A Rabbi had a guest staying with him who heard him speak one Sabbath. Said the guest to Rabbi Baruch, “Rabbi, you speak so beautifully.” Said the Rabbi in reply, “I should rather be mute than to speak beautifully !”
I am one who would speak beautifully. I want to be one who ‘in the afterglow of a religious insight’ is a wordsmith inspired to pen words of profound wisdom. My problem is too often my words of passionate, precise intensity are not always matched by action.
Movement in response to spiritual insight is not beautiful words - lilting as they are longing, playful or subtle. Abraham Heschel says our response to the afterglow of spiritual insight is to “see a way to gather up our scattered lives to unite what lies in strife… a way that is good for all men as it is for me.” The litmus test of moments touched by the finger of God is the concrete expression of actions accessible to everyman.
If words accompany meaningful action, shouldn’t they be spoken clearly & plainly, out of the long silence that accompanies profound humility ?
Authenticity, humility, transparency - a life lived consciously; sometimes well and focused, sometimes scattered. Life is too short to speak beautiful words only. I want to speak out of my experience of concrete action – conscious, focused, deliberate action for which I am profoundly accountable. Imagine simple accessible words of true power connected directly to my very movement. I tremble at the thought of speaking such words.
I want to experience the dilemma of Jeremiah, ‘For the word of the Lord has become for me a reproach & a derision all day long. If I say, “I will not mention him or speak any more in his name” then within me there is something like a burning fire shut in my bones. I am weary with holding it in and I cannot’.
Life is too short to speak beautiful words… only.
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