Listening or Reading? The Bible’s Take on this Contemporary Question

Why is podcasting growing in popularity? (Perhaps you’re listening to my blog post here in the Times of Israel – like all others “Powered by Trinity Audio,” as it clearly states at the top). And meanwhile, to take the obverse side of the coin, why is time spent reading books and other types of long-form print declining, especially among the younger generation? Perhaps surprisingly, this week’s Torah portion provides an answer.

As with every Jewish conundrum, the way to start solving the mystery is to ask another question: why do Sabbath synagogue attendees listen to the Torah portion being spoken/sung out loud – when it would be far more time efficient for every person to sit and read it by themselves? After all, researchers have found that we can read words about THREE to FOUR times faster than we can hear them.

An answer can be found in this week’s Torah portion: Re’eh:

Deut. 11: 26 – Behold, I set before you this day a blessing and a curse; 27 – The blessing, if ye shall LISTEN (tish’mi’u) to the commandments of the LORD your God, which I command you this day…

Note that the Torah here is using the word “listen.” True, it could also mean “abide by” – but a few verses later we get this:

Deut. 11: 32 – And ye shall OBSERVE (u’shmartem) to do all the statutes and the ordinances which I set before you this day.

In other words (literally!), there would be no need to repeat the commandment of obeying God’s commandments here if the original word (tish’mi’u) meant “obey.” Simply put, God (through Moses) is telling the Israelites that they must HEAR the commandments to be able to fulfill them – and if they don’t HEAR them, then disaster awaits:

Deut. 11: 28 – And the curse, if ye shall NOT LISTEN to the commandments of the Lord your God but turn out of the way which I command you this day, to go after other gods, which ye have not known.

So, the question we have to ask is this: what’s so important about HEARING the commandments? There are two aspects to answering this question – both having to do with the world of communications.

First, the act of hearing is better in a group setting – not just one-on-one. That’s why we also have this following verse:

Deut. 11: 29 – And it shall come to pass, when the Lord thy God shall bring thee into the land where you go to possess it, that thou shall set the blessing upon mount Gerizim, and the curse upon mount Ebal.

Listening to the commandments on a hill is obviously a collective experience. Which leads to the next question: why is it important that we hear the Torah collectively? First, because we then can’t claim “I didn’t know about that commandment” – everyone sees everyone else who’s there together. There’s not only collective hearing, but also collective responsibility. Second, if there’s something that we hear in this setting that isn’t clear to any of us, we can ask someone around us. In other words, we don’t have the excuse “I didn’t understand.” Really? Then simply ask your neighbor!

If the first aspect of “hearing” has a sociological basis, the second is more related to sensory psychology: we remember things better when we HEAR them than when we READ them. Why? I already noted the answer: because we read much, much faster than we hear, our brain cannot easily recall all the written words that we read. The slower speaking/hearing pace enables us to better recollect what was transmitted.

There’s another factor here that influences “recall”: the real human voice vs. the disembodied author we cannot see behind the written page. This brings us full circle back to my original question. Think about our media world today: fewer people are reading – but more and more are listening to podcasts, TED talks, lectures, etc. And increasingly those podcasts are being accompanied by a visual component; even radio stations have started televising their DJs talking their stuff! They understand the human need: when we combine human sound with sight i.e., seeing the person doing the talking – memory becomes even stronger. The greatest memory transmission system, of course, is the in-person lecture (and I’m not saying that because it’s my profession).

Indeed, one can add that this is most probably why the very first word in this week’s Torah portion is… Behold/See (Re’eh)! The best form of deep learning where we need to remember well what was communicated orally is when we can see the person who’s talking to us. And that’s precisely what happens one is sitting in synagogue, and following the weekly Torah portion being read out loud.