The Sound of Silence

Have you heard of Sanford Greenberg?

If you enjoy Simon and Garfunkel’s classic “Sound of Silence,” you’ve indirectly met him.

While attending Columbia University, Art Garfunkel befriended a fellow student named Sanford (Sandy) Greenberg. Then, tragedy struck when Greenberg was watching a baseball game and his vision suddenly became extremely blurry. He was told it was merely conjunctivitis, but he subsequently completely lost his sight. It turned out that glaucoma led to his optic nerve no longer functioning, and Greenberg was declared blind. He became depressed, but his friend Art stuck with him. He offered to walk him to classes and guide him around campus. The folk singer even adopted the moniker “Darkness” as a mark of empathy when he was with his troubled friend Sandy.

Garfunkel realized he needed to teach his friend how to be independent. One day, while at Grand Central Station, he had to urgently return to university for a forgotten assignment. This meant that Greenberg was alone in the crowded chaos of rush hour. Despite calling it the “worst couple of hours” of his life, Greenberg made it back to university where Garfunkel told him that the assignment was a ruse and he had followed him home the whole way, congratulating him on his independence.

Echoes of this episode can be found within the song Paul Simon wrote, which is a guide through troubled times, a mark of empathy in turmoil, and a beacon of hope that you are not alone – in a similar way to Art Garfunkel supporting Sandy Greenberg.

Greenberg had the chance to repay Garfunkel. One day, Greenberg received a call from Garfunkel asking whether he could help fund the $400 that the folk duo needed to record their album. Greenberg had only had $404 in his bank account, but he gave the full amount. The rest is history.

Next Shabbat, we will experience the “Sound of Silence.”

I doubt it will be one of the tunes used for the Rosh Hashanah liturgy, but there will be silence in place of the Shofar.

“If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around, does it make a sound?” “If all the Jews are assembled on the Day of Judgement, and there is no shofar, is it really Rosh Hashanah?” Rosh Hashanah and shofar go better together than chocolate and peanut butter. After all, the Torah’s name for the holiday is “Yom Teruah – Day of Sounding the Shofar!”

How are we to understand the silence of Rosh Hashanah on Shabbat? Maybe we need to appreciate there’s more to Rosh Hashanah than hearing the sound of the shofar. Maybe there really is a powerful sound of silence.

Have you ever heard a song on the radio and realized later that it got stuck in your head? No matter how hard you try, you can’t stop singing it or hearing it even if you’re not singing. The truth is, the more you try to stop thinking about it, the louder the song becomes and the harder it is to get that song unstuck. It’s like you’re hearing music without the presence of any actual sound waves entering your ear. Researchers from Dartmouth University studied this phenomenon. They played different songs, with and without lyrics, to volunteers with snippets cut out of them. They then scanned the brain for activity. What they found was that when familiar songs were played, the brain continued to be active - even during the silences where a piece of the song had been cut out. These volunteers reported that they had mentally heard the entire song, even though the song never entered their ears as sound waves.

Sounds a little like “people hearing without listening…”

When Rosh Hashanah falls on Shabbat, we may feel like the “main event” is missing. It is, however, an opportunity for us to dig a little deeper into our spiritual and emotional selves and listen to the “sound of silence.” We might consider how following Jewish tradition is more important than the inspiration of the shofar. We may miss hearing the shofar, but maybe we don’t need its clarion call to try and be better people. The silence is a chance to consider the many people who suffer with silence or darkness. We can strengthen our empathy.

Next Shabbat, we will not be in the middle of one hundred shofar blasts. We will be listening to the sound of silence, a chance to dig more deeply and quietly into our priorities for what, please God, will be a glorious and fulfilling New Year for us all.