One of the best pieces of advice I ever received was from a high school girlfriend. Like many hormone-filled teenagers (which is to say, teenagers), I was trying to figure out in my mind how she and I might eventually kiss. And, like many teenagers, I was having an awkward go of it.
I had probably learned too many unrealistic lessons from watching fake romance in the movies. I was waiting for the dramatic scene where we would look at each other, the camera would zoom in and, as we inched closer, the magic would happen as the music swelled in the background.
Needless to say, that’s not generally how it works in real life.
Luckily for me, this young woman a) felt similarly about kissing, but b) had a wiser head on her shoulders. Thus, the advice: “Josh, if you want to know whether someone wants to kiss you, the best way is probably just to ask.” I did, she did, it was nice.
It turns out the lesson isn’t only applicable in romantic contexts. As the famed philosopher Big Bird puts it: “Asking questions is a good way to find things out.” Yet so many times, I find that I, and other people I know, forget it.
Our base condition feels like it’s been exacerbated in recent years by our technologies. Any number of studies have demonstrated an enormous rise in social anxiety disorders in the last 30 years. And anyone who has been around teenagers today (like this guy) is likely to have witnessed a general discomfort with the idea of talking to a stranger to schedule a doctor’s appointment or handle customer service—much less ask if their date would like to kiss.
But if this situation has gotten worse in recent decades, that’s perhaps because it’s building on how we human beings arrive from the factory. Our minds are generally lousy at living in the unknown. They’re hungry to establish a narrative to fill the space. As the science of confirmation bias has shown, we often wind up constructing a story before we’ve done our homework. Our minds, desperate to get a foothold, form an opinion and then push us to understand the facts in a way that fits.
That, in turn, makes us uncomfortable with the idea of even doing the homework—talking to the stranger, making the ask. Many of us are far more comfortable living in our wonderful little mental world of assumptions. And it seems like that’s not a recent phenomenon. (Look no further than another example of teenage love, 16th-century style: Romeo and Juliet, which is based on a chain of false assumptions and un-had conversations.)
It could be that not even Moshe Rabbeinu is beyond this basic challenge of assumptions and communication. Rabbi Simcha Bunim of Peshischa comments on the verse, “And Moses sent to call Dathan and Abiram” (Numbers 16:12), which comes in the midst of their rebellion alongside Korach. He asks, “Why was it that Moses our Teacher did not succeed in establishing peace within the camp of Israel?” He answers: “Because Moses did not trouble himself to personally go to them and persuade them with words of appeasement and reconciliation. Instead, he sat in his tent and sent [messengers] to call them to come to him. Therefore, the path to peace failed.”
According to Rabbi Simcha Bunim, while Korach and his band hold their share of responsibility for the rebellion, Moses failed significantly in this episode. He was unwilling to make himself personally vulnerable and instead hides behind his office and works only through emissaries. Had he personally engaged, the rebbe suggests, peace would have had a greater chance.
Where does Moses’s reluctance come from? My own sense is that it’s rooted in the basic human impulses we’ve described. For whatever reason, Moses, in Reb Simcha Bunim’s reading, closes himself off from a genuine encounter with the unknown. He thus sends the message that he isn’t really open and listening. That, in turn, exacerbates a loss of trust, the result of which is a deadly uprising.
Our spiritual practices are intended to support us in living mindfully in the space of the unknown. We seek to be at home in our own lives such that we can confidently, openly, genuinely engage with the lives of others. As Rabbi Jonathan Sacks puts it, our aim is “being secure in one’s home, yet moved by the beauty of foreign places, knowing that they are someone else’s home, not mine, but still part of the glory of the world that is ours… In the midst of our multiple insecurities, we need that confidence now.”
While Rabbi Sacks wrote those words in the wake of 9/11, they ring just as true a quarter century later. And they were probably true 3,000 years ago too.
For Reflection & Conversation
- In general, how do you feel about asking questions of others? Does the prospect excite you? Scare you? Something else? Why?
- How, if at all, does your spiritual practice support you in engaging with the unknown, especially when it comes to human interactions?