A Year of Jewish Ethics #1

Welcome to the first in a series of short weekly teachings about Jewish ethics, jumping off from the parasha, the Torah portion.

The first chapter of the Torah is about the power of speech and the ethics of speech. God creates everything through speech. On the first day, God simply says y’hi or, let there be light, and light comes into existence. On other days, God speaks an intention to create something and immediately creates it. There is no gap between the speech, the intention, and the reality that comes into being.

Words are that powerful – they make or change reality. Nothing is more powerful than spoken words. And the ethical ideal is how God speaks in the first chapter of Bereshit (Genesis). There is no gap between what we mean, what we say, and the reality we create. That is what true and faithful speech is.

In the morning prayers, we say Baruch she-amar v’haya ha’olam – Blessed is the One who spoke and the universe came into existence. Baruch omer v’oseh – Blessed is the One who speaks-and-acts. Speaking and doing are for the Divine one thing.

It’s important that we have that introduction, because once human beings arrive speech gets complicated. We have the snake who uses speech to manipulate, Adam and Chava (Eve) who use speech to speak part of the truth, Kayin (Cain) who uses speech to deflect. God speaks questions, to draw people out. God has to confront the possible difference between the generous speech that creates and provides, and the implications of declaring that if the people eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil they will die. Ultimately, God decides to delay carrying that out.

Speech is the foundation of Jewish ethics. The power of speech and how we ought to speak. It’s foundational within families, as the Torah says about the first human family. And it’s foundational in our widest world, as the Torah says by making speech the pillar of creation and the social order. How do we speak knowing how our spoken words create the world? How do we speak so that there is no gap between what we say and what we create?