5 Modes of Communication

and the ideal one for your Passover Seder

The Language of Life series is specifically about the Hebrew language, but more generally it’s about words and how human beings share their experiences and ideas with one another.

People have been communicating, in writing at least, for 5,000+ years. You’d think we’d be getting better at it, but once you call out emojis as glorified cave drawings, you might wonder: is our communication regressing?

(Created by yours truly with ChatGPT)

If you have a chance, I recommend that you attempt to be a fly on the wall as a group of teenagers engage in conversation. If you don’t understand much of what they’re saying, it’s likely because they’re communicating in “brain rot,” a heavily degraded form of modern English that’s been put through the spin-cycle of Tiktok and Snapchat for 5 hours a day, for the last 5 years.

(DISCLAIMER: You may need to go for a long walk in the woods afterwards to clear your mind and summon some optimism for the future of civilization.)

(Source: Screenagersmovie.com)

But it’s not just teenagers though. It’s all of us.

Disgruntled adults satisfy their drive towards activism by trolling accounts they disagree with. 20- and 30-somethings (and I’m sure some 40-somethings) “ghost” the people they’re dating by ignoring their texts. Parents “parent” while doomscrolling, and then, after putting the kids to sleep, sit for hours side-by-side on the couch on their phones to “catch up” on missed messages.

We are very likely exposed to more words than anyone ever in the history of humanity, but amidst the noise, it’s hard to make out any meaning.

The 16th century Kabbalist (master of the Jewish mystical tradition) Rabbi Isaac Luria, known as “the Arizal,” explained that the spiritual dimension of a physical exile is the “exile of speech.” People’s bodies can be displaced from their homeland and oppressed through physical torture and political subjugation, but this isn’t the worst part of of exile. The worst part of exile is people losing themselves, where the telltale sign is that their words have become detached from their conscience. They say things they don’t mean, and mean things they can’t muster the courage to say.

It seems clear that our communication with one another today is very much in exile.

There’s a lot to say on this subject. I’ve written about ways to improve our communication here, here, here and here. In this XL post, however, I want us to learn the difference between 5 Hebrew words for “speech.” The goal, aside from learning Hebrew, is to be more mindful in our communication. What are we trying to achieve when we set out to speak to another person?

“The goal, aside from learning Hebrew, is to be more mindful in our communication. What are we trying to achieve when we set out to speak to another person?”

More attuned to how we’re expressing ourselves, we can get into the right mode for the Seder with the goal of reconnecting ourselves to our souls’ true desires and to one another.

In our mini-series on 12 Hebrew words for “Happiness,” we operated under the universally accepted premise in Jewish tradition that there are no synonyms in Hebrew. This itself is based on the premise that Hebrew is a Divinely engineered language in which every word is laser cut by G-d Himself to point precisely to a unique aspect of human life.

Every language has certain areas that are more robust than others. Famously the Inuit of Canada’s Nunavik region have 50+ words for different kinds of snow and ice, and the Sami of Scandinavia and Russia apparently have nearly 1,000 words associated with reindeer. This, of course, makes sense given that they inhabit the snow-saturated parts of the world that they do.

source: tribes.world

Jews live all over the globe, but it seems that our original indigenous habitat is a place saturated with happiness and language. We already saw how Hebrew has 13+ words for different kinds of happiness; today we’ll meet five different kinds of communication. Just like the Inuit have many more shades than we do between slush and ice, we have a full palette for talking about talking that other cultures don’t possess.

This is not an exhaustive list of the Hebrew words for speech, but it’s enough to get our mental gears turning to be more mindful when speaking.

Here they are:

• Amira (אמירה)

• Dibur (דיבור)

• Sicha (שיחה)

• Sipur (סיפור), and lastly, a word most of you will recognize right away,

• Hagaddah (הגדה).

(Source: istockphoto)

1. Dibur (דיבור) - Deliberate Articulation

The most common turn of phrase in the Torah is “Hashem spoke to Moshe saying — וידבר ה׳ אל משה לאמר.” It’s so common that most of us familiar with it have never asked ourselves the question: why is it necessary to say that “Hashem spoke” (וידבר) and then add the seemingly unnecessary “saying” (לאמר)?

It turns out the at Dibur (דיבור) and Amira (אמירה) are two opposites that work in tandem when communicating.

I would tell you to think of a good meeting at work, but since these are exceedingly rare, I’ll ask you to think instead about the exceedingly common bad meeting. For the sake of argument, let’s group bad meetings into two categories:

• A meeting that involves your boss unilaterally delivering information that is very clear but could have been in an email. This would be communication with Dibur only.

• A more “progressive,” egalitarian meeting is one in which there is no opening statement or clear articulation of any principle from the top — only an attempt to “share ideas” through “meaningful conversation”. This would be communication with Amira only.

A good meeting would have both a clear opening (Dibur) and an opportunity to speak the ideas through and express more nuanced feelings and reactions (Amira).

Dibur relates to the actual process of articulation, finding the right words to say, and putting them together to achieve the desired effect on the listener. This form of communication is clear, but relatively harsh in its clarity. As we’ve mentioned, this is the reason why the “10 Commandments,” carved into stone, establishing the core principles of a just and truthful society, were called the 10 Dibrot (דברות). Dibur is a great starting point, but needs to follow through with softer Amira.

2. Amira (אמירה) - Communicating Meaning

Amira (אמירה) is the self-expression that runs through the channels carved out by Dibur. Since Amira is about the inner meaning of speech, as opposed to the speech itself, its connotation is softer.¹

Meaning was embedded in the universe with G-d speaking through Amira. The 10 original statements of Creation were through Amira: “G-d said (ויאמר), ‘Let there be light’,“ and G-d said (ויאמר) ‘let there be an atmosphere’” etc. But most people missed the memo until Avraham started speaking about it, and it wasn’t until the 10 “Dibrot” (Commandments) that their meaning and implications became clear for people.

We can now understand the phrasing of “Hashem spoke to Moshe saying —וידבר ה׳ אל משה לאמר.” Hashem’s would began communicating with Moshe by articulating the boundaries clearly (Dibur), and then entering into their implications and all the details (Amira).²

3. Sicha (שיחה) - Free-flowing Conversation

One of the fascinating features of Hebrew, which we haven’t explored yet is how we can track a word as it iterates and evolves through the Torah. This particular word for speech, Sicha (שיחה) actually appears as early as the second chapter of the Torah, referring to plants that grow without cultivation:

Bereishit 2:5

…וְכֹל  שִׂיחַ הַשָּׂדֶה טֶרֶם יִהְיֶה בָאָרֶץ

“And all the plants (‘Siach’) of the field had not yet appeared on the earth…”

The word then appears again when Isaac goes out to the field to pray in a stream-of-consciousness form of meditation popularized by Rebbi Nachman of Breslov as “Hitbodedut” (which you can read more about here). As opposed to the more controlled and deliberate for of prayer we are more familiar with, which is referred to as “Tefila,” this free-form of prayer, “Sicha” is like plant life that grows on its own. One works to tap into the authentic prayer that “pours out” of one’s lips, as it says it Tehillim:

Psalms 102:1

תְּפִלָּה לְעָנִי כִי־יַעֲטֹף וְלִפְנֵי ה׳ יִשְׁפֹּךְ שִׂיחוֹ

The prayer of a poor person when he becomes weakest, and pours out his conversation before Hashem…

This is the type of free-flowing conversation that one loses oneself in, and is the glue of connection between close friends and lovers.

4. Sipur (סיפור) - Carefully Ordered Storytelling

As we saw in Sicha, Sipur is closely related to other words that point to its meaning. The word Mispar (מספר) means “number,” and Lispor (לספור) is the verb “to count.”

What’s the connection between counting and storytelling?

Storytelling is the ancient art of delivering a meaningful narrative in the right sequence, which is why a “story” is a Sipur (סיפור), and a “book” is a Sefer (ספר).³

Stories are powerful. They unleash an energy that is hidden in facts. History is boring to most people precisely because they’ve rarely heard it told as a story. They’ve just heard lists of sterile facts. A good storyteller reveals the Divine light of characters as they overcome challenges that bring out their strengths and willpower.⁴ It is for this reason that the deepest plotlines that run through our lives, human history and the universe itself are called the Sefirot (ספירות).

5. Haggadah (הגדה) - Eliciting Engagement

Finally, we’ve arrived at the word of the hour, Haggadah. And we must ask, “what makes this word for speech different from all other words?”

The Torah mentions four sons whom a parent has to educate about the meaning of leaving Egypt. Three of them ask questions; one of them does not. The one who either isn’t curious or doesn’t know who to formulate a question is called by the author of the Haggadah: “The One Who Doesn’t Know How to Ask — שאינו יודע לשאול.“

How does one engage a kid who apparently doesn’t have any questions?

The Torah tells us to do the following:

Shemot 13:8

וְהִגַּדְתָּ לְבִנְךָ בַּיּוֹם הַהוּא לֵאמֹר בַּעֲבוּר זֶה עָשָׂה ה׳ לִי בְּצֵאתִי מִמִּצְרָיִם

“Tell (‘Higgad’ta’) your son on that day [Pesach night], ‘because of [these mitzvot] Hashem acted on my behalf when I went out of Egypt.’”

Haggadah is the way of communicating that elicits a response from the listener who would otherwise be disengaged.

How does one do this?

Well, the same verse that used the word tell us what to do:

• Shock them

• Make it about the here and now

• Demand a response

The reason people might find the Seder boring is because they think we do the Seder because of something that happened in the past — and the ancient past at that. The Torah instructs us to tell the disengaged child the exact opposite: the reason G-d took us out of Egypt was in order that we do the Seder.

Uh….what?? That makes no sense.

Now that you’ve gotten a rise out of the listener, you have what to work with.

All of Jewish history is riding on the present moment. G-d wouldn’t have taken us out of Egypt for us to not care today. He took us out with miracles in the past so that we can live a meaningful present. This “Aha moment” is the critical beginning of a conversation.

The foundation of education is engagement. If we cannot awaken interest and curiosity, our pool of interested students will be dismally small. The saying in education goes that “Bad teachers teach their subject; great teachers teach their students.” This is what Haggadah is about.

Let’s practice mindful communication this Pesach. Let’s make our Seder about engagement not through tons of information, but through eliciting curiosity and conversation. If we succeed to connect with those at our Seder tables, the conversation will continue well beyond this Pesach.

Chag Sameach.

1. When Hashem tells Avraham to get circumcised at 99 years old, He communicates with him softly and compassionately with Amira, not the harsher, more instructive Dibur.

2. It is for this reason that Dibur is associated with the black-on-white “Written Torah,” whereas Amira is the world of nuance and meaning in “Oral Torah.”

3. Note that there is no etymological connection in English between “number,” “count,” “story” or “book” since presumably the words were synthesized haphazardly from different dialects and imported languages over time. The only etymological connection that is preserved in English is to “recount a story.”

4. Watch Harvard Professor Marshall Ganz’s lecture series on sharing powerful stories, which he used to train President Obama and his original campaign team.