Before I get to this week's post, I wanted to acknowledge that this is my 601st blog post! I am so, so grateful to all of you for reading these, and for continuing to offer feedback, comments, and reflections. It is hard to believe it's been 12 years... but I guess I can't argue with the archive... I still enjoy writing these, and you still seem to read them, so I guess we forge ahead into the NEXT 600! :-) Anyway, thank you.
Communication-breakdowns can be quite dangerous: You said x, the other person heard y, so now they respond with z, and you’re feeling hurt because z didn’t seem called for; you only said x... it’s not as if you said anything mean, like y! A minor misunderstanding... but when people feel unseen, misrepresented, ignored, or dismissed, it doesn’t take long for things to turn toxic. I’m going to write about this phenomenon here, but I want to lead with my proposed remedy to the problem: Stop the conversation. Don’t let it move on. Interrupt, clarify what you meant, and hear how it sounded to the other person. It’s hard to do, but it’s actually just like a(ny other) muscle; practice makes permanent. Do it more, it’ll get easier. Do NOT let misunderstandings fester. You can’t prevent them from happening, but you *can* mitigate further damage.
My example from our Torah portion isn’t actually about a misunderstanding in the text itself. It’s taken quite out of context, but it still leads to a dangerous level of toxicity... just many hundreds of years later. In the Torah, God is merely describing (through Moses) the laws of Passover and the Paschal offering. Centuries later, the rabbis compiled a clever, little guidebook for this holiday - you may have heard of it - called
The Haggadah. A hallmark of the Pesach Seder, always featured in the Haggadah, is a section called “The Four Sons/Children,” and perhaps the most famous of these kids is the screw-up, the bad-guy, the antagonist... The Wicked Child. Well, this terrible, awful, no-goodnik had the absolute audacity to make WHAT offensive statement??? Oh yeah, they quoted a verse of Torah verbatim. Huh? Yup, you read that correctly.
It comes from our
parashah. Having laid out an intricate and very precise ritual for future generations to conduct every year on Passover, the Torah goes on to say, in Exodus, 12:26-27: “And when your children ask you,
‘What does this rite mean to you?’, you shall say: 'It is the Pesach sacrifice to Adonai, when God *passed over* the houses of the Israelites when God smote the Egyptians.” What was so awful about this exchange? The Torah gives a perfectly pedagogical answer to this hypothetical child’s VERY reasonable question. Sooo, why do the authors of the Haggadah choose to imagine this upstart jerk as emphatically stressing “TO YOU,” and then they decide to interpret that to mean, the child wants no part of this heritage??? This supposed rebel just quoted Torah perfectly... why must you chastise someone for a genuine, heartfelt question?
So let me take a step back here for a second. Remember my proposed remedy? Stop the conversation *right away*, and clarify. Or ask an elucidating question, BEFORE emotions swell and pride gets hurt. What if someone said to that so-called-ingrate: “Tell me more. Help me understand your question.” Can you just imagine how different the conversation would be, and how tragic it would be to label that poor kid (who needs to work on his inflections...) “Wicked” or “Rebellious”? I hope you see that my point in sharing this with you isn't actually about the Haggadah at all, or even the ancient sacrificial offering. This happens in our interactions DAILY, and the same principles of change could - and, frankly, should - apply. Don’t let misunderstandings fester and erode; jump in! ASAP! The sooner you can nip it in the bud, the better... but even realizing it a day, month, year, or even decade later IS ACTUALLY BETTER THAN NEVER! SO DON'T WAIT!! Sorry, didn’t mean to yell. I just wanted you to really hear me. I didn’t mean for it to come across so aggressive or... wicked? Thanks for understanding.
Communication-breakdowns can be quite dangerous: You said x, the other person heard y, so now they respond with z, and you’re feeling hurt because z didn’t seem called for; you only said x... it’s not as if you said anything mean, like y! A minor misunderstanding... but when people feel unseen, misrepresented, ignored, or dismissed, it doesn’t take long for things to turn toxic. I’m going to write about this phenomenon here, but I want to lead with my proposed remedy to the problem: Stop the conversation. Don’t let it move on. Interrupt, clarify what you meant, and hear how it sounded to the other person. It’s hard to do, but it’s actually just like a(ny other) muscle; practice makes permanent. Do it more, it’ll get easier. Do NOT let misunderstandings fester. You can’t prevent them from happening, but you *can* mitigate further damage.
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