We have a problem with listening. Mainly that we don’t like to do it. Listening not only validates and gives permanence to the reality of the other, the one being heard, but breaks down the sense of independent reality and solipsistic conception of the self, of the one who is listening. In the very earliest hours in the creation of man, the cosmic need for otherness and listening becomes apparent; G-d himself commenting, “It’s no good that man should be alone, I will make for him an ezer k’negdo” (Bereshit 2:18). Rashi explains this verse saying, “so that they should not say that there are two authorities, Ha-Kadosh Baruch Hu is unique in the upper realms and has no mate, and this one [man] is unique and has no mate.” To clarify further, Rashi comments on “ezer k’negdo,” stating, “If he merits, [she will be] a help; if he does not merit, [she will be] against him, to wage war.” The conclusion seems to be, that either way, man will have to listen to his wife. Why is listening to his wife so important, and why does man find it so difficult to do it, and why when he does listen to her, in eating from the tree, does it seem to bring about his downfall? Moreover, why is this listening so different from the listening that man does with G-d such that G-d himself could not alleviate man from his unsatisfactory condition of being alone?
So to begin, we must understand that there are two types of listening. First of all there is Perfect Listening, which is the full receptivity of the Self to the influx and influence of the Other. Second there is Complex Listening, which is the ability to listen and receive at the moment of giving, influencing or even dominating the other. Perfect Listening is, of course most appropriate for man in his relationship with G-d, and even in this context such openness and full realization of man’s dependence on the Other is exceedingly difficult. Anyone who has brought themselves to this type of direct listening to G-d can attest to the space of nullification experienced by the listener. In this type of Perfect Listening there is no listening at all except through the bitul of the Self to make room for the full and complete reality of the Other. To the degree that a person is not fully given over to the Other and willing for the force of this Other to completely change and re-arrange him, to precisely this degree he will not be able to hear what it is that the Other has to say, much less to understand His implications.
This is the special nature of Perfect Listening, as opposed to the nature of Prefect Seeing. While Perfect Seeing may have profound effects on the seer, and may radically change his understanding and thinking about the Other, for he has indeed seen something of the truth of the Other, these changes are not part and parcel to the act of seeing. Seeing may occur and these deeper levels of change may or may not occur, and - more precisely the issue - Perfect Seeing of the Other is not predicated upon the willingness to change at the deepest levels of soul, as certainly will be the case in Perfect Listening where these changes define what is that we call Perfect Listening.
It was this breakdown between Seeing and Listening that provided the underlying cause for the burning up of the souls of Nadav and Avihu, the sons of Aharon Ha-Kohen. While they saw the truth they were not fully transformed and brought to humility by the act of listening. We see that they were able to see since at Matan Torah we find them gazing upon the Shechinah (Shemot 24:11) and even at the moment of their deaths they apparently saw correctly, deciding that even though the fire on the altar would come from heaven, it needed to be lit by a Kohen (Gur Aryeh). Nevertheless they were wont to brazenness which seems to be the underpinning of their being consumed by G-d. Moreover it says in Sanhedrin (52a): Once Moshe and Aaron were walking along the way and Nadav and Avihu were walking after them and all of Israel after them. Nadav said to Avihu, ‘How long until these two old ones die and I and you lead the generation?’ Ha-Kadosh Baruch Hu said to them, ‘It will be seen who will bury whom.’ Apparently there is a strong relationship between the haughtiness of Nadav and Avihu and their inability to hear Ha-Kadosh Baruch Hu speaking to them, warning them of the very arrogance which would be their undoing! Additionally, the Maharal explains in the first perek of Netiv Ha-Anavah (a section of his work, Netivot Olam) that when a person embodies the trait of humility, he not only comes into devekut with his Creator by means of Yirat HaShem (awe of G-d) he also becomes similar to his Creator by becoming the very attribute which He, as it were, possesses in His very essence. When a person humbles himself, the similarity between the Creator and the created is so intense, that the Shechinah, the Presence of G-d, is drawn down especially upon such a person. To summarize, we understand that Perfect Listening, and the bitul and anavah that it implies and upon which it insists, creates a special relationship with the Other which is not simply one of knowledge or visual apprehension, but rather a transformation of soul which makes the listener more similar to the speaker. This is the deepest kind of listening available to man.
There is another kind of listening which this first kind of listening implies. The second type of listening, Complex Listening, comes from the creation of an ezer k’negdo, as we mentioned earlier. The type of Perfect Listening, which was appropriate in the relationship between man and G-d, is not appropriate here in man’s relationship with his wife. The Complex Listening called for in this type of relationship requires the ability to speak as a function of listening, hence the name Complex. There remains a possibility in the quiet of deep listening and in the core and depth of sincere humility, to begin the very utterances of speech. The vibrations of the inner quiet, rooted in a listening consciousness draws down to itself through the power of similarity with G-d, the impulse and awakening to speech. Nothing compares to speech rooted in the inner sanctum of soul, emerging from the humble connectedness with source, and uncut from the cord of listening which was its birth parent. This child of silence, this emergence of thought and speech, carries with it the receptiveness born of a deep Perfect Listening of soul. The very words envelop a kernel of pristine Prefect Listening. This Listening is Complex as it has become enclothed in speech, which, until now, seemed its opposite.
The delineation of these two types of listening allows for a person to both function in this world, and remain intimately and sophisticatedly attached to his Creator.