48 Ways - 022 Less Talking | Disconnect from Gadgets

Understanding The Holiness Of Our Power of Speech

One of the 48 kinyanim to acquire the Torah is “less talking” (miut sichah). This is not simply to talk less, but a power in our soul to control how we speak.

As the Ramban writes, one should think before he talks. When we think before we talk, it will deepen the quality of the words coming out of our mouth.

We all have the power to speak with Hashem. Most people aren’t revealing this power, and are instead using their speech to have mundane conversations with others. When people don’t value their power of speech and chat with others mindlessly, even when they talk to Hashem, they cannot talk to Hashem properly, because they have impaired their ability of speech.

The Sage Rav Shimon bar Yochai stated that had he been by Har Sinai, he would have asked Hashem to be created with two mouths – one mouth to speak holiness, and another mouth to speak about mundane things. He wanted a mouth that would only speak holiness.

When a person is used to idle chatter with others, he won’t be able to talk to Hashem from the depths of his heart, even if he tries very hard to.

Since “less speech” is one of the 48 ways to acquire the Torah, let us try to understand the depth behind this matter well.

Two Kinds of Conversations We Have

Every day, we have to speak with others. But there are two kinds of people in the world. People who live superficially have emptier kinds of conversations, while those who live more internally have more meaningful kinds of conversations.

For example, if a man is a Talmid Chochom, or if a woman is a righteous person, and he\she is asked for the time, he\she doesn’t just tell the person the time. The internal kind of person is thinking “I am telling this person the time, so that I can help him.” A superficial kind of person just tells a person the time, but an internal kind of person doesn’t just tell him the time – he wants to bestow kindness towards another as he’s telling him the time.

Another example is when we put our children to sleep, and we tell them “Good night.” Most people just say “Good night” without any meaning to it. An internal kind of person, when he says “Good night” to his child, does so with the intention that his child should really have a good night. He says “Good night” to his child with a true feeling of love for the child.

There is an amazing story with the Alter of Slobodka zt”l. One of his students saw the Alter zt”l standing on the street, saying “Good morning, good morning, good morning”. The student saw that no one was passing by, yet the Alter was saying “Good morning, good morning, good morning.”

The student, perplexed, went over to the Alter and asked him what is going on. The Alter answered him something that was so simple, yet so profound: “When we tell someone “Good morning”, we don’t have to see the person. If we see him and we smile at the person, that’s better. In my mind, I am passing by everyone and wishing them “Good morning”.”

How did the Alter zt”l reach such a high level? It was because when he said “Good morning” to others, he did out of a true desire that the person should have a good morning. He awakened his love for others.

We can give many more examples, but the lesson is always the same.

Examining Our Conversations

How many words a day do we say? We say thousands of words a day. Is there even one of these words that are truthful…?

How much are we talking from an inner place in ourselves?

On Yom Kippur, we daven Shemoneh Esrei five times. Most people are too tired by the time it comes Neilah, and they don’t have the energy to daven anymore and talk to Hashem. But if we would get used to talking more internally throughout the rest of the day, we would find it much easier to daven all day on Yom Kippur!

Let us return now to what we were discussing before, when a parent is putting his\her child to sleep, and tells the child, “Good night.” If it’s just being said in a mechanical way, the child will not feel the love. The child will only feel the love in the “Good night” if the parent is saying it from the heart, from a feeling of love for the child.

Redemption From Our Cellphones

In our days, the quality of speech isn’t being used properly. The sefarim hakedoshim say that the word “Moshiach” comes from the word sichah, talking. But in today’s times, perhaps we can say that “Moshiach” is called so because the power of sichah is in serious need of redemption, due to the way that the holy power of speech is so abused.

Imagine what our life would look like without a cellphone. We would be disconnected from the world and have utter quiet. Is anyone prepared for to live such a kind of life?

Anyone who understands the dismal situation going on today to our spirituality can understand that the ability of speech is in serious need of redemption. When   Moshiach comes to redeem us, he is essentially coming to redeem us from our cellphones! That is perhaps why the word “Moshiach” comes from the word sichah\talking – because he will redeem us from all the talking we spend on cellphones.

It is clear that every single person needs to be redeemed from their cellphones. Everyone has a cellphone; is there anyone in America who doesn’t have a cellphone?!

It is also clear that anyone who doesn’t have a cellphone will be zoche to be redeemed by Moshiach.

It is not by chance that cellphones have taken over so much. It’s part of the plan that Hashem for us to redeem us from the exile. Cellphones bring destruction; they cause much more bad than good. If someone disconnects from his cellphone, he will merit the redemption. (If someone knows how to use a cellphone only for good reasons and never for bad, then he’s an absolutely purified person.)

We must be able to detach from all the talking we do with our cellphones and instead connect to the real kind of talking – to talk with Hashem.

15 Minutes A Day of No Phones On

To start, we should set aside 15 minutes every day in which we turn off our cellphones. You can do it Friday afternoon, when you’re making Shabbos preparations. Look at your cellphone as an enemy that is trying to harm you from getting your Shabbos preparations done.

When you cut off from your cellphone, don’t feel deprived at all. Feel that you’ve become free.

Reflecting About The Cons of Cellphones

Let’s do the following reflection: What kind of lifestyle is better – a life with a cellphone, or a life without a cellphone? Wasn’t life in previous Europe of a much higher quality, because they had no cellphones?

Although we are in the current modern generation, we must try to connect somewhat to the previous generations, and have a connection to the past way that life used to look like. We must try to connect ourselves in some way to the way that our Avos lived. Of course, it’s impossible for us to connect totally to how they lived in the olden days, but we still need to have somewhat of a connection to the past. This will connect your soul to a clearer, purer world.

The current generation definitely has some gains to it that the previous generations didn’t have. We are definitely making spiritual progress in certain ways that they didn’t. But in general, the spiritual level of the generation is only going down more and more. Anyone who lives in this current generation will naturally go down with its low level, unless he makes sure he’s growing – and to detach from the current generation. We need both methods – we must make sure we are growing, and we must also detach somewhat from the current generation.

We should make for ourselves a private kind of life in which we detach from this current generation, while at the same time living in this generation and growing from it.

Is there anyone who can say on himself that he grew spiritually because of his cellphone? Does anyone feel that he has grown better since the last five years? The world today looks totally different than even five years ago. How can we fall asleep at night from this? It should give us no rest. We should be afraid that we are only going down with the generation, and we should make sure that we are growing higher.

Cellphones became popular very instantly. As soon as they came out, everyone ran to buy them, thinking this was the best invention ever. It never dawned on us when we eagerly ran to buy them that it would bring us down so much with the generation. And the future situation of our spirituality is only getting worse.

We must develop a whole new kind of life, a life of holiness. Anyone who wants to live a true kind of life should make sure that he is constantly growing. We need to take upon ourselves resolutions to grow in order to counter the trend of spiritual descent in this generation. It must be the kind of resolution that will change our entire life. Even in previous generations, people had to take on resolutions to change their life. How much more so does it apply to our own generation, which is worse and getting worse.

Firstly, we need to grow, and secondly, we need to have some detachment from the current generation (by having times of quiet every day in which we sit in solitude, alone, reflecting on our relationship with Hashem). And we shouldn’t feel any deprivation or fear at the fact that we are cutting ourselves from our cellphones; we should instead be aware that we will be giving ourselves a happier kind of life if we do it.

I hope that the people here listening to this understand the soul of the matter being said here. This [problem of abused speech – due to cellphones] - is not just another random problem going on in today’s times; it is the essence of all the problems in this generation.

May we all be zoche to grow, every day, and to yearn for more a spiritual kind of life – and then we will be able to transform the reality of Hashem into the very reality that we live in our life. If someone doesn’t value his power of speech and follows the trend of the generation, he won’t be able to talk with Hashem. May we be zoche to Moshiach, who will redeem us and transform our power of speech to be able to talk to and connect with Hashem.

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QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS WITH THE RAV

Q1: How much time of the day do we need to set aside to detach from this generation?

A: 15 minutes of the day is the bare minimum.

Q2: What should we do about other gadgets besides for cellphones?

A: Cellphones are only just one example; we used this example because it is the most common. In any situation, though, what you can do is to set aside time every day to be alone and detach from all gadgets. There are people though who set aside time for hisbodedus every day, but they also play with their phones while they are at it…

Q3: How can we help people who find it hard to disconnect from cellphones, due to their strong pull towards physicality?

A: There are two reasons why people are pulled toward physicality. One of the main reasons is because many people are born through an unholy conception, and this problem is very common nowadays, even amongst many of the frum “Charedim” (Ultra-Orthodox); this is the main source of the pull toward physicality. The other reason is due to the animalistic desires that we are all born with.

Q4: How do you deal with a child who is having a hard time detaching from a gadget?

A: The common denominator between all people is that all people have to detach from the current pull of the generation. Each child is different; work with the child on his own level – “Chanoch l’naar al pi darco.”

Q5: What kind of talking do we have to detach from – forbidden conversations, or even from conversations about permitted topics?

A: Even from permissible conversations we need to detach from, because too much talking in general also leads to problems. For example, people can develop a habit of lying, and this happens because people get used to talking so much and abusing the value of their speech.

Q6: During the time of the day we detach from cellphones, what should you do if you have to pick up to help someone, like if your parents are calling you?

A: Do you pick up your cellphone for your parents while you’re davening Shemoneh Esrei? Do you pick up the phone for your parent at 2 A.M. when you’re sleeping…?

Q7: If we want to encourage someone who didn’t hear this derasha, what can we tell him?

A: Just tell him over the general concept here [Ed.: that we need to value our power of speech and detach somewhat from the world], and don’t tell him about the practical application of this concept we discussed [Ed.: don’t tell him about the cellphone part].

Q8: What do you tell someone who’s not interested in growing and improving?

A: This is the question of all questions. I assume that you are not asking about yourself, but about someone in your own household. The only thing you can do is daven and cry to Hashem for that person.

Q9: What can we tell Baalei teshuvah about this (since they might back off the derech if we tell them to make such drastic changes to their lifestyle)?

A: This is a very sensitive topic.

In the last few years, a few sefarim came out in which people wrote that we have to have a connection to the world these days, and this is false.

People [erroneously] think that making someone into a baal teshuvah means to slowly make him into a baal teshuvah over the years. For example, to teach him about Judaism for 5 years, then to teach him how to daven for a few years, then to bring him to shul, then to show him how to daven. In this way, the teshuvah process is spread out over a long time, and the baal teshuvah is not given everything to work on all at once. People think that this is called “making someone into a baal teshuvah.” However, according to the Torah, in order to become a real baal teshuvah, a person has to start keeping all of the mitzvos at once.

It is just that there are two areas – things he must do all at once, and things which he does not need to do all at once but rather to do it gradually and at his own pace. There are some things that a baal teshuvah has to do right away, while there are other things that must be done gradually. When it comes to the subject of abstaining from physicality, we aren’t trying to tell someone that he has to immediately detach from physicality, because this will throw off. He will think that Judaism is about depriving yourself. Rather, when we teach this subject to Baalei teshuvah – that it is necessary to detach from the strong physicality of this world – he has to be taught that it is good and healthy for him to do so, and that he’s not depriving himself at all.

A wise man once said, “We need Moshiach to be mekarev those very people who make others into baalei teshuvah…”

Q10: Is there such a thing as detaching too much from the world?

A: Yes, it is definitely bad to detach when it is overdone. 15 minutes of detachment every day, though, is necessary for every person, and you don’t need to be on a high level to do it. If someone can’t detach for just 15 minutes, he has a spiritual illness in his soul! In general, whenever we work to improve ourselves, there is always a danger of overdoing something. We cannot pressure ourselves to beyond our current level. Most people need to improve only in small steps and cannot handle high jumps in their level. We should never take extreme changes to our behavior. Take on a small change, but one that will definitely make you feel that you are changing. Any change that makes you feel pressure about it (and you can’t calm it) is not a healthy kind of change, and it will only be detrimental. This is a very subtle issue; we must always daven and cry about it to Hashem.

Q11: Is there anything wrong with using a cellphone when shopping in a store?

A: Not every conversation you have on a phone is bad. We are just saying that it is overdone a lot. A lot of times, people talk on a cellphone in public and people hear private conversations going on. This is a prime cause for the great breach in modesty in today’s generation; people talk about private topics in public. A person is sitting on a bus and he hears the person in front of him talking on a cellphone about his credit card bills, the supper his wife will be making that day, and what he and his wife are fighting about….

Q12: I feel that the Rav speaks very much from his heart. I am wondering what kind of mother the Rov had, who must have raised him so well to speak from his heart.

A: If you visit her in Israel, she’ll be very happy to meet you.

Q13: And does the Rav’s mother allow visitors??

A: I hope that you cling to the middah of Avraham Avinu [Ed.: chessed\kindness and hospitality].