Newspaper Page Text
Just Talking
Can Have Some Real Value
By DAVID SCHWARTZ
People look for various things
in a vacation: swimming, tennis,
good food. I think that they seek
mostly good talking. I have been
living with a university group for
the past month and however inter
esting the work or studies may be,
it is the evening hour or two of
talking which seems to redeem
the day. It seasons and adds flavor
to all that has gone before it dur
ing the day. What has been said
may be unimportant and generally
is. It makes no difference. We seem
to need the “talking out” as we
need the daily shower.
It is said of the great Volosiner
rebbe that he would be silent for a
long time, rest up a bit, and then be
silent some more. That may have
been all right for him, but our
people as a whole are a talkative
one and it is better, perhaps, that
we are. We are a talking and argu
mentative people.
It is told of Ben Gurion that as a
young man, he was once stopping
with a friend, who was equally
argumentative, at a fourth-rate
boarding house. One night the pro
prietor aroused by a heated collo
quy between Ben Gurion and his
friend rushed to their room and
found the two excitedly arguing
whether the window should be
closed or left open. Ben Gurion said
it was too warm and the window
should be opened. The friend
argued that it was too cold and
the window should be closed.
“But.” pleaded the proprietor,
“look, there is no glass in the
window.”
I think that what made the Tal
Besf Wishes
from
AUNT JANE'S
and
AUNT JANE'S
Krock Kured
Pickles
mud so tremendous a force in Juda
ism is that it fostered talking by
the use of a legalistic tone in pre
senting diverse points of view. A
pair of Gemara students do not
need politics or the foreign situa
tion to find something to talk about.
Every paragraph bristles with ma
terial for discussion.
Basic in prayer too is the ele
ment of talking. There are those
who sneer at prayer. Does not an
all-wise God know all our needs?
they ask. I have no doubt He does.
But most of my neighbors also
know most of the things I know
and what I say to them and what
they say to me will not be new,
but we need this talking. Praying
rests on this psychologic need.
The well-known psychologist, Dr.
Andrew Salter, encourages his pa
tients to “talk.” The over quiet
person is on the road to neurosis.
Talk is never “just talk.” The
news photographer taking a snap
shot of two people for publication
prefers to have them talk with one
another. On the photograph, you
cannot hear their words, so why
ask them to talk? But the photo
grapher knows that when they talk
their features will take on more
animation. Gilbert Stuart, painting
the famous portrait of Washington,
could get nowhere until he struck
upon a topic which got Washington
excitedly talking.
No, talk is never “just talk.” Take
two enemies and get them talking
for some time and the hostility be
gins to thin down. Democracy rests
on free speech and a lot of it.
Heinrich Heine visited England
and came away hostile to it, because
he found the British of his day so
reserved. He pined away for some
one to chat with. Finally, he did
strike up a conversation with one
Englishman but was disgusted
again, when the Englishman ex
plained that he had engaged in the
conversation with Heine only to try
out his French.
Like any good thing, of course,
talking can be overdone. It is told
that once one of these endless talk
ers came to see Chief Rabbi Her
man Adler of England. He talked
and talked until the Rabbi was ut
terly bored, and then was about to
begin on another talk, saying: “Do
you know what I heard about so
and so?”
“You never heard anything,”
burst out the Chief Rabbi.
“Why, Rabbi, how can you say
that, you weren’t there,” said the
man.
“I say that,” replied the Chief
Rabbi, “because I know you could
not have heard anything, because
you never stop talking long enough
to listen to anyone.” •
(Copyright, 1953, J.T.A., Inc.)
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