EMETTalk - Rabbi Mordechai Kraft - Perfecting Our Speech!

I'd like to introduce our first speaker. You guys all know him and love him very much. Please help me welcome Rabbi Morai Craft. [applause and music] The power of speech where the soul fuses with the body is actually in speech. It says that breathed the soul into he became a became a speaking creature. That means when we exercise the power of speech, we're actually getting in touch with the deepest part of who we are, which is in the shama. And that's why I think we have an expression. We understand that we can create worlds of speech and we destroy worlds of speech. The question really is how do we engage the real speech that we want to say? How do we discover the soul coming out of ourselves in a way that our words can impact another [music] in a way that we can actually have conversations that are meaningful? How many times have we had conversations we walked away and said nothing really happened and sometimes we've walked away and said wow that was really special. The difference between those two conversations is we've exercised and accessed the nishama through our speech. The question is how do we get there? So our sages tell us exactly how to do it. It says, "I grew up amongst the sages." Says, "I grew up among the sages and what did I find? I found the best thing for my body was actually silence." Imagine someone grows grows up amongst the sages. A place where you could hear wisdom. And what does he say? I learned from the sages. I learned from the how to utilize the power of silence. Then why is silence so important in speech? Because there are two parts of who we are. We have a body and we have a soul. Where do we want? We want our speech to emanate from the soul. But sometimes the body hijacks it. The body gets in the way. However, we could just remain silent for a moment before we open our mouths. What happens is the body silences and actually the soul comes through the mouth. So if we want to have a conversation that's meaningful, we have to learn to exercise that power of silence. We have to learn to pause just for a moment before respond. We have to learn just to go inside ourselves. Not an uncomfortable silence, not a silence where we make the other person feel awkward, but before we say something, can we actually take [music] a moment? If we do, the body is silenced and the soul comes out. In fact, I would say that might be the most practical advice I could give anyone at this seminar, at this retreat. Learn to cultivate the power of a silent moment before you speak. Because if you do so, what happens? The soul comes out and the body is silenced. Real worlds will come out. A real connection will come forth from you. And you'll be surprised to hear how the other person responds to you. You know they tell a story about two great sages rav and andish came to looking for a shik for his daughter and it was going to be withki and the story goes that the andos they sat together for 20 minutes without saying a word. After 20 minutes, Ali Yashov perked up and he turned to the Kaz and he said, "So new [music] what about the boy?" And he said, "Good. Everything's good." The son of Rabim writes the story and he says something so fascinating. He says, "Don't think they weren't speaking to each other. In those 20 minutes of silence, there was a dialogue. If two people are really in tune with the nishamas, in fact, words aren't even necessary. people can hear the other nishama speak and [music] you can sit there for 20 minutes and know exactly what the other person is saying perhaps sometimes we experience that with our wives with our husbands those moments of silence we're hearing the music we're hearing the dialogue we're hearing what's happening I remember one time coming home from a braitz my braitz we made for our son and my wife said to me did you have any good conversations and I said I had one you had very good conversation I said with who you said with whom I said it was with whom she said what did you Hey, I said, we didn't say a word. He knew it was in my heart. I knew it was in his heart. We looked at each other. We stood there. We talked in silence and we hugged and we walked away. That's the kak. That's the power that we have inside of us. But the way to get there, the way to access it is [music] is we have to cultivate silence. I grew up amongst the sages. Silence. And again, I tell girls this when they go out and they want to have a good date. Learn to pause before you say something and what will you'll see? You'll say something and he'll say something back to you and you'll have a magnificent conversation. [music] Even if it's not the right person, you'll have a good conversation. That's the power we have in speech. And we have to utilize and cultivate it and use our words to build worlds to [music] create people. But we have to say the right thing. And the way we will say the right thing is we cultivate the power of the most beautiful quality that we have called silence. >> [applause]