“I grew up in the ’60s, a time when everyone was finding their way,” reminisces Rabbi Sholom Weingot. “Because I was always very individualistic, even as a yeshiva bachur, I learned to also look at other people as unique individuals and try to understand their needs.”
This statement revealed to me where Rabbi Weingot was coming from. The director of Bnainu, a Baltimore-based organization that provides chinuch (Jewish education) services for children and families, Rabbi Weingot held an intimate meeting this July for a core group of women. He hopes to spread his simple yet revolutionary grassroots movement as widely as possible. Its purpose? To reach deeper levels of communications and promote listening on a higher level.
Missing the Listening Boat
Rabbi Weingot developed his ideas through hands-on experience working with hundreds of families over many years. He discovered that problematic behavior that we see in children or adults is often a reaction to our flawed communication rather than being definitive of the person involved and his or her true personality.
“I also found that we are not tuning in when talking to one another, which is very hurtful and also prevents us from seeing what the person really needs,” notes Rabbi Weingot, who formed a model based on his years of learning and teaching. He presented his talk, “Restoring the Lost Art of Listening,” at the Torah Umesorah Convention five years ago. He has also presented his ideas to 12 rabbanim, among others. “I’ve given this talk on many different fronts, and I hope to spread it more and more. I really feel that if this model were used, it could make for magical turnovers in schools, homes, businesses, and relationships.”
Introducing the group to “the Silent Revolution,” as he dubs his program, Rabbi Weingot opened the meeting with a quote from the Midrash: “If you look at your generation and see a weakness in it, you have to grab onto it and do something about it.” Rabbi Weingot feels compelled to do something about listening, in a very big way.
“I feel we are living in a time when people are not listening; people are not being heard. So I feel that I have to become the extremist,” explains Rabbi Weingot.
The focus of the Silent Revolution is totally on the need of people to be heard; it does not resolve any specific problem. “We all have a long list of basic, universal human needs,” contends Rabbi Weingot. “What distinguishes one person from another is the emphasis: Which need is most important to me? When we discover what a person’s special need is – and address that need in a healthy way – all the other needs are met as well. The negative behavior that was merely a reaction to faulty communication dissipates, and the real person comes through. It is a proven model.”
Rabbi Weingot explains further: “I feel that Hashem has given me a task. He has led me through chinuch and education in many different forms: shuls, schools, community work, camps, etc., so that I can take the accumulation of all that experience to develop a model on what communication is for everyone. Hashem is saying to us, ‘We are losing Yiddishe neshamos, families, marriages, and schools, and we have to tune in and connect again.’ I feel I have to take the tough-love road in spreading this awareness, and Hashem should help us all – because we all need it!”
Cases in Point
Rabbi Weingot, who attended Yeshivas Ner Israel, came to Baltimore in 1978. A veteran mechanech (educator), he was a rebbe in TA’s middle and high schools before becoming a principal in TA high school. He left for Cleveland so he could teach more. He subsequently was the founding Rosh Hayeshiva of a mesivta, beis midrash, and kollel in McKeesport, Pennsylvania, which continued for six years until funding was depleted. In 2001, he was called back to Baltimore to work one-on-one and with groups at schools such as TA, TI, and Bais Yaakov. For the past 18 years, he has been the full-time director of Bnainu.
Mrs. Michelle Amflik, an attendee at the July meeting and longtime hostess of Bnainu workshops, presented personal scenarios to demonstrate how she used Rabbi Weingot’s techniques of listening and validation: allowing someone else’s reality to be stated and shared without being diverted by one’s own agenda.
When Mrs. Amflick called an insurance agency about an important rush request for information, the agent apologetically but emphatically told her that, due to the upcoming holiday weekend and being short-staffed, she couldn’t help her. Instead of demanding that she needed it, Mrs. Amflick gently said, “It sounds like you are having a really hard time because there is no staff around, it’s almost Thanksgiving, and you would rather be home. It must be very frustrating for you!” After feeling heard and validated, the woman said, “Hold on a second…here’s your number!”
In a second scenario, while on a road trip years ago, Mrs. Amflick’s young daughter was throwing a tantrum because she wanted a juice box and there was none in the car. Realizing that there was nothing that could be done about it, she empathized with her daughter, saying, “I really wish we had a juice box for you.” Her daughter calmed down and said, “Okay, give me water.”
Lastly, while talking with a friend who had shared the many frustrating things going on in her life, Mrs. Amflick responded, “It sounds like you are super-overwhelmed; you have so many things going on, and you feel like you are going to break; it’s so heavy.” Her friend replied, “You are such a good listener!”
As Mrs. Amflick noted, “I didn’t do anything for her except listen. I got the fact that she was struggling. By going through the journey of incorporating validation, acknowledgement, and listening into your communication, you acquire the ability to live life more confidently, knowing that there is a plan – a methodology – if you choose to tap into it.”
She adds, “If something happens, and you didn’t respond the way you wished you had, leaving you frustrated, it is so powerful to revisit the scenario – whether it’s an hour, a day, a week, or even months later. You can say, ‘Remember that time we were discussing such-and-such and I was so frustrated? Can we talk about that again?’ Or, ‘I was thinking about what you said, and I’ve had time to process it; I totally didn’t handle it the way I wanted to. Can we sit down for a few minutes?’ That is invaluable.”
Hearing but Not Necessarily Listening
At the end of the evening, Rabbi Weingot divided the group into four pairs. Each partner was given three minutes to talk about one or two individuals who they feel are exceptional listeners and explain why. At the end of the six minutes, Rabbi Weingot asked the group, “When your partner began to share, raise your hand if you didn’t interrupt.”
Only one or two of the women raised their hands. It’s a typical ratio, says Rabbi Weingot, which he has seen when doing the exercise with hundreds of people in the groups he has led over the years. “There is nothing negative about anyone here, chas veshalom,” said Rabbi Weingot, who says that most people feel that they are good listeners. “It is so hard, in any dialogue, to dedicate yourself to the person speaking to a point where you are not thinking about how you are going to respond; where you are not thinking about your trip while she is sharing about her trip; where you are not thinking about something she said that got you thinking. It is very difficult to put all your thoughts aside and dedicate your listening to that person.”
One of the many other things that makes listening hard, mentions Rabbi Weingot, is that when you listen, you have to absorb all the feelings and emotions of the individual, which is so difficult to do. We have this blockade inside us, like a little mechitza (barrier). We listen but hold back a bit, because we need to survive emotionally ourselves. But, although it’s hard, we need to develop the ability to hear both good things and bad.
Rabbi Weingot advises listeners to “show the person who is talking to you that you hear him/her by echoing back what you heard. When we acknowledge someone’s words, we validate and give acknowledgement and chashivus (importance) to another’s life. We build one another’s self-esteem. When you don’t acknowledge another person’s statement, it means that you don’t care about what they said; you just wanted to express your feelings about that topic.”
Rabbi Weingot adds, “What most people are looking for is indicated in this oft-heard comment: ‘I wasn’t looking for an answer; I was just looking for you to show me that you hear me.’ That is what is so depressingly absent from most conversations.
“The problems we are seeing in society, what we are seeing in the Jewish home, what we are seeing in families, in general, is not a product of technology,” concludes Rabbi Weingot. “Technology is a yetzer hara (evil inclination); there is no question about it. But it’s not step one; it’s step two or three. Step one is that there is a gap somewhere in the home – even in the best of homes, even in the healthiest-looking homes. It lies somewhere in the listening, in the communication, in the child feeling that he or she is not being listened to. That is at the core of many difficulties. If we would listen more, we could resolve most of the world’s problems – from children going off the derech to world power struggles. So much of this is caught up in the fact that we are not communicating in the way we really could be.”
For more information about or to join “The Silent Revolution,” call 443-690-4418 or email: sholomweingotbnainu@yahoo.com.
