The Power of Words

February 13, 2009
Rabbi Seymour Rossel

    Jewish mystics speak of the thirty-two paths of wisdom, meaning the 10 numbers from 0 to 9 and the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Mystics thought that creation was laid out according to the ten numbers, but all created things depended on the alphabet as used in God's words. It was clear to them that God's language is Hebrew, so when God speaks a word in Hebrew, the thing which is spoken comes into being. By combining Hebrew letters the mystics taught, we, too, can learn to bring things into being. Therefore, ancient Jewish magicians who used Hebrew letters in Aramaic used to intone the words, avra k'davra, meaning "I will create, even as I speak." In time, they changed the first letter from an aleph to an ayin, and the phrase came to mean, "What was spoken has been done." Of course, you know avra k'davra better as the pronouncement made famous by stage magicians, "Abracadabra."

     I point to the hat and say the ancient words, "Abracadabra" and out pops a bunny or a string of knotted colored handkerchiefs. The trick amuses us, but our ancestors sincerely believed that these words were magical, that all words were magical, especially words spoken in the language of God, the Holy Tongue, Hebrew.

     Above all things, it is our words that shape our reality. What we say not only reflects what we believe, but shapes what we believe. There is a vast difference in saying that the universe revolves around the earth and saying that the earth revolves around the sun. The Catholic church was so concerned with the difference that it once imprisoned Galileo to force him to recant his words and admit that the earth stood still.

     For Jews, important concepts have always been expressed through language. In fact, in Hebrew what we call "the Ten Commandments" are given the name, Aseret Ha-Dibrot, "the Ten Words." And it is no small accident that we live our entire lives according to these ten principles which are entirely words. And words can make all the difference.

     This week we celebrated the two hundredth anniversary of the birth of the great American statesman, Abraham Lincoln. But at the moment of his election, this gawky boy from an Illinois backwater was not universally respected by Americans. Many were disillusioned that a country bumpkin had been chosen to lead at a moment of great national crisis. Lincoln had nothing more than the power of persuasive words to hold the nation together.

     After the South seceded and war was declared, Lincoln was left with only words to hold together a fragile Union. It was now that Lincoln found his greatest strength, the power of his rhetoric, his way with words. While we often think of rhetoric as empty words, the fact is it was not the assassination of Lincoln, but rhetoric, and language in general, that eventually raised him above all other presidents in the history of our nation.

     In his book, The Eloquent President, historian Ronald White argues that, once he became president, Lincoln learned two important lessons about persuading people. The first was to know his audience and speak in terms simple enough for them to understand. The second was to choose words that gave him authority, to bring moral character to his words so that we would trust them the way we trust the words of people in our own family, our friends, and our teachers.

     This was not a simple matter of Abracadabra. In his First Inaugural address, Lincoln spoke about his legal duties under the Constitution, but constitutional authority could not convince the South to remain in the Union. Compare that to the Second Inaugural address, in which Lincoln frankly admitted that slavery was not the South's problem, it was a national shame; and told his listeners that binding up "the nation's wounds" was the work of all citizens, North and South. He shared blame for the past and shared the task of healing that was to come. His language was magical because it created a new reality for his listeners, a reality in which everyone shared both the blame and the work.

     Most of all, Lincoln's words were friendly. He spoke directly, warmly; and consoling, as a father would. No wonder so many came to speak of Lincoln tenderly as "Father Abraham." Your father could remind you that your country was "conceived in liberty" and "that all men are created equal." Your father might remind you that "it is for us, the living ... to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us ... that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

     Too often, in Lincoln's time and ours, politicians just say what a particular audience wants to hear. Lincoln adopted higher ground. The White House door was wide open and people freely came to speak to him. He listened to them all, but not to parrot back what he heard them say. That may have been good strategy for a politician, but not a magical use of language.

     Instead, Lincoln spoke as one who knows the people he is addressing, calling on them to think with him, to consider new points of view, to see things in a new light. If you want people to make great sacrifices, you have to gain their trust. In the same way, we call them the "Ten Commandments" and not the "Ten Suggestions." God begins by getting our trust, reminding us that God created us and brought us out of slavery. Therefore, God has the moral authority to demand things of us.

     Lincoln was no god, and yet Lincoln knew this art of commanding. It is only through language, through rhetoric, through the magic of speech that any one of us can command. Any president who hopes to unite us as one country with one mind, must first convince us and persuade us through the artful use of language. There can be no Abracadabra, no magic, without beautiful and lasting words. This is my tribute to Lincoln, my appreciation for the mind that he spoke and the way that he influenced us. May we see his like again. And let us say: Amen.