The Torah Of Conversation

By: Yochanan Gordon

“Yafa sichasan shel avdei avos lifnei haMakom miTorasan shel banim.”

The conversation of the servants of the patriarchs is more precious before Hashem than the Torah of their descendants.

With elections dominating the headlines this week, I couldn’t help thinking of a political expression that seems strangely appropriate to the unusually lengthy account of Eliezer’s mission to find a wife for Yitzchak in this week’s parashah: a spiritual filibuster.

A filibuster, in political parlance, is the practice of prolonging debate, often through extended speech, in order to delay or prevent a legislative outcome. The Torah, of course, is not interested in delaying anything, but the sheer length of Eliezer’s account, and particularly its repetition, gives the impression of a conversation that simply refuses to end.

Avraham Avinu sends his trusted servant to find a wife for Yitzchak. Eliezer travels to Aram Naharayim, arrives at a well, davens for Divine assistance, encounters Rivkah, and recognizes in her extraordinary kindness the qualities necessary to become the next matriarch of the Jewish people. He follows her home, where he recounts virtually the entire episode to her family.

The Torah tells us what happened and then allows Eliezer to tell us what happened all over again.

And while the Torah is ordinarily so economical with words that entire bodies of Jewish law are derived from a single letter, here it seems almost determined to keep the conversation going.

Chazal explain this unusual elaboration with the statement, “Yafah sichasan shel avdei avos lifnei hamakom miTorasan shel banim,” that the conversation of the servants of the patriarchs is more precious before Hashem than the Torah of their descendants.

But perhaps there is something more taking place here than the Torah’s desire to preserve the words of a faithful servant.

I was recently reminded of a conversation with a friend who marveled at the rather questionable pedigree through which Moshiach is destined to emerge. The lineage of Dovid HaMelech, and ultimately Moshiach, passes through the relationship between Lot and his daughters, an episode that hardly appears to be the most dignified point of origin for the ultimate redeemer.

I suggested to him that perhaps this is precisely the point.

The light of Moshiach is so extraordinary, so utterly transformative, that its entry into the world requires a form of concealment. If such an overwhelming revelation were to announce itself openly, the forces of opposition would immediately seek to prevent its emergence. By entering through a lineage that appears spiritually compromised, the light of redemption is able to make its way into the world without attracting the resistance that a more obvious revelation might provoke.

There is a familiar Chassidic idea that the highest lights often descend into the lowest places. But perhaps the point is not merely that holiness can emerge from unlikely circumstances. Sometimes those circumstances are precisely what allow the holiness to emerge in the first place.

And I wonder whether something similar is happening in the Torah’s unusually lengthy account of Eliezer’s conversations.

The marriage of Yitzchak and Rivkah was not merely a family milestone. It was the continuation of the covenant established with Avraham and the formation of the next generation of the Jewish people. The spiritual significance of that union was immeasurable, yet the Torah presents it through an extended series of seemingly ordinary conversations about marriage arrangements, family backgrounds, gifts, hospitality, and travel plans.

The conversation continues while something infinitely greater is taking place beneath its surface.

Almost as though the words themselves provide the cover under which an extraordinary Divine light enters the world.

An insight from Reb Levi Yitzchak Schneerson, the father of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, sheds remarkable light on this possibility.

Reb Levik, in his commentary on Maseches Sukkah, explores the spiritual significance of sichah, conversation, and its relationship to the mitzvah of sukkah.

The Mishnah relates that Tavi, the servant of Rabban Gamliel, slept beneath a bed in the sukkah. Rabban Gamliel remarked to the sages that Tavi was a talmid chacham who understood that servants are exempt from sukkah and that someone sleeping beneath a bed does not fulfill the obligation.

The Gemara subsequently characterizes Rabban Gamliel’s remarks as sichah and derives from them the principle that even the casual conversation of a talmid chacham requires study.

Reb Levik explains that the appearance of sichah specifically in connection with sukkah is not incidental.

The sukkah is defined by its schach, which is associated with the discarded remnants of the threshing floor and winepress. The valuable produce has already been removed, and what remains appears insignificant. Yet it is precisely these remnants that become the covering through which the sukkah acquires its unique holiness.

In Chassidus, the sukkah represents an encompassing Divine light, something so elevated that it cannot be contained within the ordinary limitations of human understanding. We can comprehend an idea and make it our own, but there are experiences too great to be reduced to intellectual explanation. We don’t necessarily understand the holiness of the sukkah. We enter it and allow ourselves to be surrounded by it.

And this, Reb Levik explains, is the spiritual character of sichah.

Formal Torah instruction communicates ideas that can be articulated and absorbed. Conversation, precisely because it is not confined to the structures of formal teaching, can become the vehicle for something that transcends those structures.

What appears to be less substantial may actually convey something more profound.

Just as the discarded remnants of the harvest become the source of the sukkah’s encompassing holiness, the seemingly incidental words of a Torah scholar can reveal something that cannot be expressed through ordinary instruction.

Reb Levik finds this relationship reflected in the very words sukkah and sichah, explaining that the sukkah represents the higher Divine attributes extending themselves over the lower ones, much like a mother bird hovering over her young. The young cannot comprehend the greatness of the mother, but they can experience the protection of her wings.

The sukkah is not merely a place in which holiness is explained but an environment in which holiness is experienced. And sichah can accomplish something similar through the seemingly ordinary medium of human speech.

What makes this particularly fascinating is that Reb Levik connects Tavi with Eliezer, the servant of Avraham.

Both were servants of great masters, both possessed an unusual degree of spiritual intelligence, and both revealed profound truths through seemingly ordinary conduct.

Eliezer, whom Chazal describe as drawing from the Torah of Avraham and giving others to drink, was entrusted with finding a wife for Yitzchak. But his mission was more than an exercise in matchmaking. He was sent to extract Rivkah from the home of Besuel and Lavan, an environment characterized by spiritual impurity, which Reb Levik associates with the eight impure creeping creatures enumerated in the Torah.

Rivkah herself, however, remained completely pure despite the environment in which she was raised.

She was surrounded by impurity but was not defined by it.

And Reb Levik connects this to the requirement that schach be made from materials that are not susceptible to ritual impurity.

The marriage of Yitzchak and Rivkah was therefore not merely the union of two individuals but the revelation of a purity that had remained concealed within an environment entirely foreign to it. And the vehicle through which this revelation was accomplished was Eliezer’s sichah.

Tavi’s conduct expressed another dimension of the same idea. Reb Levik explains that the sukkah is associated with the Divine attribute of Binah, which Kabbalah identifies with freedom. A servant, whose status is defined by the absence of personal freedom, is therefore exempt from the mitzvah.

The bed represents a form of Divine restraint or concealment, and by sleeping beneath it Tavi placed a barrier between himself and the schach, demonstrating both his exemption from sukkah and the law that someone sleeping beneath a bed does not fulfill the mitzvah.

What appeared to be an ordinary sleeping arrangement contained an entire world of Torah, which Rabban Gamliel recognized when he described Tavi as a talmid chacham.

There is something particularly poignant about this teaching when we consider that Reb Levik’s son, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, would go on to transmit so much of his Torah through the medium of sichah.

Indeed, the Rebbe’s monumental collection of teachings bears the title Likkutei Sichos, Collected Conversations.

The Rebbe’s sichos were often delivered in a conversational style, moving between seemingly unrelated subjects, raising questions, considering possibilities, and gradually revealing connections that were not apparent at the outset. Beneath that conversational presentation lay extraordinary intellectual precision, but the ideas emerged through the natural progression of speech rather than the rigid structure of a formal discourse.

And perhaps this was not incidental to the Rebbe’s overarching objective of achieving dirah b’tachtonim, transforming the ordinary world into a dwelling place for Hashem.

If the purpose of creation is to reveal G-dliness within the seemingly mundane, what better medium for communicating that message than ordinary conversation?

The Rebbe didn’t merely teach that the mundane could become a dwelling place for the Divine. In a certain sense, the very manner in which he communicated Torah embodied that principle.

Which brings me back to the spiritual filibuster with which we began.

Perhaps the Torah’s extended account of Eliezer’s conversations is not merely an indication of their preciousness, but an illustration of how the deepest Divine revelations enter the world.

The conversation continues, seemingly without urgency, while the light of the union between Yitzchak and Rivkah is being drawn down into the world.

And perhaps this carries a practical message for our own generation.

We have become accustomed to treating shidduchim as the exclusive responsibility of professional shadchanim. Their dedication is invaluable, but the Torah’s extensive treatment of Eliezer’s conversations suggests that the responsibility to help establish Jewish homes belongs to the broader community as well.

A conversation at a Shabbos table, a chance encounter after davening, or a thoughtful suggestion between friends may appear insignificant. But we cannot know which conversation will ultimately lead to the establishment of another Jewish home.

We spend so much of our lives talking about the news, politics, business, sports, and everything else that occupies our attention. Perhaps we ought to devote a little more of that conversational energy to helping people find their bashert.

After all, the Torah didn’t merely tell us that Eliezer found a wife for Yitzchak.

It recorded his conversations at extraordinary length.

“Yafa sichasan shel avdei avos lifnei haMakom miTorasan shel banim.” 

Yochanan Gordon can be reached at [email protected]. Read more of Yochanan’s articles at 5TJT.com.