Mishlei 16:1 - The Illusion of Communication Control

Click here for a printer-friendly version of this blog post.

Mishlei 16:1 - The Illusion of Communication Control

משלי טז:א

לְאָדָם מַעַרְכֵי לֵב, וּמֵיְיָ מַעֲנֵה לָשׁוֹן:

Mishlei 16:1
To man belong the arrangements of [thoughts in] the heart, but from Hashem comes the tongue’s reply.
The questions on this pasuk are as follows:

(1) What does it mean by "the arrangements of [thoughts in] the heart"? What is included in this category? The description is both strange and vague - especially due to the use of the ambiguous term "heart," which can mean "mind" or "emotions."

(2) What does it mean that "the arrangement [of thoughts in] the heart" belong to man? Thoughts aren't a physical object that can be possessed, nor do they constitute an entity with monetary value that can be owned (ignoring, for the moment, modern intellectual property laws). 

(3) What does Mishlei mean by "from Hashem comes the tongue's reply"? On the surface, this sounds like a denial of free will - that Hashem controls what we say. Obviously this cannot be what the pasuk means. In addition to being intrinsically problematic, it would render all of the speech-related mitzvos in the Torah moot. For example, how can we be held responsible for lashon ha'ra if the statement comes from Hashem? How can we be rewarded for the mitzvah of tefilah if Hashem is making us speak? How can we be held accountable for nedarim (vows) if we're not the ones who caused them to be uttered?

(4) Why does the pasuk say "reply"? Why not something broader, like "the speech of the tongue" or "the words of the mouth"? The pasuk starts off speaking in universals, but "reply" is a very specific type of speech. 

[This is where you may pause to think before reading on.]

It might come as no surprise to you that yesterday's Mishlei methodology post was a lead-in to today's idea. Here is my four-sentence summary of the main idea:

We tend to (or would like to) feel that we are completely in control of our ability to communicate, but in truth, we are not. All we can control is our thoughts and feelings, but when we try to express our thoughts to another person, we often do not succeed in the manner we envisioned. Even when we manage to clearly formulate and express our thoughts, our words can be misheard, misunderstood, and distorted due to factors beyond our control. Thus, the wise man will bear in mind how little control he has over the success of his attempts at communication; he will take the necessary precautions to ensure maximum communicative efficacy, and he will follow up his attempts at communication to make sure he was successful.

This is a great example of yesterday's interpretive principle: "from Hashem comes the tongue's reply" means "the tongue's reply can be influenced by numerous factors that are outside of our control." I don't know whether Shlomo ha'Melech is using this phrase in the general sense described by the Meiri ("all things that come about through nature are ascribed to Him") or in the specific sense described by the Rambam (i.e. the fact that our pasuk makes it sound like Hashem is speaking for us, and "speech" is one of the Rambam's five terms - though in this case, the pasuk doesn't actually say that Hashem is speaking). Either way, I am convinced that this is a valid interpretation of the pasuk.

Although we all must contend with the problem of having our words misconstrued, I suspect that we teachers are keenly aware of this phenomenon to a greater degree than many other professionals, since we continually and deliberately assess our students to check for understanding. I can tell you that in my teaching experience there have been plenty of cases in which I was perfectly clear in what I taught, but a student walked away with exactly the opposite conclusion that I intended. Sometimes this is due to mistakes on my part, and sometimes it is due to factors totally beyond my control. 

For example, we once had a student who didn't tell ANYONE in the school that she had a hearing impairment. How was I to know that my words were being misheard? Then there's the classic case where a student thinks that a certain well-known Hebrew word or phrase - which we expected her to have known since grade school - means something TOTALLY different from what it actually means. How was I to know that the student had an anomalous gap in her elementary school education?

As for the question about "reply," I think that Shlomo ha'Melech used this term because it implies communication. In other words, "reply" points to two parties - the speaker and the listener - whereas a more general term, like "speech" doesn't.