Speech :: The Cost + Power of Words

A Study of Psalm 34

Psalm 34 :: What Do Eclosion & Dilation + Effacement & Seed Germination & Pyrophilic Trees Have In Common? Can Speech, Our Most G-d-like Faculty, Ever Really Be Free? What Is the Secret to a Good Life?

Question for Reflection (not argumentation) :: How can speech be free when it embodies the power of creation? Why do we want the sacred to be free?

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Today in Seeing Yourself in the Psalms we continued Psalm 34, from line 13. I have provided screenshots below of the text we study, though any translation from Sefaria would suffice. I have also provided a short audio clip from the class so you can get a sense of the Sagely Countenance and Calming Voice that I have grown to love, it’s from my own recording which I took during class to listen back whilst writing this post. The video of the entire class will be available on YouTube as soon as Lee uploads it to his channel, which can take him a few days. As of time of writing this post (2 hours after class ended) the class isn’t up yet, subscribe to his channel so you won’t miss it.

Remember this is a Hebrew text with an English translation, so you read from right to left, meaning the book appears to begin at the back and end at the front so I provided the screenshots this way in the image above.

TEN SECRETS TO REAL LIFE

1. Guard your tongue from evil

2. Guard your lips from speaking deceit

3. Turn from wrong

4. Do good

5. Seek peace and pursue it

6. Cry out in earnest when you feel you can’t continue

7. Break like the seed breaks in order to grow

8. Expect to be tested, tribulation is part of living

9. Choose light, run toward the light

10. Be the light if you cannot see the light

PSALM 34 | LEE WEISSMAN | THE POWER OF SPEECH

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This a PDF transcript of the 4:07 audio clip.

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REFLECTIONS ON THE CLASS + TEXT

Line 14 commentary :: Words carry weight. We speak things into being, we must take care when and how we use words and speech. The burdensome things you are not telling your loved one about your loved one carry weight and they can take on a momentum. These negative words like tenacious weeds take root in your own heart. They block your connection with your loved one in your relationship. This means you must choose your conversations carefully, choose what you create—speech is a gift given to us, an opportunity to continue the creation project G-d began. G-d spoke the world into creation. The power of speech contains the power of creation. Speak with care and compassion and rigour. Speak with honesty and passion and love. Create with care.

“speech is our most godly faculty. When G-d creates humankind She says, Nefesh Haya, Living Being … in Aramaic it’s Nefesh Dibbur, Speaking Being”

G-d made humankind and She called us Nefesh Dibbur, Being Who Speaks. Interestingly, the Hebrew word for desert, midbar, originates from the root mi’dibur, from speech. The place we call desert has maximum silence and directionlessness, very far removed from speech and purpose. The idea being a re-ignition of the power of speech, shaping something from the ground, adamah. G-d spoke creation into being and She made humans in Her image means that G-d gave human beings a portion of the sacred power of creation through the gift speech.¹

“there's a reason why your tongue is shaped like a knife … because you can use it … to carve beautiful things, you can use it to cut throats … your tongue is like a sword”

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The Creator speaking the universe into existence reminds me of Tolkien and The Silmarillion so I want to include a mention to underscore the sacredness of words as a very powerful engine of creation in our possession for those who have a tenuous or skeptical attachment to G-d. Melkor injected discord into the harmony of the creation song of Iluvatar and the Ainur and this had enduring consequences for the universe. After choosing to turn to the dark side, Melkor becomes Morgoth.

Melkor provides a dramatic literary example to help drive home the point that yes, your speech does matter, your spoken words do matter, they carry weight and they carry energy and they land somewhere hooman, with hooman neurobiological limits and potential. In fact your thoughts matter, they have the power to shift your neurobiology. You can power yourself in silence and stillness with your thoughts — the mightiness of words we must never underestimate. There really is no such thing as “free speech” because of the sacred power of words.

But as the theme progressed, it came into the heart of Melkor to interweave matters of his own imagining that were not in accord with the theme of Ilúvatar, for he sought therein to increase the power and glory of the part assigned to himself. To Melkor among the Ainur had been given the greatest gifts of power and knowledge, and he had a share in all the gifts of his brethren. He had gone often alone into the void places seeking the Imperishable Flame; for desire grew hot within him to bring into Being things of his own. — J.R.R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion

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Line 15 :: What you focus on grows. Focussing on wrong will cause you to grow that wrongness. This can be as simple as resisting the urge to respond to social assholery with snark or even at all, it can mean choosing to not to respond to negative social media engagement farming posts and comments. G-D instructs us to guard our hearts. She built a cage around our physical heart to teach us how important guarding the heart is. Guarding your heart begins with your lips and your tongue. Peace means far more than not beating and killing each other. Peace isn’t a cessation of aggression though it begins with that first step.

“it's a very, very dangerous, very, very dangerous weapon, you can do amazingly beautiful things with your mouth … and at the same time, you can so easily destroy … you can so easily … hurt people”

Line 18 commentary :: Crying out to G-d. Sometimes you suffer so much you can’t pray, you can only cry out. These earnest cries serve as prayers, G-d hears these cries and has mercy. In neurobiology keening serves the purpose of expressing and expelling pain and tears secrete stress hormones and other toxins. If nothing else your body has an opportunity to recalibrate when you cry and keen in moments of genuine pain. You can soothe yourself! What if this is what’s required? In digestion, the pyloric valve releases food from the stomach into the small bowel. If the valve shuts the body violently rejects the food. Cry out to G-d, and like that pylorus expels the food, expel that unpleasantry out to the Divine, empty yourself and begin again. Again. Again. As many times as required.

Line 19 commentary :: G-d never leaves the brokenhearted. A seed breaks open to continue growing | a woman’s pelvis expands to facilitate childbirth and her cervix, entrance to her vagina, thins out to become flatter and wider and it dilates to 10 cm to accommodate the passage of a neonate skull which is 34.5 cm in circumference | a caterpillar dissolves and sheds itself to become a butterfly. Nature provides endless examples of life demanding breakage for continued growth. Flowers bear fruit, that’s their botanical purpose. Some trees have evolved pyrophytic properties and some have a pyrophilic reproduction profile, meaning they require forest fires to reproduce. Those who study forests well and widely know about the possibilities of fire. G-d puts Herself in nature for us to see Her through creation. The Quran 50: 16² says that G-d is closer to you that your jugular vein, which is the vein that connects from your brain and flows to your heart, the sentiment conveyed seems the same here.

“speaking is part of what defines us as human beings … it's also our way of describing how G-d creates the world”

Line 20 commentary :: Bad things will happen to test good people. Muslims have a saying the hardship is the ease. High achievers undergo testing in any rigourous training. Fighter pilots train to tolerate 9G for a couple seconds and astronauts train to withstand 4 to 6G. Lotus flowers rise through the mud to bloom and flourish. Further to the butterfly, eclosion is the test that will determine if s/he lives. The initial struggle to pump birth fluid from the wings and get ready for flight is one that cannot be assisted. In fact you kill a butterfly by assisting its eclosion process.

“we have to kind of clear the field a little bit … before you before you plant … you have … to clear … the field you have to get the rocks out”

Line 21 commentary :: G-d guards Her bones. Bones provide the framework and anchor for our physical forms. Akin to stud-framing for a house. Long bones as well as ribs, vertebrae, sternum, and bones of the pelvis all contain marrow inside them, a kind of special factory that makes blood cells and platelets. Bones and blood serve as integral connective tissue components in the body. Bones contain the beginnings of blood inside them. Blood nourishes and perfuses our vital organs. Blood = Life. G-d guards Her bones, which contain within them the elixir of Life.

1. Rabbi Dr. Hillel ben David (Greg Killian). Voice and Speech. Accessed August 26th, 2024 at 1830. 

2. “We have created man and We know what his inner soul is whispering. We are closer to him than his jugular vein” (Quran 50:16, Safi Kaskas translation)