Listening to Silence

We live in a world of noise…

I was in Phoenix in 1996 when the Steelers and the Cowboys played in Super Bowl XXX. There was a craziness in the city that went beyond anything I had ever seen. But there was one moment of complete sanity that just before the opening kickoff. 

Four fighter jets flew over Sun Devil Stadium, with one jet breaking off, leaving the other three in what is called the missing man formation: the "missing man" was the Challenger Shuttle that exploded 10 years to the day earlier, on 1/28/86. Everyone in the stadium – and I am guessing everyone in the city – was absolutely silent as they watched the jets fly overhead: the bands, the cheerleaders, players, the newscasters, the fans. It reminiscent of the few seconds between the shofar call “t’ki-a” and the sounding of the shofar when a silence of significance comes through loud and clear.

A wonderful midrash describes the absolute silence that preceded the revelation of the Ten Commandments at Sinai: “No bird chirped, no fowl fluttered, no ox lowed, the angels did not fly, the sea did not roar, no one spoke.” The universe was silent and mute. It was a moment of holiness and awe. Israel could hear only the first letter of the first word: the silent Aleph.

In the Book of Kings, Elijah takes refuge in a cave. God tells the prophet to come out the cave and stand before the mountain of God. The text tells us there was a great and mighty wind, splitting mountains, but God was not in the wind. Then the ground began to quake, but God was not in the earthquake. A fire then blazed, but God was not in the fire. Then the world fell silent, and Elijah heard only Kol D’mama Daka, which David Wolpe appropriately translates “the thin voice of silence”. The silence was so deep that Elijah could hear the inner voice of conscience.

Silence marks a moment of awareness, a quick flash of awe, a heartbeat of significance. I heard the significant silence when I stood in our driveway the first time I watched a shuttle launch. I felt the density of silent awe the first time I watched rain “fall sideways” in the throes of a Hurricane Charley in 2004. 

According to Jewish Tradition, the most meaningful word in the Torah is Sh’ma, Listen!  Listening with our ears is important; listening with our heart is critically significant when no words are said. 

There is a deep significance in the silence accompanying the wonders of nature, preceding the sound of the Shofar, witnessing the theophany at Sinai, and as we ponder moments in history such as the focus of the missing man formation at Sun Devil Stadium. Silence is a charge to focus, to deepen our awareness, to sharpen our conscience, to raise our vision to the heavens, to take a step towards tomorrow by reaching for the stars today. 

The world today is filled with the chaotic sounds of bluster, banality, and boasting. January 28th is a day to think of the Challenger and the challenge to listen to the silence of awe, imagination, and conscience, and respect.