By: Nelly Ben Tal
Shlicha
One of the things we do most in life—and don’t love admitting—is talk. We talk a lot. And when I say “talk,” I also mean text, post, comment, voice-note, Slack, WhatsApp, email, DM… welcome to the modern age. We are communicating machines.
And here’s the thing: When you do something that often, you stop paying attention. It’s like driving. You get in the car, you drive, and suddenly—boom—you’re there. And when something becomes routine, abundant, automatic—that’s usually where we mess up. Just like driving a little too fast, or glancing at your phone without even noticing… we do the same thing with our words. A little gossip here. A sharp sentence there. Something “honest” that wasn’t exactly kind. Something smart that landed… badly.
There’s a quote attributed to the Israeli writer S. Y. Agnon: “Every person,” he said, “is given a limited number of words in their lifetime. When you finish your quota – that’s it. Time to leave the world.”
Now, if we actually believed that, I think we’d slow down. We’d choose more carefully. We’d weigh our words. Really weigh them, like at the market. “One kilo of words,” the vendor calls out. And we answer: “That’s expensive. Too sharp. Take a little off.”
Lately, in so many ways, I feel we are all searching for the right sentences. Around antisemitism. Around Israel and Gaza. Around Iran. Around a Super Bowl commercial. Even more around the tensions shaping American life. People are asking: What can I say? What should I say? And when is silence the most human choice?
The Torah portion this week is Parashat Mishpatim. This parashah begins with a simple Hebrew letter – “ו” (word – “and”). “And these are the laws…” Rashi reminds us: Just as the Ten Commandments came from Sinai—so did these. The everyday stuff. The things we do without thinking, but are important nevertheless.
Notice the name. Mishpatim – sentences. Because life isn’t lived at Sinai. Life is lived in traffic, kitchens, comment sections, and in tense conversations with people we love – or disagree with.
The Torah says: Stop. Think. Choose your sentence. Mishpatim says: Pause anyway. Ask yourself: What sentence am I about to put into the world? And on days and weeks like these, I’m searching for sentences that heal. Sentences that don’t show off how right I am. Sentences that don’t win an argument but meet the other person. Because I can say something brilliant. Insightful. Accurate. Perfectly phrased. But if my sentence doesn’t speak to the other person – if it doesn’t leave room for their pain, their humanity – then it may be meaningful, but it has no actual value. A sentence only matters if it lands softly enough to be received.
So my choice, these days, is simple: Either I follow Agnon and say less. Or, if I do speak, I try, with everything I have, to make my words inclusive. Gentler. Human. Because sometimes the most powerful thing we can offer the world is not another opinion—but a sentence that knows when to hold, and when to heal. ❤️
Please email Nelly Ben Tal at nbental@jewishcolorado.org with questions or comments.