Intro
Welcome to Soulful Jewish Living: Mindful Practices for Every Day with me, Josh Feigelson.
I’m grateful you’re here, and I hope you benefit from our time together.
In my house growing up, there were two really big extracurricular activities that my brothers and I all did. We all played musical instruments, and we were all super into the Boy Scouts. Our dad was the Scoutmaster of our troop, and we went 3 for 3 becoming Eagle Scouts.
Now, the very first thing you have to learn as a Scout is the Scout Oath. Ask any Eagle Scout, and my guess is they’ll still be able to recite it, even many decades later: “On my honor I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country, to obey the Scout Law, to help other people at all times, to keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight.” If you can memorize that, along with the twelve points of the Scout Law, you can earn your first rank on the way to Eagle Scout. Mazal tov.
A kid can become a Scout as early as fifth grade. And I think one of the amazing things about Scouting is that it challenges a person that young to make an oath—a commitment, a promise—that begins with the words “on my honor.” From the get-go, Scouting tells kids that we have an internal moral compass—a sense of honor—that grounds our whole life. And the fact that every troop meeting begins with reciting that oath means that we’re constantly recommitting to it.
Why am I talking about oaths and honor? Because this is the fourth episode in our exploration of the Ten Commandments, and the Fourth Commandment tells us not to “swear falsely” using God’s name. The Talmud explains what the Torah means by swearing falsely: “Taking an oath to deny that which everyone knows to be true.” If someone says, “I swear to God that George Washington was the second President of the United States,” that would be making a false oath—because it’s denying a truth that everyone knows. It’s an example of taking God’s name in vain.
Now, there’s probably some really interesting stuff that a novelist or screenwriter could do with this. What constitutes agreed upon, universal truth, especially in this day and age? And if you’re an aspiring writer and want to move in that direction, let me know.
But for our purposes, I think we can understand the Fourth Commandment as a natural extension of the first, second, and third. The First Commandment reminded us to ground in the Oneness of the Universe. The Second told us to keep coming back to that Oneness. The Third challenged us to avoid the pitfall of idolatry, which is a profound form of distraction and distortion. And now this Fourth Commandment extends that idea, telling us to see clearly, to see the truth, and not to lazily give in to the distortions our minds and words can create.
That’s one level. But I also think this Fourth Commandment is doing something else. The first three of the Ten Commandments largely focus on internal sensations, our inner experience of reality: Ground in the Oneness, stay grounded in the Oneness, don’t create idols for yourself. That all happens primarily in our own minds and hearts. But with this Fourth Commandment the Torah begins to move us beyond our inner experience of self, and into something more relational, social, and ethical.
How so? By focusing on what we say, our language—the building blocks of our shared reality with other people, other images of God. It isn’t enough to simply be clear and true in our own minds; the Torah expects us to develop and maintain a society, a whole world, in which all of us share in that clarity and truth. Maybe that’s what we mean in the last line of the traditional liturgy for all of our daily prayers: “On that day the Holy One will be one, and the Holy One’s name will be one.” That is, we won’t be grounded in the Oneness in just our own minds, but all of us, together, will live with that consciousness. We’ll all see clearly and all live in that deep sense of interconnection and mutual responsibility. A guy can dream, right?
Our last three episodes have included meditation practices, so for this week I want to invite you to try a different kind of Jewish mindfulness practice to develop this Fourth Commandment in your life. It’s drawn from what the Jewish mystical and ethical traditions have come to call shemirat hadibbur, or mindful speech.
Take a moment to visualize the inside of your body from the tip of your lips, into your mouth, past your teeth, touching your tongue, to the back of your throat, and then down into the trachea, the lungs, and deep into the belly.
When we speak we take the air that has traveled that route, and we return it out the same path—but this time activating our vocal cords. Visualize for a moment how the thoughts from our minds, the feelings from our gut and our body, and so many other inputs, fuse together to literally give voice to our impulses and ideas. Just pause a moment to appreciate how truly extraordinary that is!
And now, I want to invite you to make an intention, a kavvanah, to make yourself like a shofar today: a clear vessel through which is flowing a clear, pure voice infused with the Divine presence. Imagine that the words that start in your belly, come up through the wind pipe and into the larynx, and come out through your mouth and into the world—imagine that each of those words can be a clear, beautiful sound, full of compassion, wisdom, and truth.
See if at least once a day this week you can really connect with this practice. And notice if anything feels different in your speech, in a relationship, in your life. I hope it helps you to experience a little more alignment and clarity, and an appreciation for the extraordinary opportunity and responsibility of the gift of speech.
Blessings for the journey. Know that I’m on it with you.
ENDING
Thank you for joining us for Soulful Jewish Living: Mindful Practices for Every Day, a production of Unpacked, a brand of OpenDor Media, and the Institute for Jewish Spirituality. This episode is sponsored by Jonathan and Kori Kalafer and the Somerset Patriots: The Bridgewater, NJ-based AA Affiliate of the New York Yankees. If you like this show, subscribe, share this episode with a friend, give us five stars on Apple Podcasts. Check out our website, unpacked.media for everything Unpacked-related, and subscribe to our other podcasts, and check out the Institute for Jewish Spirituality. Most importantly, be in touch–about what you heard today, what you’d like to hear more about, or to dedicate an episode. Write to me at josh@unpacked.media.
This episode was hosted by me, Rabbi Josh Feigelson. Audio was edited by Rob Pera and we’re produced by Rivky Stern. Thanks for joining us.