Secrets of SPEECHWRITING | Rabbi Shais Taub at Cambridge University

I was out in the hallway and the caterer came over to me I just walked down and the caterer walked over to me and he said we have your special kosher meal I said how did you know it was mine um there's once a non-jew asked his Jewish friend he says could you take me to your synagogue I want to see how the Jews pray so sure come with me Saturday morning Sabbath morning services so the Jewish friend takes this non-jewish friend to the synagogue Saturday morning to have the services and uh the non-jewish friend is asking what everything's about so he he says what does that mean when everyone stands up and they they step three steps backwards they step three steps forward and and what does that mean and the Jewish friend says well that's that means that there's there that's the standing prayer and that's the main prayer of the the Jewish service that we pray three times a day and a little bit later the non-jewish friend asks says Jewish friend he says what does that mean they open that big curtain in the front and they open that Ark he says well that's where we keep the Torah Scrolls and they're going to bring out the the squirrels and they're going to read uh publicly from the Scrolls oh that's what that means very good after the Torah reading the rabbi got up to the podium says what does that mean when the rabbi gets and stands up there he says well that means the rabbi is going to say his sermon then the rabbi took off his wristwatch and he put the watch down on the podium in front of him before he began to speak and the non-jewish friend says to the Jewish what does that mean when the rabbi takes off his watch before his sermon and he puts it down on the podium in front of him the Jewish friend looks at his non-jewish friend says unfortunately not a darn thing [Music] [Applause] [Music] okay I'm gonna do something a little bit a little bit different than what I normally do when I give a speech because basically you're Insider so you know exactly what I'm doing right now okay so I wouldn't normally do this because it kills the magic but between us there doesn't have to be any magic I'm not here there's no smoke in mirrors I'm going to tell you exactly what I'm doing as I'm doing it's sort of like uh analyzing a joke right they say if you uh what is it what's the saying analyzing a joke is like dissecting a frog you understand it better but it's dead so [Music] I'm sort of killing the joke I'm killing the magic because I'm going to analyze this and be transparent as I go sort of like a magician who shows you what he's doing as he's going along but that's what I want to do okay what what have I done what I got up here and I'm not a stand-up comic but I wanted to go for several laughs um why did I do it I mean we all know about opening with a joke what's the deal okay why am I doing this the talmud discusses there was a great Sage one of the scholars of the Babylonian academies his name was rava and he was one of the Masters of of talmudic Law and he would if the talmud says he would always begin his lecture with a humorous remark and then after the humorous remark then he would begin to teach the actual uh content of the lecture so he wasn't like a guy who gets up and gives a toast at a wedding right where nobody wants to really be listening to a speech they want to be eating and so you use jokes to keep them quiet so they don't start talking and you lose control of the crowd he had control of the crowd he was the master they were the students they came voluntarily they were adults they wanted to be there listening to the master teach so why is he opening with a joke so let me explain there's a spirituality behind speaking speaking is spiritual what do I mean by that the world is composed of four kingdoms physical world as composed of four kingdoms you have the inanimate you have the vegetative you have the animal and you have the human every one of those levels has a body and has a soul matter and energy the inanimate kingdom is distinguished by the fact that it exists it takes up physical space so the soul of an inanimate object is the energy which brings its matter into being right fact that it is there it is physically present but that's about it then you have vegetation vegetation doesn't just take up physical space it also has life it doesn't just exist it lives it has life and the soul of vegetation is the fact that it can grow but that's about it it can't uproot itself and move to another spot can't relocate the animal physically exists and it grows and it has another dimension it can move around it has volition can go where its desire leads it to the fourth category is human and in the tradition of our rabbis that category is called means speaker what can the human do that the inanimate and the vegetative and the animal cannot do the human being can speak now you can say animals speak doesn't just mean making sounds it doesn't even just mean symbols speech means the capacity to share my inner world with you speech doesn't just mean that I can motion to hey guys that's where the food is speech means that I can convey abstraction I can tell you about something you've never seen in fact I can tell you about something I've never seen abstraction means even if it doesn't exist yet in the physical Universe if I can conceive of it then I can communicate it that's spiritual something does not exist in the phenomenological Universe not in this physical world and yet if I can dream of it I can convey it to you I can take it from my inner world and share it with you and it becomes part of your inner world that's what real speech is and that's spiritual it defies or transcends the concrete it is the sharing of the abstract now part and parcel of this Dynamic is that there's the speaker and there's The Listener now we might take turns sometimes I'm the speaker and you're the listener and vice versa but when I'm the speaker and I'm sharing with you an idea a vision what is the occupational hazard of every speaker the occupational hazard is this if I don't see something that you can't yet see that I shouldn't be the one Speaking why am I talking if we all see it we all know about it then I shouldn't be up here so I've got to be the expert and I've got to know something you don't know so that's first but conversely if I'm the guy who's talking about something nobody knows about that makes me a terrific boar I'm going to talk about something you don't know about you have no frame of reference for you have no context and in fact the greater the loftier the more rarified my insight is the more alienating it is to you for me to talk about it so that's the occupational hazard how do we overcome that you know there was a guy who was uh on a hot air balloon trip and he got lost the wind came he got blown off course he didn't know where he was so he was desperately trying to figure out his location and he he was flying over a field a big open field and he saw a fellow standing down in the field and he screamed down below he says you're there can you help me the guy down below in the field says yes I can help you what do you need the guy in hot air balloon says can you tell me I'm lost can you tell me where am I the guy standing down on the ground says you're in a hot air balloon the guy in the hot air balloon yes yes but where's my location in relation to Earth the guy down below says you're about a hundred meters off the ground [Music] the guy says yes I know I'm talking location like where am I located in the world so the guy down below says you are 38 degrees north 12 degrees east longitude the hot air balloon says sir may I ask you one more question the guy below says yeah the guy above says are you a rabbi the guy below says yeah I am I am rabbi how do you know I'm a rabbi the guy in the hot air balloon says because from the moment I met you every single thing you've told me has been a hundred percent true and totally irrelevant to my situation foreign by the way I said it as Rabbi but you could plug in any expert right that's the occupational hazard of the expert I know something you don't know that's why I'm up here talking but what's going to happen is I'm going to speak on a level I'm going to speak over your head it's not going to resonate and the more I talk the more alienated you become the more apparent it becomes that we're in two different worlds so what's the quickest easiest way for us to take a step into common ground and share a universe the quickest easiest way is a joke when you tell a joke and everyone laughs we're all in on the joke right that's how we say it in in English right you're in on the joke well we both laugh at the same thing that means we both share at least and some limited fashion a common outlook on reality so you know like a Venn diagram with the two circles so here's the circle of the speaker here's the circle of the audience here's his expertise which is his area of his or her area of Mastery then here's the audience who doesn't yet have Mastery in that in that area the overlapping of the two circles is what we both agree is funny so when I open with a joke it's not to loosen you up it's not to prove to you that I'm a nice guy I'm a cool guy okay it's all right put you at ease the joke is instantly to draw those two circles into an overlap even the tiniest bit of overlap and once there's overlap there's some common ground I can start to pull you into my world and that's spiritual I'm gonna get you to see what I see even if you've never seen it yet before in your life but I had to start with the joke okay what's another tool that we use and it works on a very similar principle or the need for it arises from the same place that occupational hazard of the master or the expert by the way you know the the why the Scarecrow won a Nobel Prize he was outstanding in his field okay that's a pun I took a risk I set a pawn in an audience that's not all first playing first the English as first language but I figured you know it's Europe you know you guys you're sophisticated like that I can do it okay um the expert is trying to communicate something all right so humor is is the first way that we show that there's an overlap of realities what's the next thing uh Parable metaphor metaphor is very powerful metaphor is funny because metaphor at first glance metaphors obfuscating it's confusing I really want to talk about a but instead I'm symbolically talking about B but that's not my real point I really want to bring it back to a what what's with the the bait and switch if you need to explain a explain a H but that's our problem that's that's the occupational hazard a is an unfamiliar concept to you so if I simply just get more and more meticulous and more analytical and more articulate in explaining that this concept that's unfamiliar to you that's not making you more familiar with the concept that's emphasizing that's underlining your unfamiliarity so what do I do I have to have the grace to say you know what I'm putting a aside right now putting it aside I'm instead I'm going to talk about b b is something pedestrian something mundane something every day something relatable and we're going to talk about that then I'm going to analyze some pertinent Dynamic within B and I'm gonna then I'm going to take a u-turn a parable is change the subject and then take a u-turn and I'm going to bring you back to a and I'm going to use the familiar to build a bridge back to the unfamiliar the higher the loftier your idea is the newer it is the more of a Visionary concept it is the more you need parable the newer your idea the more radical your idea is the less it helps to just keep pounding on the idea and the more important is to allow yourself to go to the parable and then switch back to the first idea there's uh a midrash of our sages that says a king once lost a Priceless gem and was able to discover it again with a candle worth a penny that's a parable for parables the information that I'm really trying to talk about is the Priceless gem I located or allow youth to locate it with a candle that's worth a penny okay so where do our metaphors come from how do you come up with a good metaphor there was a great speaker one of the great preachers in Jewish tradition he was known as the preacher of Dublin I was from a town in Lithuania called dubna he was the preacher of dubna and he was once asked by another colleague how do you have a metaphor for everything how do you have the right analogy the right Parable for every concept so he answered for that I have a metaphor he says there was once a squire who sent his son to military school so the sun went to military school for two years and he learned how to archery how to shoot arrows he was coming back from military school after two years and on his way he passed by a farmhouse and he saw a peasant boy who was shooting arrows and he noticed in the side of the barn every single Arrow was dead smack in the center of a bullseye there were painted bullseyes with white paint on the side of the barn every arrow was dead smack in the center of the bullseye so this young man just spent two two years in military school he couldn't shoot that well he asked the peasant boy he says how do you do it how do you hit Bullseye every time so the peasant says oh no you don't under you don't understand I don't paint the bullseye and then shoot the arrow and hit the mark I shoot the arrow it hits wherever it hits then I come along with paint and I Circle it and put the Bulls up [Music] what does this mean when we need a metaphor we already have the metaphor we already heard the metaphor everything you hear every story every idea everything is a metaphor or something for what I don't know yet I'll find out that's why part of speech writing is the better part of speech writing I believe is just keeping that file if you have a good memory you do it mentally if you need to write notes write notes but it's keeping that file keeping that portfolio of potential metaphors this was a this is an illustration of a case where I heard it and I didn't know it was a metaphor and then I found out later when I thought about it as metaphor somebody told me the way that it works the space station so they they need tools up there sometimes so a guy an astronaut needed a wrench okay so he didn't have the wrench he needed to send the wrench now in the old days meaning even a few years ago you had to wait a long time before there's another mission going up to the space station to bring up the wrench nowadays what do they do they do a 3D scan of the wrench down in Mission Control in Houston or wherever it is okay they scan the wrench and then they email it so the wrench becomes a bunch of zeros in one so it becomes a digital file and they email it just like you know if I would email you and we're in the same room my email goes to space and then comes back down to you this is even faster than that because you're sending the email to space and it stays there at space station so they just emailed him the file the 3D scan of the wrench and then he gets the email and he presses print and a 3D printer prints the wrench and now he has the wrench that he needs up there in the space station okay I'll watch what happens if I wanted let's say I'm a real stickler I have an idea and it's a really good idea it's important idea and it's so important that I refuse to budge from it I'm going to talk about it and talk about it and talk about it and talk about it even though it's alienating you because you don't relate to it that's like me saying I want my wrench to remain a wrench yeah but if your rent remains a wrench you can't get it to the guy in the space station but if you allow the wrench to become a non-wrench you allow it to become zeros and ones you allow it to become that attachment that file that's sent by email then at the other end eventually becomes a wrench again so if I allow myself and a lot of it's about letting go a lot of effective communication is about relinquishing control I know what I want to say but if I force it you're not going to hear it so I let go of what I really want to talk about I move to something more familiar and then I Let Go and now you get the idea that I wanted to tell you all along it's like getting you the wrench by allowing the wrench to be a non-wrench in the interim phase okay the other tool I want to talk about three main phase three main tools humor parable and the third thing is storytelling what's storytelling again I have something abstract something spiritual right it doesn't exist in the physical world and I need to tell you about it it's my inner world but I want to make it part of your inner world how do I do that how do I convey that okay so we talk about humor that gives our worlds an overlap we talked about Parable which is allowing the wrench to be a non-wrench in order to become a wrench again at the end um another way of Storytelling what is storytelling though the word for storytelling and in the talmud they use storytelling sometimes middle in the middle of a legal discussion it'll say the word myself means story but literally it means action like you know in Hollywood action by the way cinematically speaking a good film is a film that is just as good with the sound off you know that I believe it was goddock who said that that if you need dialogue to move the story that's not a film film is a visual medium right so myself means action in other words I have an idea what does my idea look like in action idea is abstract action is concrete Stories concretize the abstract again I want to tell you about something you haven't seen something that I've only seen in my in my mind's eye which is the most electrifying thing in the world that ability to talk about which doesn't yet exist by the way in the 20th century what's probably the most effective famous well-known celebrated speech at least in the English language I have a dream right okay and forget about the context the political context and the social context just as far as effective oratory I see something that doesn't yet exist I'm gonna get you to see it and then it will exist so again we're talking about moving from the abstract to the concrete Stories concretize the abstract a story means what does this idea look like when it's played out in real lives there was a rabbi who once uh he spent five years literally Five Years Day and Night sleepless nights he was fundraising Capital campaigning was putting up a new building and uh with fundraising and with getting permits and dealing with the contractors and the whole thing and the last thing when they finally put up the building they're gonna have the ribbon cutting ceremony and the the papers were coming and the big donors were coming yeah the the ribbon cutting ceremony was ready and they had the last thing the contractors did they paved the parking lot and there was fresh wet cement in the parking lot and a couple of little boys came out from Hebrew school and they played tag and they were chasing each other and one little boy chased the other little boy through the wet cement and tracked it all up moments before the ribbon cutting ceremony and the rabbi five years remember sleepless nights he's his whole life was about putting together this building and celebrating this moment and the little boy just ran through the wet cement it was more than he could bear and he lost it and he started screaming at these kids he was screaming at them at the moment he was screaming at them one of the fathers one of the little boy's fathers pulled up for carpool and he said rabbi Rabbi you screaming at the children didn't you teach us that one who becomes angry is as one who worships idols the Rabbi says yes that's true but that was in the abstract this is in the concrete remember the power of the story it makes it concrete it takes the abstract and makes it okay that's why for instance anecdotes are more powerful than statistics personalize it tell a story human interest who did this happen to tell a story always a story the balship the balship was the founder of the Hasidic movement and um they say that when there was a drought and the people needed rain they would come to him and he would lead them to the forest and in the midst of the forest he would teach them a Torah teaching and then he would sing a meditative Melody and then It Would Rain so many generations after the balcantov there was a Pacific Master a rabbi named Israel they called him and his disciples came to him and they said Master there's a drought we needed to reign so the Rouge nerzadiq says like this in the times of the Baal shamtus many generations ago when they needed rain they would go to the forest they would stand by this particular tree and he would share a Torah teaching and he would sing a meditative Melody and in the Merit of the teaching and the song it would reign he says in the Next Generation the generation of his successor and disciple the magnet of meserich when they needed water when they needed rain they would go to the forest and the magnet would say I don't know the teaching I don't know the teaching but I know the melody and he would sing the melody and it would rain the original then said I don't know the teaching and I don't know the melody but I know the story that that's what they did and in the Merit of me telling this story it should rain not everything needs to be explained to the contrary less explaining more narrative make it personal make it human make it relevant and this isn't just about storytelling this is in general this is overarching specific is universal personal is global that's how it works when you speak grandiose ideas you've said nothing he said anybody can get up and talk big it's much more difficult to talk small in the days of uh before the Revolution in 1917 in Russia they used to have preachers not religious preachers but indoctrinators from the from the revolution would go around and they would speak about communism in the in the small towns so this indoctrinator comes and he gives a speech about communism and he wants to make sure his audience follows the the lecture the theme so there's a farmer a little farmer there he says to him I just want to see if you understand what I'm talking about here how it works he says what would you do comrade what would you do if you had two cows so the little farmer says two cows I know how it works I know what I will do I would keep one cow and I would give one cow to the party and the lecturer says that's that's great that's correct okay let's keep going what would you do if you had Two Goats the farmer says Two Goats I know what I would do I would keep one go and I would give one goat to the party the lecturer says that's correct very good all right one more example what if you had two chickens what would you do with two chickens and the farmer hesitates and the lecturer says Cameron go ahead two chickens and the farmers hesitate and the lecturer says what would you do with two chickens and the pharmacists I'm not sure the lecturer says I don't understand Conrad two cows and you're going to give one cow away two goats you're gonna give one goat away two little chickens and now you're hesitating why all of a sudden you're hesitating the farmer says because I really have to have the chickens if we have jokes Parables stories and aphorism as our Tools in our toolkit and that expository Exposition meaning actually describing ideas is is another category so one category we have not actually saying what we're trying to say in order to say it better than actually saying it which is jokes Parables stories aphorism and then the other categories saying it on the nose the exposition part you tell me what's what's a healthy ratio my personal experience as both one who listens to speeches and one who gives them about 95 percent are my jokes stories aphorisms Parables and about five perspective five percent expository remember just the fact that I have this piece of wood up here is already alienating this Podium up here the word lecture itself is intimidating how do we use the word an even more intimidating word preaching preaching Don't Preach to me it implies a vertical relationship right it implies this Gap talking down to me lecture to lectures you're lecturing to me you know there was this guy who's coming back from the pub at three in the morning police officer stop and said hey buddy where do you think you're going right now he says I'm on my way to the lecture Officer says I don't know of any lectures going on at three in the morning drunk fellow says believe me follow me home I'm gonna open the door when my wife answers it it's going to be election [Music] oh lecturing preaching that's all talking down that's alienating that emphasizes the discrepancy the power discrepancy between the speaker and the listener I don't want that I don't want that I want to emphasize our common ground so here's here's here's the point we want to convey something that is bigger than all of us something that's otherworldly something that's beyond that's the ultimate in communication that's the spiritual power the higher power that's behind every message and in order to do that we have to be very humble we have to be willing to keep it small jokes stories parables keep it human keep it real keep it relevant and then something magical happens although like I said I'm not up here to do magic I already show you how all the tricks work so I wouldn't call it magic if it's not too corny I would call it a miracle and that is there's a connection of two inner worlds something that I've seen suddenly become something that you can see that's a gift that's a gift to be able to provide that so uh I just want to I I don't have even though I opened with a joke about the rabbi over speaking his time limit I'll allow that to remain a joke and in the Merit that I told the story you know it should be as if I actually went over my timeline but I just want to express a prayer that all of us should be vessels for that Which is far greater than all of us and we should touch the lives of other human beings thank you thank you