{Originally posted to The Foundation Stone website}
It was clear to all except the intended recipient that the troubled teenager was sending out an SOS to his father. There seemed to be no limit to what the desperate boy would do to force his father to pay attention to him, but there was no one there to receive the distress signal. The father, famed for his great learning and empathic counsel, was too involved in “more important things! He has to grow up!”
I found the right words to describe the situation in Sebastian Barry’s Hinterland:
Daisy is speaking to her husband of the needs of their son Jack. “A little boy waiting for his father to come home. Do you know what a little boy is, Johnny? I’ll tell you. He’s a tiny contraption of bones and skin, tuned like a radio to give out and receive certain signals. When a little boy is sick, his whole being strains to broadcast a certain signal, he wants a very simple thing, to be cuddled in the arms of his father.”
She continues by reflecting on the power of the absent father to cause damage, “I pity all the little boys of this world. Because, when the signal is not answered, the pain is so great, so oddly great… A true father would feel that call from three thousand miles and travel all day and night to reach his child. Nothing can put that little scenario back together again and time goes on swiftly and then there is nothing but a tangle of broken wires, good for nothing because it can finally neither receive nor send a signal.”
I used Daisy’s metaphor of a radio to work with the teen on visualizing himself as a fully functional powerful radio broadcasting his signals, and the father as a broken receiver. He could see his health and normalcy even in his suffering, and his father’s damaged soul despite his supposed greatness.
In this week’s portion, vaYishlach – “And Jacob sent out angelic messengers,” we learn that Jacob is a master signaler, designing wise messages to Esau, certain that his older brother, despite decades of silence, would receive in full. God, the Ultimate Signaler, signals Jacob with a strange wrestling match that he must be prepared for direct confrontation; no more Jacob the Manipulator, but Israel the Wrestler.
Mixed in with all the signals sent and received, we find a number of signals ignored. The one that strikes me as the most blatant is Dinah’s “Going Out.” (See: Some Juicy Gossip.):
“Now Dinah, the daughter Leah had borne to Jacob, went out to visit the women of the land (Genesis 34:1).” Rashi explains that because Dinah went out – in contradiction to the code of modesty befitting a daughter of Jacob – she is referred to as the daughter of Leah who also, “went out (30:16).” (See Powerless Power). I hear a missed signal, a cry unheard, a message to her mother, whom, she felt, was best equipped to understand and decode.
The Midrash teaches that Jacob hid Dinah in a box so that Esau would not see her and desire her as a wife (B’raishit Rabbah 76:9). Dinah wanted out of her box.
Something was missing from her life. She was not happy. At no point of the story does anyone pay attention to her needs. Yes, she is gaslighted by Shechem, but soon realizes that her love was not interested in her as anything other than a way to satisfy his desires. Dinah’s VaYeitzei was sending out a signal. The signal was for Leah, her mother, the woman who understood the need to go out, but Leah is absent. The signal was missed, the cry, unheard.
We can hear her distress signal across the millennia. She returns home broken-hearted from her dalliance with Shechem, and she wants to go back to him. She was happier with Shechem than she was at home. (See “Master Of Memory V.”) No wonder the Talmud (Bava Batra 15b) connects Dinah with Job.
As we struggle to understand the Divine Signal/Message in the increased terrorist attacks and ballooning anti-Semitism in Europe, perhaps we should begin by asking ourselves if we are paying attention to our students and children who constantly signal us, desperate to be heard. A child acting out in school is not a troublemaker. The child is sending a signal. If we have not mastered listening for the signals of those for whom we are responsible, how can we possibly expect to decode Divine messages?
The questions students ask during a class are signals. The desire to push against the modesty laws is a signal. A problematic child is signaling. Silence is a signal. Our students and children are fully functional radios broadcasting signals. Are we functioning receivers?
I dream of being able to transform myself into the highest-end receiver, paying attention to all the people in my life, listening to God’s signals sent through the Torah and its Mitzvot, hearing the powerful messages embedded in every word of prayer, grasping the messages of love in all the blessings in my life. I dream of a world in which all parents, teachers, and clergy, become functional receivers.
I dream of a world in which all can use the inner calm of Shabbat to hear all the signals sent and respond with clarity and resolve.
Please help these dreams be realized with a generous contribution to The Foundation Stone. Your gift will send a powerful and well-received signal, and it will be treasured.
Wishing you a Shabbat overflowing with signals sent and received,