Parashat Toldot: Failure To Communicate

 It’s a memorable but disturbing scene from one of my favourite films.

Luke, a decorated war hero, has escaped from the brutal penitentiary where he has been incarcerated for two years.  His original crime? Decapitating parking meters during a drunken spree. 

He has tried to escape and has been recaptured.  He is standing on an embankment overlooking his fellow prisoners who are clearing a dust track in the baking sun.  They stop to look at him being fitted with leg irons (to accompany his handcuffed hands).  The sadistic captain who oversees the prison tells Luke that he needs to “get used to wearing them chains after a while, but you never stop listening to them clinking, cos they are going to remind you of what I’ve been saying for your own good.”

Luke responds sarcastically saying, “I wish you’d stop being so good to me, Captain!” at which point the captain replies, “Don’t you ever talk that way to me.” and sharply hits Luke across the collarbone with his truncheon causing him to temporarily lose consciousness and roll down the hill.

The captain then says, “What we’ve got here is failure to communicate.  Some men you just can’t reach, so you get what we had here last week, which is the way he wants it.  Well, he gets it.  I don’t like it any more than you may.”  Luke who is clearly stunned, crawls across the ground on all fours. 

Besides ‘Cool Hand Luke’ being a pretty damning indictment of the American penal system in the 1960s, this scene is also indicative of a particularly brutal way by which a message can be communicated.  The irony of the captain’s comments is not lost on the audience and the scene still retains its power to shock all these years later.  One of the key phrases that I remember from my undergraduate studies was, ‘Communication is the lifeblood of the company.’  I quoted it when I was writing essays on how to improve productivity within the workplace.  Just as we cannot survive without blood flowing through our arteries, so a business cannot hope to be successful unless it addresses blockages in its communication channels.  The price of miscommunication, both in our professional or personal lives is heavy indeed.

This is particularly true when examining this week’s Parasha of Toldot which I am very fond of as it happens to be my Barmitzvah sidra!  Rabbi Sacks ztl whose Yartzheit we commemorated almost two weeks ago, quotes the Netziv (Naftali Zvi Yehudah Berlin d.1883 who was the Dean of the famed Yeshivah of Volozhin) who observed that Isaac and Rebecca, [hereafter Yitzchak and Rivka] did not communicate closely.  In his Commentary to Bereishit 24.25, he writes:

Rivka’s relationship with Yitzchak was not the same as that between Sarah and Avraham or Rachel and Yaakov.  When they had a problem they were not afraid to speak about it.  Not so with Rivka.

The first time we read about a conversation between Yitzchak and Rivka takes place after the giving of the blessings by Yitzchak to his younger son, believing that he was the older one.  Fearing that Eisav will kill Yaakov as a result of the deception, she tells her husband:

Bereshit (27.46)

 “I am disgusted with my life because of the daughters of Chet.  If Yaakov marries a woman of the daughters of Chet, like these, from the daughters of the land, what is life worth to me?”

Yitzchak’s response is not recorded and in the next verse, we learn that he listens to his wife, calls Yaakov, blesses him and tells him that he must not marry a Canaanite woman but go “at once to Padan Aram, to the house of your mother’s father, Bethuel and there marry a daughter of your mother’s brother, Lavan”. 

Rabbi Sacks, following the commentary of the Netziv, says that the relationship between Rivka and Yitzchak was never ‘casual, intimate’.  When they had first met (as we read in last week’s Parasha), ‘Rivka covered herself with a veil out of awe and a sense of inadequacy as if she felt she was unworthy to be his wife and from then on, this trepidation was fixed in her mind’.

This lack of communication between husband and wife resulted in a series of lost opportunities and resultant errors.  The Netziv suggests that, ‘it seems likely that Rivka never informed Yitzchak of the oracle that she had witnessed before the twins, Eisav and Yaakov were born in which Gd told her that ‘the elder will serve the younger’.  This was apparently one reason why she loved Yaakov more than Eisav, knowing that Yaakov was the one chosen by Gd. 

If Yitzchak knew this, why did he favour Eisav? The answer is that he probably didn’t know as Rivka had not told him.

In the words of the captain:, “What we have here is failure to communicate.” (but I am obviously not comparing him with the saintly Rivka.)

The Netziv continues his train of thought referring to how she had to resort to deception in order to ensure that Yaakov would receive the blessing that was due to him.  That Yitzchak had intended to give each son the blessing that was suited to him meant that he intended to give the bracha of the covenant to Yaakov all along...but didn’t communicate this to his wife.  Had they talked, much resulting heartache would have been averted.

I have been considering the importance of communication over the last week. 

Winston Churchill said, “Meeting jaw to jaw is better than war.” (which was famously misquoted by Harold MacMillan as “jaw jaw is better than war war”).

The COP27 Climate Summit in Sharm el-Sheikh has now concluded.  One of the outcomes has been the announcement by ‘Team Europe’ which comprises of the EU and the African Union of an initiative on ‘Climate Change Adaption and Resilience in Africa as part of the ‘EU-Africa Global Gateway Investment Package’.

The European Commission website https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_22_6888  has reported that:

This Team Europe Initiative will bring together existing and new climate change adaptation programmes of over €1 billion and leverage its impact by improved coordination and a reinforced policy dialogue on adaptation between the EU and AU.  This includes €60 million for loss and damage from the overall EU contribution.

It will enhance cooperation with African partners to further respond to their adaptation needs and mitigate disaster risks.

The talks that took place recognised the impending disaster that could befall the continent of Africa due to climate change were we, the wealthier nations, to ignore the warning signs.  For three weeks, they met ‘jaw to jaw’ and hammered out an agreement.  Whether this will lead to a significant change of policy remains to be seen.  At the heart of the matter was the understanding that the delegates who represented their countries had no option but to share their fears and as a result, hope to achieve a better outcome for themselves and their countrymen and women.  They had to communicate because, unless you know what the other person is thinking, you cannot provide any assistance.  It is a salutary lesson for the rest of us.

As Roberta Metsola, the European Parliament President said to some students on a visit to Tel Aviv University in May, “[I am] Impressed by the engagement, the questions and ideas put forward by students.  Always good to listen and discuss the future with young people - where there is dialogue there is hope.”  She continued by stating that she would “advocate for strengthening ties between the EU and Israel throughout her visit and upon her return to Europe.”  https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/328092

Whether or not she stands by her words will become apparent in the future, but the fact that they had the discussion in the first place is promising.

How often do we land ourselves in trouble as a result of miscommunication?

How often do we wish we had handled a situation differently?

How often do we take the opportunity to communicate once again what we really meant and extricate ourselves from a thorny situation?

Whether quoting Hollywood films, former Prime Ministers or Organizational Psychologists, the message is identical.  Communication IS the lifeblood of all relationships.  Failure to communicate, as we see in this week’s Parasha can be disastrous.

Paul J.  Meyer (1928 - 2009), a pioneer in the self-improvement industry said:

"Communication – the human connection – is the key to personal and career success.”

Wise words indeed.

Shavuah Tov.