I don’t know about you, but for me it’s been a stressful time of late. Not at work so much, but in life. There have been the normal stresses that come with being the “sandwich generation”—parenting kids, caring for aging parents. It’s been oppressively cold in Chicago, which means spending less time outside, and thus feeling more cooped up. And then there’s witnessing what’s happening in my mom’s hometown of Minneapolis, what’s happening in the streets of Iran, what’s happening to big things I—and, I expect you—took for granted, like NATO. So, stress—and understandably so.
It should not surprise you to hear that, despite my regular meditation practice, I’m not perfect. Far from it. While I strive to be a kind, compassionate, and wise person, I have my fair share of short-tempered moments. To be sure, it would be a lot worse without mindfulness. But, human being that I am, I can still get snappy, especially when I’m stressed.
One of the places I’ve noticed that of late has been with our pets. Last summer our cat Trixie (11 years old) had to take liquid antibiotics. The vet gave us a syringe to try to squirt the meds into her mouth. She wasn’t having it. So, while she had eaten dry cat food before, we started giving her wet food, into which we put the antibiotics. That did the trick, but she got hooked on the wet stuff—and she started getting quite vocal about her desires, meowing at us insistently until she got her food. Cats have different types of meows, but frankly none of them are particularly pleasant to my ear. And the behavior has only intensified.
Now, Trixie is just a cat. I could, and probably should, try to “mindfulness” my way to transposing her cries from annoying sounds into something that can evoke my compassion. But I’ve been falling short, and have been kind of pissy with her. (Honestly, I think I’m sharing this with you as a way of making myself accountable to that intention. I’ll let you know how it’s going.)
Similarly with our dog, Phoebe. While I am of hardy midwestern stock, I’m not clueless. When the temperature gets below 20 degrees, I layer up and put on my snow pants to walk the dog. Which makes a dog walk closer to an inpatient procedure than an office visit. Which puts pressure on my time, which causes stress, which comes out in resentment toward the dog. Another opportunity for practice (and again, I’m sharing this in part to keep myself honest).
As Moses angrily tells Pharaoh about the final plague, he includes an intriguing detail: “But not a dog shall snarl its tongue at any of the Israelites, at human or animal—in order that you may know that YHVH makes a distinction between Egypt and Israel” (Exodus 11:9). The Hebrew word translated as ‘snarl’ here is from the root charatz, which means to cut or sharpen, as well as to decide. It would seem the Torah is aiming to evoke the sharp sound of a dog’s bark (like Phoebe’s anytime a siren goes by).
Rabbi Israel Yitzhak Kalish of Warka (1779–1848) offers a wonderful Hasidic reading of the verse. It plays on the word kelev (dog), which can be revocalized as ka-lev, i.e. “like the heart,” and the word for tongue, lashon, which also means language. Thus: “For the children of Israel there will be no charitz, no division, between their hearts and their words—their language will be like their hearts. When we say in the Haggadah, ‘they did not change their language during their centuries in Egypt,’ this is what we mean, and this is why our ancestors were redeemed.”
One reason I love this teaching is that it reminds us of the truth of dogs, cats, and other animals: they don’t lie. Their expressions are genuine. Phoebe’s happiness when I return home from a trip is unadulterated joy. Trixie’s excitement to be fed—even though the sound of her meow hits me like nails on a chalkboard—is pure. No more and no less.
But a deeper message here is the call to learn from our furry friends: to align our words with our hearts, yes, but also to align our hearts with our words. This is not a merely technical matter of choosing our words carefully. It’s about something more inward: softening our hearts, loosening ourselves from the grip of the external stressors, the meitzarim/forces of constriction, that generate those barriers between our hearts, our bodies, our minds and our words. That is the constant, ongoing spiritual practice of leaving Egypt.
Questions for Reflection & Conversation:
- Is there anyone in your life who has been a model of aligning heart and words? Why are they a model for you?
- In your own life, how do you experience the relationship between heart and language? What helps you to align them? What prevents you from doing so?