A Time to Be Silent, a Time to Speak
“Everything has its season, and there is a time for every purpose under heaven.” Opening “Everything has its season, and there is a time for every purpose under heaven… a time to be silent and a time to speak.” In his wisdom, King Solomon divided the times of the world in two: a time to speak and a time to be silent. At first this seems obvious. Doesn’t everyone know there is a time to talk and a time not to? But I believe this is not just practical advice. It is a deep insight into how the inner self works. To understand it, we need to put in a little effort. Two Worlds Inside Us Hasidic teaching explains that a person has two worlds inside him, and they work in completely different ways: the world of the mind and the world of the character traits, the feelings. The mind works on one scale: true or false, right or wrong. When you give the mind clear proof, it accepts it. The question is closed, and you move on. But the heart, with its character traits and feelings, works on a completely different scale: pain and healing. And here, my friend, lies the source of a deep frustration in married life. Something happened. You hurt her, you made a mistake, and you explained yourself. Your explanation was correct. Your apology was sincere. Your mind accepted it, and so did your wife’s. Then one day, maybe a week later, the pain comes up again. You are puzzled, sometimes frustrated, and you say: “I already answered that! We already talked about it!” Your heart tells you: “We’re done with this.” But her inner self says: “Not yet.” What happened here? A Failure of Sending, Not of Receiving Here is the new idea. When the pain comes back, it does not mean she is stubborn. It does not mean she “isn’t listening to you.” It means only one thing: your answer did not land. It did not land. Not in the heart, and not deep in the inner self. It was taken in by the mind, but the wound sits deeper. As the classic saying goes, “Words that come from the heart enter the heart.” If your words did not enter, it is a sign that they did not come from the right place, or did not arrive in the right way. Here is a parable. A man plants a seed in the ground. On the first day, he comes to check whether it has sprouted yet. On the second day, he tugs at the little sprout to make it grow faster. That does not speed anything up. It kills the roots completely. The seed has been planted, but the growing is not in the farmer’s hands. It is in the hands of the soil, in the hands of time. Speaking works the same way. Your words are the seed, but time is the soil. When you keep saying, “I already answered! I already explained!”, you are tugging at the sprout. You are not really asking why it hasn’t grown yet. You are the one keeping it from growing. Silence as Deep Inner Work Now we can understand the verse in a new way. “A time to be silent and a time to speak” does not just mean that people sometimes talk and sometimes don’t, the way of the world. It means there are situations where speaking itself, however right your words may be, is the obstacle. There is a time when only silence can heal. We see this with Job’s friends. They sat with him for seven days and did not say a word, “for they saw that his pain was very great.” The commentators explain that this was the true comfort: their presence, not their words. We see it, too, with Aaron, the High Priest, the brother of Moses. The Torah says: “And Aaron was silent.” This was his silence after his sons died. Rashi, the great Bible commentator, writes there that Aaron was rewarded for his silence. Some silence holds more power than any word.
Putting It into Practice
So what do you actually do? The next time the pain comes up again, stop searching for new words, better explanations, sharper logic. The problem is not your explanation. The problem is that you tried to answer, in the language of the mind, a pain that lives in a completely different language. Sit. Listen. Not in order to answer, but in order to hear. As King Solomon wrote: “A gentle answer turns away anger.” And sometimes the gentlest answer of all is complete quiet, complete presence, and a heart that is in no hurry to close the question. A time to be silent is not weakness. It is the strength that understands that not everything is fixed with words. Some healing only time can do, and your job is not to stand in its way.
Questions and answers
Q: Which verse from Ecclesiastes about every season opens this essay on silence and speech?
Rabbi Landau answers: “Everything has its season, and there is a time for every purpose under heaven.”
Q: What new insight is there in King Solomon's words "a time to be silent and a time to speak"?
Rabbi Landau answers: “Everything has its season, and there is a time for every purpose under heaven… a time to be silent and a time to speak.” In his wisdom, King Solomon divided the times of the world in two: a time to speak and a time to be silent. At first this seems obvious. Doesn’t everyone know there is a time to talk and a time not to? But I believe this is not just practical advice. It is a deep insight into how the inner self works. To understand it, we need to put in a little effort.
Q: What does it mean when a spouse's pain keeps coming back after you've explained yourself?
Rabbi Landau answers: Here is the new idea. When the pain comes back, it does not mean she is stubborn. It does not mean she “isn’t listening to you.” It means only one thing: your answer did not land. It did not land. Not in the heart, and not deep in the inner self. It was taken in by the mind, but the wound sits deeper. As the classic saying goes, “Words that come from the heart enter the heart.” If your words did not enter, it is a sign that they did not come from the right place, or did not arrive in the right way. Here is a parable. A man plants a seed in the ground. On the first day, he comes to check whether it has sprouted yet.
Q: How can silence be a form of deep inner work rather than just not talking?
Rabbi Landau answers: Now we can understand the verse in a new way. “A time to be silent and a time to speak” does not just mean that people sometimes talk and sometimes don’t, the way of the world. It means there are situations where speaking itself, however right your words may be, is the obstacle. There is a time when only silence can heal. We see this with Job’s friends. They sat with him for seven days and did not say a word, “for they saw that his pain was very great.” The commentators explain that this was the true comfort: their presence, not their words. We see it, too, with Aaron, the High Priest, the brother of Moses.
Q: What should you do when your spouse's pain comes up again and explanations aren't helping?
Rabbi Landau answers: So what do you actually do? The next time the pain comes up again, stop searching for new words, better explanations, sharper logic. The problem is not your explanation. The problem is that you tried to answer, in the language of the mind, a pain that lives in a completely different language. Sit. Listen. Not in order to answer, but in order to hear. As King Solomon wrote: “A gentle answer turns away anger.” And sometimes the gentlest answer of all is complete quiet, complete presence, and a heart that is in no hurry to close the question. A time to be silent is not weakness. It is the strength that understands that not everything is fixed with words.