August 9, 2024 / 5 Av 5784
My morning began with gibberish. A video call with Josh, Dani, and Liam was the vehicle. Liam does a lot of cooing and squeaking, and Nomi and I generally respond to him with gibberish, for example, calling him hamudi-budi (which means something like cutie-patootie!). Rhymed repetitive sounds that don’t really mean anything, in other words, gibberish.
Of course, there’s more than one kind of gibberish. Ours with Liam is playful and hopefully endearing. But our world, and especially our public discourse, is filled with a different sort of gibberish – words strung together that perhaps sound good but don’t have any real meaning, or at the very least are difficult or impossible to comprehend. Gibberish of a more serious sort.
In its retelling of the early history of the Israelites, Parashat Devarim describes some of the peoples our ancestors encountered during their journey in the wilderness. This passage for example:
[When] you come near, opposite the Children of Ammon, do not harass them, do not stir yourself up against them, for I will not give any of the land of the Children of Ammon to you as a possession, for to the Children of Lot I have given it as a possession. It, too, is considered the land of the Refa’ites—; Refa’ites were settled in it in former-times, but the Ammonites call them Zamzummites/Barbarians, a people great and many, tall like the Anakites…
[Deuteronomy 2:19-21, Fox translation]
These Zamzummites (zamzummim in Hebrew) apparently spoke a language that our ancestors couldn’t understand. Ancient Greeks called such people barbarioni – incomprehensible (and hence uncivilized) people. Indeed, in Arabic and Syriac (both ancient semitic languages) the root z-m-z-m “refers to noises such as buzzing, rumbling, roaring, and murmuring” (J Tigay).
Note well: I call something gibberish when I can’t comprehend it. And I then label it – foolish, silly, barbaric. I wonder, though, if it isn’t actually the other way around. Perhaps the problem isn’t you the speaker of a ‘foreign’ tongue, but rather me, the unaware hearer. I assign deep significance to my grandson’s cooing and babbling; maybe I should apply similar meaning to other forms and sorts of gibberish as well! This I know for sure: learning to hear and listen to one another with greater openness and compassion would definitely help to make our world a better place.
Wishing you all a peace filled Shabbat!
Rabbi David
