It was the perfect pastime for boys in basements on Shabbos afternoon. The fast-paced flurry of backhands, spins, and slams kept us busy for hours, the way it does for young men with bragging rights on the line. All we needed was two paddles and a ball, and we’d disappear downstairs, only to resurface when it was time for our other favorite recreational activity – the fridge food forage.
I could never have guessed that ping pong would one day be a useful metaphor for conversation in 2024.
The verbal volley that describes much of today’s dialogue, especially among young adults, who seem disproportionately represented in this contest of wit and words, is dizzying. I’m routinely amazed (and overwhelmed) by how fast things move in contemporary speech, as if an invisible stopwatch for responding both starts and stops in less time than it would take to breathe. With one-liners whizzing back and forth at a hair-trigger rate, there’s no time to hesitate and even less time to think – a veritable talking table tennis.
The only problem with this sport of modern quick talk is that the winners ultimately lose – and they know it.
Talking with Steven
I recall working with Steven, a bright young man who always had a zinger at the ready. No matter where my remark was aimed, he batted it back with such speed and dexterity that I found myself scrambling to keep up with the discussion. Nothing I said seemed to provoke real pause or contemplation, and everything somehow landed back in my lap a moment later. Something wasn’t right, I thought. Conversation shouldn’t feel like this.
(I have since learned that the pressure I felt is typical of the social anxiety often experienced by young men, with whom I am more familiar than their female counterparts. Many fear losing their spot in the conversation and being relegated to irrelevance if they don’t come up with something to say fast enough to hold people’s interest. It’s a rough arena, this linguistic crossfire.)
I eventually realized that while Steven’s rhetoric was entertaining, the discourse was more of a jostle than a dialogue. Sure, it was fun exchanging quips, but nothing actually changed as a result of us talking. And that was why he was coming to see me.
Transitional space
Steven had not learned how to enter into what British psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott called transitional space, where two people’s worlds overlap so that they both evolve from the experience. For interactions to progress, said Winnicott, an area must form between individuals in which they affect and are affected by one another through the words and ideas they share. This space occurs when people absorb what they’ve heard and allow it to shape their thinking before responding. As they open their minds to one another, both change as a result.
Steven did not know how to do that. He had grown up in a family where people spoke at each other instead of with each other, and his social environment had been a mirror of the same. As a result, he had become highly adept at banter – quick on the draw, clever, and a master of deflection. But he was also lonely, without close friends, and felt like no one really knew him. He was popular, but as we know, having lots of friends doesn’t necessarily mean that you have any.
Nothing really happened in my work with Steven until I found a way to share these impressions with him. Though I liked him a great deal, it didn’t seem like he had digested anything I had offered. He eventually realized that he didn’t know how to. For him, words had become a form of protection, a safeguard against all the hurtful things that could be (and had been) hurled in his direction. Talking had become a shield against the one thing that had never felt safe – listening. Silence, therefore, was far too risky. For Steven, the idea of not speaking had become unspeakable.
Lag Ba’Omer and speaking with each other
We may not all use words as a form of protection, but many of us fear putting down our verbal armor. Fortunately, the Jewish calendar offers us a day to hone in on coming together, and how our way of speaking may be keeping us apart.
Lag Ba’Omer marks the end of a plague that wiped out Rabbi Akiva’s 24,000 students. Chazal teach us that these young men died because they did not show kavod, respect, to one another (Yevamot 62b). It seems that Hashem doesn’t continue giving life to people who fail to honor it in those around them.
The Midrash specifies (Bereishit Rabbah 61:3) that Rabbi Akiva’s students displayed tzarut ayin, commonly translated as envy. But tzar also means narrow, as in min hameitzar karati Kah, from the narrow straits I called out to G-d (Tehillim 118:5). These young scholars had narrowed their eyes (ayin) so that they could only see a sliver of one another. Their limited perspective did not allow them to take in each other’s viewpoint, because to do that, you must broaden your scope to include the whole person you are talking to. You must be willing to open yourself to the possibility that they may have something to add to your thinking. That they may see something that you were able to see yourself.
When your field of vision is narrow, all you can do is shoot arrows. It’s like being in a medieval castle with tapered windows, where you can fire things out, but nothing ever gets in. And when you make yourself into a fortress so that other people’s ideas don’t penetrate, they feel it.
This was my experience with Steven, who could shoot but not hear – and his shots came fast. With time, Steven learned that it’s safe to drop your bow and come out from behind your fortification. He learned that the goal of communication is not to keep us distant, but to bring us closer together. He learned how to give thought to both his responses and mine, and that hearing didn’t have to hurt. A space slowly began to develop between us, and as it did, so did he.
Hearing each other
Lag BaOmer isn’t only about how respect for each other breaks down but also how to build it back up. We live in a time when real conversation doesn’t happen often enough. People talk, but few are really listening. Much of the conversation we hear is like two simultaneous monologues emitted by people who happen to be facing each other. A dialogue it isn’t.
The Mishna in Avot (3:6) tells us that when people sit together to learn Torah, Hashem’s presence (shechina) is between them. There must be a between – a transitional space – that opens up for Hashem to want to be with us. Otherwise, He leaves us by ourselves at the table – the one we’re sitting at alone even when we’re sitting together.
When we speak to each other, we must be open to the possibility that our views will change due to what we hear. Because it turns out that fast-talk isn’t the essential problem here – Torah learning b’chavrusa often happens at a rapid pace – but rather how much we are willing to be challenged and grow from the experience of talking with one another. To view each other as assets, not threats. To find the strength to concede a point rather than insisting on scoring one.
Ping pong is still a great game, and I challenge any reader to a fierce match. But when we’re finished leaving it all on the table, let’s also leave it on the table. Because when we walk away together, I’d like to meet the person behind the wall, not just the one swatting things away in front of it. The one who’s more interested in letting things in than making sure he doesn’t let them by. The one who has what to teach me, and me him. I hope you’d like the same.