Hearing With Our Hearts

Newsletter September 2, 2024 Together, we're #keepingitsacred...

While in rabbinical school in New York, I served a community known as the Hebrew Association of the Deaf. It is a community of people who have reduced or no capacity to hear – which understandably made the recitation of the Shema difficult to lead. Why? Because it is known as the “watchword of our faith” but is really more of an instruction to: “Hear O Israel, Adonai is Our God, Adonai is One.” The instruction to hear is incredibly important in Judaism. So how could we lift up this commandment for those with hearing impairments?

Well, we lifted up the prayer in sign language and recognized that one might not have the capacity to hear, but one can still listen with ones heart.

As Hellen Keller famously said, “Every one of us is blind and deaf until our eyes are opened to our fellow men, until our ears hear the voices of humanity.”

This week, I visited the Nova Exhibit as it is open now in Los Angeles. My ears were pierced by the sound of techno music which turned into screams and cries of those murdered or taken hostage, and the wailing of their loved ones. The soundtrack of that exhibit echoes in my heart.

And this week, our ears were again pierced by the chilling news—the lives of six hostages had been taken by the terrorist organization Hamas. And because one of those hostages named Hersh Goldberg Polin z”l had dual citizenship with the United States, this sad news spread all over the airwaves. And today was the funeral of Hersh – and there again we heard the piercing sound of the cries of his loved ones as his mother delivered an incredible eulogy.

This comes after months and months of the cries of the families of the hostages falling on deaf ears from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. And, with the protests this weekend, we see the pain that spreads when leaders fail to listen to the voices of their constituents.

All of this is coming after 332 days of the bloody bombing and ground incursion into Gaza with more Israeli soldiers killed or taken hostage, and tens of thousands of Palestinians, most of them children, being brutally murdered, maimed, orphaned or starved. And we hear all of these anguished cries as well. And the stories of our Muslim-American friends whose family members have been murdered in our name haunts us. Deep in the recesses of our hearts, we hear and feel these cries, too.

We cannot ignore any of this pain. We bear the burden of being alive on this planet during these dire times, so it is our obligation to hear it all. Hear O Israel. Hear it all.

This week begins the month of Elul—the one month leading up to the high holidays. And it is the month in which it is customary to hear the sounds of the shofar (the ram’s horn). It’s cry sounds mournful and piercing. And it wakes us up to review our past year. And this year, it wakes us up to the questions: Whose voices have we not heard or been paying attention to? Whose voices need to be amplified?

We sound the shofar to hear the visceral feeling of our souls being aroused to our moral obligations. It is a mitzvah/ a commandment to do so. And yes, even the members of the Hebrew Association for the Deaf were able to fulfill this commandment as we had each member approach the shofar as I sounded it, they placed their hand on it to feel the vibrations of the horn.

You see, the commandment to “Hear O Israel” and the commandment to hear the holy sound of the shofar is not a commandment to literally hear with our ears. It is a commandment to hear with our hearts and souls.

These days I pray the Shema with new fervor and will hear the sound of the shofar with new purpose.  I lift up the hope that those in power open their souls to hear new voices in new ways to bring about peace for all. And I pray that I hear the still small voice within me calling me to find ways to help move things forward.

And in the meantime, we will hear the voices of the families of the hostages and the voices of those under attack in Gaza and the West Bank. May we listen not just with our ears but with our hearts.

This is how we’re keeping it sacred.

Together we’re #keepingitsacred...

Rabbi Heather Miller

Founder, Keeping It Sacred

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The above is an excerpt from a Keeping It Sacred newsletter. If you want to read the entire newsletter or any from our archives, please head over to: keepingitsacred.com/news 

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