Is anybody listening?
at Touro Synagogue
January 26, 2019
Edited by Beth Ginsburg Levine
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We have a natural tendency to tune out. It helps us move on, but might make us less likely to listen to other people’s problems. And if we don’t listen, we don’t do. On Shabbat, Rabbi Marc Mandel of Touro Synagogue, Newport, spoke about listening.
“This week, many people heard about the National Grid crisis in Newport, and this reminded me about the Parsha. In this week's parsha, Yitro, Moshe’s father in law, joined the Jewish people when he heard about the miracles that happened to the Jewish people.
“What exactly did Yitro hear that made him leave his home and join the Jewish nation? Was it the exodus from Egypt? Was it the 10 plagues? Or the splitting of the Red Sea? Or the manna from heaven? When Yitro heard one of these things, he was inspired to join the Jewish people.
“What do we hear in our lives? We hear so many things in our lives, on our computers, our phones, our TV's, but what do we really listen to?
“I heard on the news this week that the current crisis with National Grid is the longest since Hurricane Sandy. I was thinking to myself, I don't remember being displaced by Hurricane Sandy like I was this week? The reason is, during Hurricane Sandy, my home still had oil heat, so I wasn't displaced. But I never paid attention to that crisis because it didn't affect me.
“Do we only hear things that affect us? Are we able to hear things that don't affect us? Let us learn from Yitro to hear about the lives of other people, and how we might help them. Shabbat Shalom”
During the parsha we learned that Gershom, son of Moshe and Tziporah, got his name because he was “a stranger in a strange land (גֵּ֣ר הָיִ֔יתִי בְּאֶ֖רֶץ נָכְרִיָּֽה).” ‘Ger’ means stranger, ‘shom’ means there. Tziporah means bird.
When Yitro brought his daughter and two sons to join their father, he heard how Moshe was running the ‘Children of Israel Show’. Yitro realized that Moshe was burning the candle at both ends, and advised him to share the responsibility. Moshe did so.
Stranger in a Strange Land is the title of a science fiction novel by Robert Heinlein, first published in 1961. Like much science fiction, it was a critique of current mores. When Heinlein was bed-bound with a bad back, he conceived of a waterbed, which he described in Stranger. It was actually an old idea…
Charles P. Hall came up with the key innovation that made the modern waterbed possible. In 1968, he was an industrial design student at San Francisco State University working on his graduate thesis, designing a comfortable piece of furniture. He consulted physicians so he could understand what made something comfortable.
After discarding a chair with a Jello-filled cushion, he started working on a bed. Hall had a eureka moment. He placed the water in a vinyl bladder, with a heater to control the water temperature. The heater solved a problem; water is a good conductor, and pulls heat out of the body.
When Hall couldn’t find a manufacturer he made the waterbeds himself. “We had a little shop in Sausalito, and we would deliver them on top of a Rambler station wagon,” he recalled. You know the song, "I lost my heart in Sausalito."
Hall considered the beds high quality furniture that solved a problem, but the beds attracted attention because customers thought the rolling motion enhanced sex. The sales pitch ran, “Two things are better on a waterbed, and one of them is sleeping.”
Hugh Hefner was an early purchaser. The waterbed was featured in a Playboy magazine article entitled “Bedsprings Eternal” about beds in May, 1970. Hall is still peddling the beds, at $2000 each. In Playboy fashion, the article was on topic, but the pictures were about the women who were posing on the beds.
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| Hall is smiling because his invations have made him a millionaire. photo: Seattle Times |
Hall holds 40 patents, including one on the Sun Shower, an insulated solar heating bag used by campers to take a shower
Being in Egypt, I am a stranger in a strange land. I have listened to several guides. Often the guides are called Egyptologists. To me, that means an academic professional. But in the guide business, it is not clear what it means.
As I walk through the streets I listen as shop owners, taxi drivers, felucca captains, and caleche drivers look for business, often insistently.
Several people have unburdened their political opinions. Is it because they feel safer speaking to a foreigner? I nod and avoid reciprocating. When someone says, “Come in for tea,” are they looking for money? When someone says, “Take my picture,” will they ask for baksheesh (a tip)? When they say, ”America is good,” I think, “Are we? How do they know?”
When I went for a walk the other day, I reached the Colossi of Memnon. These 3200 year old sixty foot high sculptures are from the mortuary temple of Pharaoh Amenhotep III, which was destroyed by an earthquake around 1200 BCE, shortly after it was built. The name refers to Memnon, a Trojan War hero, who was slain by Achilles.
The Colossi were a tourist attraction two thousand years ago because one of the statues whistled from 27 BCE-196 CE after an earthquake resulted in a crack. Several Roman emperors visited. Roman Emperor Septimius Severus may have repaired the crack in 199. Severus didn’t hear the whistle. Ninety reports by ancient visitors are inscribed on the statue, noting whether they heard the whistle.
Among the modern visitors was Peer Gynt from Norway, described in act IV of Peer Gynt, a play in verse by Henrik Ibsen. Ibsen asked Edvard Grieg to write incidental music. A reviewer didn’t like the poem. It was the last play that Ibsen wrote in verse. In 1968, with classmates from Rogers High School, I saw Providence’s Trinity Repertory Company’s production of Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People. I’ve been dazzled by the theater ever since. I learned that the majority is not always right, and have been slightly rebellious as a result. At the time, Trinity Rep and I were both young.
As I admired the sculptures from every possible angle, I met a Frenchman. When a motorcade approached, he informed me that the French consul had told him that former French President Valery Giscard D'estaing was visiting. I hurriedly waved and sang La Marseillaise. D'estaing waved back! He may not have heard me, but I know he was listening.
Shabbat Shalom from Jewish Newport! @trinityrep
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