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Words and No Words

It was a week where I overdosed on words. Rarely do I recall being inundated with so many words as in the aftermath of the flotilla crisis. Everybody had an opinion and\na half. How else can we express our emotions — whether they be outrage, exasperation, anger or love — than through words? Even powerful images that “spoke for themselves” came attached with explanations and commentary.
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June 9, 2010

It was a week where I overdosed on words. Rarely do I recall being inundated with so many words as in the aftermath of the flotilla crisis. Everybody had an opinion and
a half. How else can we express our emotions — whether they be outrage, exasperation, anger or love — than through words? Even powerful images that “spoke for themselves” came attached with explanations and commentary.

And yet, in the midst of this raging verbal storm, I had two experiences that showed me the power of no words.

The first was at B’nai David-Judea Congregation, where Eitan Wernick was having his bar mitzvah. Entering the synagogue that day was like a scene out of “The Lion King.” They came from everywhere. I saw people who walked from Westwood, Beverly Hills and Hancock Park, as well as from shuls up and down the Pico strip.

They came because Eitan Wernick is a celebrity.

It’s hard to say why he is so loved, but I have a theory — his explosive smile. It can hit you any time, without notice. On the day of his simcha, that smile was on full display. Eitan, who has Down syndrome, read the haftarah and made the classic bar mitzvah speech thanking everybody. People loved it, of course, but the thing that stayed with me was how so many people had nothing to say.

Friends who are usually garrulous would just look at me and say things like, “No words.” Even Rabbi Kanefsky’s sermon used words to convey the power of no words. He talked about ancient times when disadvantaged people — like the blind — were absolved by our sages from doing the mitzvot; how there is a Talmudic idea that asks us to accept limits, to recognize the boundaries of the possible.

But that’s not where he ended. He ended with the Torah imperative to always try. And what is trying but the putting down of words for something more immediate and tangible? What is effort but a vacuum that’s emptied of words and filled only with action? Perhaps Kanefsky had the parents of Eitan in mind when he spoke; parents who couldn’t waste too much time with words as they mustered the effort to raise a mensch with Down syndrome who can ambush you any time with his smile.

While words do obviously play a part in Eitan’s life, if I had to guess, I would say the look on people’s faces plays an even greater part. On that crowded Shabbat day at B’nai David, when Eitan was mobbed by pretty much everyone after he made his speech, he saw plenty of faces. Not one of those faces failed to register love for Eitan.

Those loving faces have sustained Eitan’s spirit. For many years now, I’ve seen many of those faces at Maimonides Academy, where Eitan is buddies with my boy Noah. They are the images that have nurtured Eitan all through the years and given him the strength to return the favor with his own loving face and explosive smile.

There weren’t too many smiles at Beth Jacob Congregation last Sunday morning, where I had my other encounter with the power of no words. The speaker was Marcus Sheff, executive director of the Israel office of The Israel Project (TIP), an organization that works with the global media to convey Israel’s side of the news.

You would think that if there’s one organization that would show me the power of words, this would be it. But when I asked Sheff to tell me what recent accomplishment he was most proud of, he didn’t mention a pro-Israel story on CNN or BBC or any of the other media outlets that TIP works constantly to influence.

Instead, he mentioned a nonstory. It was the squelching behind the scenes of a nasty rumor in the Palestinian territories that would have done severe damage to Israel’s image had it gone public.

His point was this: Too often, when words of explanation have to enter the picture, the damage has already been done, and it’s virtually impossible to undo. The best thing for Israel is to try to actually reduce the number of stories, and, whenever possible, pre-empt negative stories through context, clarification and the views of experts.

In other words, the fewer words about Israel the better.

This sounds like a pipe dream, with the world seemingly so obsessed with the Jewish state. We can only wish for the day when Israel will need fewer words to explain its actions, whether those are actions of peace or self-defense.

Maybe Israel can be inspired by the spontanteous and happy ways of Eitan, for whom there never seems to be a bad time to crack his explosive smile. It’s true that with the hell Israel is now going through, the last thing on its mind should be to think of smiling. But if we are so desperate to show the world that we want peace, and if peace means happiness, shouldn’t we find a way to maintain that desire for happiness in our public body language?

Sheff, who deals with the world’s media every day, was adamant about one thing: What the media wants to see and hear, above all, is that Israel wants peace.

If only we can find a way to convey that upbeat message without words — just like Eitan Wernick does.

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