the fields. There are 
Jews who practise ta’anit dibbur, 
a “fast of words.
” Our most pro-
found prayer, the private saying 
of the Amidah, is called tefillah 
be-lachash, the “silent prayer.
” 
It is based on the precedent of 
Hannah, praying for a child. 
“She spoke in her heart. Her lips 
moved but her voice was not 
heard.
” 1 Sam. 1:13
God hears our silent cry. In 
the agonizing tale of how Sarah 
told Abraham to send Hagar 

The Sound of Silence

Rabbi Lord 
Jonathan 
Sacks

SPIRIT
A WORD OF TORAH