Beresheet bara Elohim et hashamayim vaet haaretz: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” In Jewish, Christian and Muslim tradition God creates the world by speaking a word. The so called “people of the book” Jews, Christians and Muslims are people who have tremendous confidence in the ability of “the word” to create and to communicate. God created the world and you and me by speaking a word. The power of chaos was and is held back and in check by the word. We teachers understand this all too well. For we too are obsessed by words. We trust that the word has power in it. We open our mouths to speak and assume that the word is sufficient. We choose one word and thereby reject another. We take care with our words.
But, last year in my Religion 110 class I came to doubt the sufficiency of the word. I was giving a lecture on the prophet Amos. And as I was making what I thought was my most important point I looked up to see three students yawning directly at me with wide open gaping mouths. I left the class that day quite discouraged. I know that some students are up late and come to class tired and that the yawns were not necessarily directed in a hostile manner toward me or the subject matter And I know that even if some students are yawning it does not mean they are not listening. And to tell the truth I have observed such yawning student gaping mouths for years. But on that day it depressed me. Maybe there are times, I thought, when the word is insufficient. Maybe I am just not a good enough teacher.
My close friend, Steve Wohlfeil, a Lutheran Pastor and former Campus Pastor at Augustana College listened to my harangue and complaint. He said, with his usual precise and insightful words, “You know Murray, maybe when you saw those three students yawning at you it was as if in that moment the whole universe was yawning at Murray Haar.” Yes, there are times when words are insufficient for all sorts of reasons.
And this insufficiency of words is particularly aggravating and frustrating to the teachers among us. For we teachers, we wrestle with what words to use so that our students will be to hear the questions that move us and ought to move them. What words, we ask ourselves, can we use to penetrate the countless distractions floating around in their minds? We, who have taught for a few years, know very well about the sufficiency and the insufficiency of words. Some days they work. Many days they fail. Yet, we keep at it. We keep showing up. Why? Why do we bother? After all, let’s be honest with each other. Words are fragile and they have failed. They have failed to stop the misunderstandings, the confusion, the hating, the killing and the craziness. All the millions upon millions of words that have been written and spoken failed to stop the Holocaust or 9/11. True teachers know the deep sadness of looking into the eyes of their listeners and seeing some so distracted or broken, that they cannot hear and cannot be fixed by mere words, despite how well or how loud the words are spoken. So, why do we continue to believe in the power of our words? Why do we keep on teaching if so few of our words are actually effective and so few hearers are actually listening?
It must be because we teachers are quite a religious bunch whether we want to admit it or not. Like the God in our scriptures we keep on talking and talking and talking knowing that many times our words will fail to awaken or convince even ourselves. All have ears to hear but only a few listen. The tenaciousness of teachers like the tenaciousness of God is quite irrational. We ought to give up. And some do. But we, who keep on day after day, continue to speak our words despite . . . The great medieval Jewish scholar Maimonides writes in his Guide to the Perplexed, “Ani maamin aaf al pi . . . I believe despite man and despite God. The God of the scriptures continues to make his appeal despite the fact that some have ears but do not hear and eyes but do not see.
This is all to say, that we teachers are not crazy to keep on, day after day, trying to find the right words that we might be heard. We keep on keeping on for there is a mystery to teaching and learning and studying. We are, after all, in divine company. If God has to struggle to be heard and understood, what makes you think it should be any easier for you or me? And if teaching were easy they would not need us to wrestle and struggle for words to speak. Anybody could do it. After all, human beings are compared to sheep in the Bible. Sheep are cute, fragile independent but not very bright or wise. Our words are many times insufficient and many of our listeners are yawning, checking their phones, full of distractions; there are many who will not be able to hear despite the eloquence, simplicity or truth of our words, but let us persevere despite. For we may yet discover that we have inside us a word that will move one or two of our listeners to wake up and to care about the questions that matter. Keep looking and searching and wrestling for the right words. You may yet find a word lurking in your soul that will stem the boredom and distractions. At least, we teachers, like God, must try. In Jewish tradition teachers are called Rabbis and Rabbis are always teaching Torah. And the word Torah means teaching So, my fellow teachers, Rabbis and Pastors keep on day after day, again and again, despite the yawns. Do what you can do with the word and that will have to be sufficient.
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